Nighttime Photography

This is the first time I've ever created a Blog, so you will experience it as I do as I learn the in's and out's of the process and what is has to offer.

The first topic I thought I would Blog about is nighttime photography, and in this example, was taken at Lake Eola located in Orlando, FL.  Night time photography is one of the most challenging aspects of photography as you need to learn the balances between aperture, shutter speed and ISO.  All three of these factors make up every single photo you take, regardless of the lighting conditions or the time of day.  But when shooting at night, managing all three of these factors to the best that your skill level and camera allows will give you the best possible photo.  Another absolute must is a tripod.  You can forget about taking an eight-second long photograph hand-held. Some would argue that you could brace the camera against something for that duration, but I for one would definitely opt for a tripod.  It cannot be matched in sturdiness.  The shot below was taken using an ISO of 100 as you do not need to raise the ISO in order to gain a faster shutter speed as it will be a long exposure regardless.  If you are looking to have less motion in the photo, obviously you would want to raise the ISO to gain that sensitivity.  Also, keeping the ISO low will result in less noise in your photograph.  The shutter speed was set at 8 seconds to allow a proper exposure and also to capture movement in the water and cars driving down the street.  An aperture of 5 was used to keep most of the scene in focus.

Lake Eola, Orlando Florida                       © Rob Clements 2012

The white balance was set to an extremely low Kelvin temperature setting to create the cool feel to the sky and the surrounding parts of the photo.  White balance will play an integral role in the overall feel of your photo.  In my opinion, a cool Kelvin temperature will give you a clean, stylish tone to your image and a warmer Kelvin temperature will produce a more urban, sodium light-type image.  As always, if you wish, you can shoot a grey card to set a custom White Balance on your camera or to use in Post-Processing later on, that is perfect too.  Personally, I like to see while on location how changing the White Balance changes the look and feel of the image while I'm still there shooting.  

Since you will be shooting using a longer shutter speed, any vibrations or bumps to the camera or the tripod itself will reduce the sharpness of your photo.  During an 8 second exposure, a lot can go wrong if you do not take the right precautions. A simple one that I would recommend is to use a remote release cable for the shutter.  This will take your hands off of the camera and tripod and allow the mirrors to open, the photo to expose and the mirrors to close without any potential bumps from your hand on the shutter release.  Also, if your camera has a mirror lockup / exposure delay mode, this would also be beneficial to you.  This allows the mirrors to open, and the photo doesn't begin exposing until 1 second after they open to prevent "mirror slap" from potentially blurring your image.  Any thing that you can do to prevent vibrations, bumps no matter how big or small, will help you in successfully photographing a sharp image.

For more of my photography, please visit:
500px
DeviantArt