RE: Evening / night photography
Re the stars photo - I would love to be able to recreate photo's where the shutter stays open for a period of time with the starts creating almost a circle effect. Thanks a lot Naomi I dabble in this once in while in the spring and or fall in my backyard. Civilization has not quite creeped up on me,YET. I use a K 1000 and my 35-80 zoom set about 35 to 40mm at wide open.I like to find the north star and offset it to upper right.I found 1 hour on bulb setting gives a stationary centre and ever increasing circles. I found anything under 1 hour does not close the circles very well. However YMMV. Good luck Dave
RE: Evening / night photography
At 07:32 AM 4/01/2004 +, you wrote: Re the stars photo - I would love to be able to recreate photo's where the shutter stays open for a period of time with the starts creating almost a circle effect. 1. you need a tripod (or other sturdy, stable support) 2. decide on the exposure time - the longer the time the longer the trail (obvious) but also the brighter the 'background' sky and more likely the earth lights will affect it. for lng, long times I would probably consider smaller apertures. 3. probably avoid moonlit nights - no moon of any size in the picture 4. for shorter times it is nice to have prominent a famous constellation. IMHO it looks good and more like a deliberate shot, rather than ooops, it just happened. 5. for me having a silhouette of some nice landmark in the foreground does the trick. A nice tree with thick branches, lighthouse etc. have fun bracketing and experimenting ;-) (*)o(*) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: Evening / night photography
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 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); moving vehicle lights; the stars when in the desert (we are going to Namibia) with a very long exposure; full moon reflection on water, etc. I do have a tripod and shutter release cable. Thanks a lot Naomi -Original Message- From: Bob Poe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2003 2:59 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Evening / night photography Hi, What film are you using. Regards, Bob Poe --- Naomi van der Lippe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Good morning, good evening, good day all PUGgers I urgently need constructive and practical (what to do, when to do and how to do it) advice on evening / night time photography (in- and outdoors). I only had one successful shot in the dark (and it literally was a shot in the dark, which was displayed on PUG some time back) and have never been able to recreate it. I did not have a shutter release cable then but do now. My camera is an MZ50. Thanks a lot, in advance! Naomi van der Lippe Randburg, South Africa ** Everything in this e-mail and attachments relating to the official business of MultiChoice Africa is proprietary to the company. Any view or opinion expressed in this message may be the view of the individual and should not automatically be ascribed to the company. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by email, facsimile or telephone and destroy the original message. ** = What boots up must come down. __ Do you Yahoo!? Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003 http://search.yahoo.com/top2003 ** Everything in this e-mail and attachments relating to the official business of MultiChoice Africa is proprietary to the company. Any view or opinion expressed in this message may be the view of the individual and should not automatically be ascribed to the company. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by email, facsimile or telephone and destroy the original message. **
RE: Evening / night photography
Hi Steve Thanks for the link!!! Naomi -Original Message- From: Steve Jolly [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 10:42 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Evening / night photography http://home.earthlink.net/~kitathome/LunarLight/moonlight_gallery/technique/ reciprocity.htm S Naomi van der Lippe wrote: Good morning, good evening, good day all PUGgers I urgently need constructive and practical (what to do, when to do and how to do it) advice on evening / night time photography (in- and outdoors). I only had one successful shot in the dark (and it literally was a shot in the dark, which was displayed on PUG some time back) and have never been able to recreate it. I did not have a shutter release cable then but do now. My camera is an MZ50. Thanks a lot, in advance! Naomi van der Lippe Randburg, South Africa ** Everything in this e-mail and attachments relating to the official business of MultiChoice Africa is proprietary to the company. Any view or opinion expressed in this message may be the view of the individual and should not automatically be ascribed to the company. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by email, facsimile or telephone and destroy the original message. ** ** Everything in this e-mail and attachments relating to the official business of MultiChoice Africa is proprietary to the company. Any view or opinion expressed in this message may be the view of the individual and should not automatically be ascribed to the company. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by email, facsimile or telephone and destroy the original message. **
RE: Evening / night photography
