On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 12:15:41PM +0200, Naomi van der Lippe wrote:
> Hi Bob
>
> The last photographs I did in the dark (of which one succeeded) I used your
> everyday Kodak gold and it was 200 ASA. I have heard the higher the speed
> of the film, the better your chances of taking successful photo's. (Any
> suggestions are welcome).
I'm not Bob but I'll answer anyway.
For indoor shots without flash, photos of musicians performing in a dimly
lit venue, street scenes etc. higher speed film is recommended, It allows
one to still hand-hold the camera in situations where one otherwise could
not, allowing for more nimble "action" photography.
For Gauteng Province nighttime street photography, I recommend carrying a
tripod or monopod with a heavy cast-iron head, for fending off muggers.
Higher speed film is recommended in the dark, even when using flash. Esp.
smaller flashed can not illuminate every part of the scene. On a slow
film, the background and nooks and crannies might render black, whereas
with a faster film the ambient light on the surroundings might be
sufficient to also render them visible even if they weren't flash-lit.
Personally, though, I detest the reflixive, habitual usage of flash just
because it is supposedly "dark". Night-time scenery has a light quality
all of its own that is different from sunlit scenes and which creates a
mood all of its own. Using flash (esp. full-frontal camera-mounted flash)
destroys the special nighttime ambiance, and replaces it with a
deer-caught-in-the-headlights miner's-headlamp-lit quality that can make
the most special night-time occasion seem to have occured in some
windowless living room at noon.
Another crucial tool for night-time photography is fast lenses. I started
out using older manual lenses, and to my mind a maximum aperture of f/2.0
is "OK", f/1.4 is "fast" and f/2.8 and slower is "getting a bit of dog,
because it is a zoom lens". But looking at consumer zooms, a maximum
aperture of f/5.6 seems more like the average.
Your depth of field will be shallow at a wider-open aperture, but this
also fits in with the "mood" of how we percieve night-time scenes: at
night, the world consists of lots of seperately lit islands, we do not
perceive both the people close to us and the scenery far away in focus at
night, either.
My personal "thing" at the moment is available light shots of dancers on
the dance floor at nightclubs. These places are often very dark, the
ambient light is not sufficient even at f/1.4 @ 3200 ISO. On the other
hand, they have strobe lights going off about every 1/4 second, which one
can think of as camera flashlights mounted all over the ceiling that you
can't control. So a lot of my recent photopgraphy is done at 3200 ISO at
f/1.4 and 1/4 or 1/3 second, handheld (the strobe light freeze the
motion). I get a lot of flops this way, were the strobe light did not go
off during the exposure and the photo is way too dark, or where the strobe
light went off twice at people half four arms and legs each, or where, due
to the long exposure, stationary ambient lights like red LED's on a DJ's
mixing console totally burn and overexpose.
But the point is, even with the flops, that the photos preserve more of
the mood and the natural (ahem) light of that scene than everybody else
with theire big honking flashbulbs that transform any nightclub to look
like somebody's cocktail party in Joe's apartment.
More relevant for *you*, nighttime photography might take you into a range
of film speeds, or apertures, or shutter lenghts, that feel weird to you.
Get used to it.
> I am thinking of taking photo's of the moon (I purchased a 500 mm lens),
> subjects in front of the moon with parts of the moon shining through (bare
> tree branches, etc);
This changes things. The moon itself is a sun-lit object, and apparently
the same f/16 sunny rules of thumb for daytime exposures work well when
shooting the moon itself.
That means, thought, that there is a high contrast between the moon and
the bare tree branches you are speaking of. Either you will get the
texture and craters on the moon in your photo, and the branches black
silhouettes; or the moon will be an overexposed white disk with detail in
the tree.
> moving vehicle lights;
Depends on how much you want the vehicle lights to streak. Do you want a
single car's taillights to streak a short red streak all starting and
ending in the same photo, or do you want the entire road to be traced in a
filligree of red and white lines?
In either case, just set your aperture and shutter so that the
lamp-lit surroundings are darker than the midtones (say 1 stop
underexposed). Now look at your shutterspeed. Say it is 1s. How far will
the average car in your scene move in one second?Enough? Too much? Make
your aperture 1 stop smaller and your shutterspeed twice as long (or the
opposite), until your shutterspeed feels right.
Oh, and don't be afraid to bracket extensively, esp. if this is your first
time.
> the stars when in the desert (we are going to Namibia) with a very long exposure;
The problem with stars is, even though you can have as long an exposure as
you want with a tripod, stars move in the meantime (well, actually the
earth does).
That means either an expensive self-guiding telescope that moves along
with the earth, or a faster shutter speed. Faster shutter speed means
you'll need a faster film.
I would guess that you'd need a 1600 colour film, most likely pushed one
stop to 3200.
The advantage with stars (and the moon) is that they are, for optical
purposes, all infinitely far away. There is nothing "closer" and "further"
away, so you can get by with a shaller depth of field, which means a wide
open aperture, which means more light.
Note that most lenses are not quite as sharp wide open as they are
half-shut. But if I had to choose between shooting stars at half aperture
and having them come out streaky, versus shooting them full aperture at
less than the lens' optimal performance but looking like pinpricks, I'd
choose the latter, unless I *wanted* the streaks.
> full moon reflection on water, etc.
And this reminds me of the most valuable suggestion I can give you that
will apply to all your other nighttime photos:
Learn to do spot metering.
Night scenes have high contrast: lots of dark regions right next to
(comparatively) very bright readings. These kind of situations are
difficult to meter center-weighted, and often fool matrix metering.
Instead, you set your camera to spot meter (if it can). You point the spot
at *only* the moon's reflection in the water. Then you ask yourself: how
do you want this part to look in the final picture? Is it supposed to be
brighter than everything else in the picture? Well, then you should
overexpose that part. Let the moon be 1 or 1.5 stops over. Next meter
something else, like a pond lily leaf next to the moon's reflection. How
do you want that to look in the final picture? Totally black? No, you
still want to be able to see the leaf in the photo. That means the leaf
can't be more than, say, 1.5 stops underexposed.
Ok, so you meter the flat water without rippled reflections at 4 stops
underexposed, which means it will be pitch black in the photo, the leaf at
1 stop under, which means it will be darker but still have detail, and the
moon at 1.5 stop over, which means it will be bright but still have
detail. Does this accord with how you want the photo to look? If so good.
If not? Suppose the moon is 4 stops overexposed, which means it will just
be a flat white disk in the water. Well, then you have to choose. Is this
photo about the moon, or about the lily leaf next to its reflection.
Either overexpose the one or underexpose the other. Or take multiple
photos, with an exposure that's right for the moon, another that's right
for the leaf, and another inbetween.
Not that my numbers of 1.5 stop over means totally white and 1.5 stop
under means totally black are actually thumbsucks and conservative
estimates. Negative colour film actually has a wider range, but precisely
how wide and what the effects are is something you have to learn with
experience.
--
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/ i e t e r / |/ a g e l
