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  • some thoughts with examples of shooting night pix under various lighting conditions

    following are some images taken over the years that for whatever reason were taken in changing light,

    this was as shot at mrs macquaries chair, many years ago. sails are hot a bit but this is after blue hour.
    what you notice is dark skies and maybe lack of light on water, cooling WB may help, but this is for example.

    an image taken from similar spot but during blue hour.
    interestingly enough, I had some asian tourists to camera left taking pix with this stuff in the background,
    their flashes caught the tree on the left which may or may not help, depending on your point of view.

    notice this time that there is more light in the sky and probably more reflections off the water due to more overall light around.
    left blown or hot stuff as shot again.

    this next one is during the end of golden hour.
    facing away from the setting sun.
    buildings are still getting the last light from the sun and there is still light around, but not overpowering.


    now we have the sun gone, but some afterglow in the sky giving a nice orange, there is still enough light to see stuff,
    but lights are starting to get some sting to them.

    maybe you could mess around with some flash or light painting if you wanted foreground details, or even use a tripod and take an earlier shot and blend it.

    some light painting examples now
    this shot of the shipwreck was shot the same night as the golden hour pic above but later.
    at this stage, we are into blue hour and maybe a hint of light on the buldings in the background,
    but the sky is that lovely blue purple you get, but the sun long gone from the shipwreck, so you need to light it up a bit.
    if you use a long exposure to get the shipwreck, then you blow out the lovely colours in the background,
    so what to do? a flash might do it but you may need to use a flash extender or maybe even it not enough reach
    but cos it is night time, you are carrying a torch so you use that. I applied a sweep of light on the wreck to light it up
    I could have done some on the mangroves too but didnt.
    how much light you need is gonna be determined by how dark it is, how much iso you got etc.
    no particular method to knowing other than experience or trial and error. mind you the prime light not there for long
    so you can take a pic or two and correct based on what you see. I think less light in the lightpainting is better than over doing it.


    another lightpaint example with closer foreground stuff.
    again we know how much exposure for the night sky
    but it is very dark up there, so a sweep of the torch lit up the foreground to expose the car.
    with light painting, I prefer to swing the torch so you get even light across the area, may depend on beam produced by torch of course.



    sometimes you want dark images, moody etc. I just offering up some examples of light and what you might expect shooting in different light.





    Stephen Davey. Nikon Shooter

  • #2
    Excellent thread Stephen. Many thanks for your time and giving up your expertise on this subject, which admittedly, I have not done for many years. I'm sure members will appreciate your ideas which are great and well supported with fabulous shots. Now this is what our forum is about.
    I Shoot A Canon

    Web: isacimages.com / My Gear / Flickr Photostream
    "I thought getting OLD would take much longer"

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    • #3
      just been thinking on why you might not want your pix well lit and where you may look to go for less light.
      the following pic was shot in a creepy old graveyard at a church. had those orange lights that old churches seem to have
      and some light was falling on these old headstones.
      so in this case I felt that you needed to be able to see them but not too much to keep it creepy.
      the first image is as shot. I quite often use manual white balance at night around 2600k
      Click image for larger version

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      so that pic was the basis for what didnt feel creepy enough.
      at the time I put a nic filter on it called dark contrast
      to get something like this:
      Click image for larger version

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      I think the point is that sometimes light is your friend, and sometimes it aint.
      the nic dark contrast is fairly close to what I had in mind when I saw it. was thinking sepia like.
      to me is again a case of less is more with the light. you shoot this in daytime and it is likely nothing,
      right now you looking around for vampires or something

      perhaps this thread would be of use for those unfamiliar with night work or who want to give it a run.
      pictures posted as an example of how and why a shot was executed.
      so if you have some concept to show, post the how and whys
      Stephen Davey. Nikon Shooter

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      • #4
        Some great examples of the use of light, given me something to think about for my next night time outing. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experiences.
        C+C,EDITS OK
        I shoot a Canon 90D with a few bits of glass.

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        • #5
          Thank you for this interesting thread, as ISAC said this is what our forum is about.

          Regards
          Keith

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          • Isac
            Isac commented
            Editing a comment
            Thanks for that Keith - appreciated. We do need more CC and participation that's for sure.

        • #6
          G'day all

          Yes @Stephen - a damn-fine thread with good information for others along with some real-beaut pics !

          as an add-on to the above -- when I go out for similar fun, I take with me 2x $1,50 plastic drinking glasses, one red, one green, to put over the torch and throw red or green light onto the area in front of me. The camera responds to the red very nicely, the green 'moderately' and I gave up long ago using the blue one

          Phil
          __________________
          > Motorhome travels outback eastern Australia much of each year
          > recent images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozzie_traveller/sets/

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