Hi Tom Long time no hear!!! Subjects I was thinking of doing were photo's of the moon (I purchased a 500 mm lens), subjects in front of the moon (bare tree branches, etc); moving vehicle lights; the stars when in the desert (we are going to Namibia) with a very long exposure; full moon reflection on water, etc. Re the stars photo - I would love to be able to recreate photo's where the shutter stays open for a period of time with the starts creating almost a circle effect. Thanks a lot Naomi -Original Message- From: tom [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 5:54 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Evening / night photography -Original Message- From: Naomi van der Lippe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Good morning, good evening, good day all PUGgers I urgently need constructive and practical (what to do, when to do and how to do it) advice on evening / night time photography (in- and outdoors). That's a little vague. Can you be more specific as to your subjects and gear? tv ** Everything in this e-mail and attachments relating to the official business of MultiChoice Africa is proprietary to the company. Any view or opinion expressed in this message may be the view of the individual and should not automatically be ascribed to the company. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by email, facsimile or telephone and destroy the original message. **
RE: Evening / night photography
-Original Message- From: tom [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 5:54 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Evening / night photography -Original Message- From: Naomi van der Lippe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Good morning, good evening, good day all PUGgers I urgently need constructive and practical (what to do, when to do and how to do it) advice on evening / night time photography (in- and outdoors). That's a little vague. Can you be more specific as to your subjects and gear? tv ** Everything in this e-mail and attachments relating to the official business of MultiChoice Africa is proprietary to the company. Any view or opinion expressed in this message may be the view of the individual and should not automatically be ascribed to the company. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by email, facsimile or telephone and destroy the original message. **
RE: Evening / night photography
Hi Tom (again) Forgot to mention the gear - Pentax MZ50 with an array of lenses: shortest 35 - 80 mm and longest the one that goes to 500 mm. I have got a tripod as well as shutter release cable. Thanks again Naomi -Original Message- From: tom [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 5:54 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Evening / night photography -Original Message- From: Naomi van der Lippe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Good morning, good evening, good day all PUGgers I urgently need constructive and practical (what to do, when to do and how to do it) advice on evening / night time photography (in- and outdoors). That's a little vague. Can you be more specific as to your subjects and gear? tv ** Everything in this e-mail and attachments relating to the official business of MultiChoice Africa is proprietary to the company. Any view or opinion expressed in this message may be the view of the individual and should not automatically be ascribed to the company. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by email, facsimile or telephone and destroy the original message. **
RE: Evening / night photography
Hi Steven Will scour our book shops for the guide this weekend, thanks for the info. I am a complete amateur with photography and a bigger idiot when it comes to technicalities re photography! Please tell me more about the LX. Thanks Naomi -Original Message- From: Stephen Moore [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 4:21 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Evening / night photography Naomi van der Lippe wrote: I urgently need constructive and practical (what to do, when to do and how to do it) advice on evening / night time photography (in- and outdoors). I only had one successful shot in the dark (and it literally was a shot in the dark, which was displayed on PUG some time back) and have never been able to recreate it. I did not have a shutter release cable then but do now. My camera is an MZ50. I've found Lee Frost's _The Complete Guide to Night and Low-Light Photography_ to be an excellent general reference on the topic. From Amphoto, paperback ISBN is 0817450416. Ob Pentax content I: Frost shoots Pentax 6x7 Ob Pentax content II: You really need an LX! ;-) Best wishes, Stephen ** Everything in this e-mail and attachments relating to the official business of MultiChoice Africa is proprietary to the company. Any view or opinion expressed in this message may be the view of the individual and should not automatically be ascribed to the company. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by email, facsimile or telephone and destroy the original message. **
Re: Evening / night photography
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
Re: Evening / night photography
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 12:22:14PM +0200, Naomi van der Lippe wrote: Re the stars photo - I would love to be able to recreate photo's where the shutter stays open for a period of time with the starts creating almost a circle effect. If you actually *want* the starts to streak and circle, I would recommend using a slow film and narrow aperture so that you are forced to have a long exposure. You will need a cable release that clicks in position and keeps the shutter open until you release it, because we are talking about at least a 20min long exposure here. The stars seem to wheel around the poles, so get an astronomy website or Voortrekker scout guide to explain to you how to find the South pole in the sky from the Souther cross. The stars will circle around that, so keep that somewhere in your photo. Also, try and find reciprocity failure information on the film you will be using, with such long exposures. And try and protect the camera from stray light from campfires and such that will occur while you sip your whisky in the desert and wait for the photo to finish. you will leave your camera -- ,_ /_) /| / / i e t e r/ |/ a g e l
RE: Evening / night photography
-Original Message- From: Naomi van der Lippe [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi Tom Long time no hear!!! Subjects I was thinking of doing were photo's of the moon (I purchased a 500 mm lens), subjects in front of the moon (bare tree branches, etc); snip I think Peter covered things pretty well, but here are some examples of night shotsthese were done way back in the day. http://www.bigdayphoto.com/cityscapes/the-strip.htm I think I took this with a pz-1p and 20-35/4, probably shot on Delta 3200 at 1600 at f/4. I would guess from the light trails the shutter speed is about 1/30. I just rested the camera on a ledge, set the camera in AV mode and bracketed. Bright point source lights like this will often make the meter overexpose. http://www.bigdayphoto.com/cityscapes/power_authority_0731.htm Spot metered right around the sign, and bracketed. 645N and 35mm. http://www.bigdayphoto.com/landscapes/co_silhouette.htm Wanted the mnountain to go black. Probably spot metered off the sky, added -1 compensation to make it go a little dark, then bracketed around that. In this sort of situation the light changes quickly, so you have to keep re-metering. http://www.bigdayphoto.com/landscapes/nm-bridge.htm Metered off the sky to make sure it was saturated. Probably spot metered off the cloud. For this sort of thing, you want a really long exposure, so I picked a small aperture, maybe f/16. IIRC, I was right on the edge of needing to compensate for reciprocity failure, so, again, I did lots of bracketing. In this situation you might not have enough time to do all the bracketing you might like. So you really want to try and nail it the first time. This last summer I was at the beach and tried to do a little night photography and totally screwed it up. Spot metered off the sand, added some time for reciprocity failure. Didn't realize I was metering at 400 and shooting 100 speed film. Got nothing back...the moral of the story is when it's dark you can't see anything! Bring a flashlight! tv
Re: Evening / night photography
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 12:53:20PM -0500, tom wrote: I think I took this with a pz-1p and 20-35/4, probably shot on Delta 3200 at 1600 at f/4. I would guess from the light trails the shutter speed is about 1/30. I just rested the camera on a ledge, set the camera in AV mode and bracketed. Bright point source lights like this will often make the meter overexpose. http://www.bigdayphoto.com/cityscapes/power_authority_0731.htm I like this shot. It has... power. The weight of the building lends it... authority. No seriously, I like it. :-) -- ,_ /_) /| / / i e t e r/ |/ a g e l
Re: Evening / night photography
- Original Message - From: tom [EMAIL PROTECTED] I think Peter covered things pretty well, but here are some examples of night shotsthese were done way back in the day. http://www.bigdayphoto.com/cityscapes/the-strip.htm I think I took this with a pz-1p and 20-35/4, probably shot on Delta 3200 at 1600 at f/4. I would guess from the light trails the shutter speed is about 1/30. I just rested the camera on a ledge, set the camera in AV mode and bracketed. Bright point source lights like this will often make the meter overexpose. http://www.bigdayphoto.com/cityscapes/power_authority_0731.htm Spot metered right around the sign, and bracketed. 645N and 35mm. http://www.bigdayphoto.com/landscapes/co_silhouette.htm Wanted the mnountain to go black. Probably spot metered off the sky, added -1 compensation to make it go a little dark, then bracketed around that. In this sort of situation the light changes quickly, so you have to keep re-metering. http://www.bigdayphoto.com/landscapes/nm-bridge.htm Metered off the sky to make sure it was saturated. Probably spot metered off the cloud. For this sort of thing, you want a really long exposure, so I picked a small aperture, maybe f/16. IIRC, I was right on the edge of needing to compensate for reciprocity failure, so, again, I did lots of bracketing. In this situation you might not have enough time to do all the bracketing you might like. So you really want to try and nail it the first time. Tom Van Veen is no longer allowed to post photos to this list. He's giving me an inferiority complex! This last summer I was at the beach and tried to do a little night photography and totally screwed it up. Spot metered off the sand, added some time for reciprocity failure. Didn't realize I was metering at 400 and shooting 100 speed film. Got nothing back...the moral of the story is when it's dark you can't see anything! Bring a flashlight! Oh, wait a minute, he is human after all! Seriously, once again, nice work! Christian
RE: Evening / night photography
Ha! That was sort of what I was going for...I made a print for my boss back when I had one tv -Original Message- From: Pieter Nagel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, January 02, 2004 1:13 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Evening / night photography On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 12:53:20PM -0500, tom wrote: I think I took this with a pz-1p and 20-35/4, probably shot on Delta 3200 at 1600 at f/4. I would guess from the light trails the shutter speed is about 1/30. I just rested the camera on a ledge, set the camera in AV mode and bracketed. Bright point source lights like this will often make the meter overexpose. http://www.bigdayphoto.com/cityscapes/power_authority_0731.htm I like this shot. It has... power. The weight of the building lends it... authority. No seriously, I like it. :-) -- ,_ /_) /| / / i e t e r/ |/ a g e l
Re: Evening / night photography
On Fri, Jan 02, 2004 at 01:18:15PM -0500, Christian wrote: - Original Message - From: tom [EMAIL PROTECTED] I think Peter covered things pretty well, but here are some examples of night shotsthese were done way back in the day. [snip] Tom Van Veen is no longer allowed to post photos to this list. He's giving me an inferiority complex! [snip] Oh, wait a minute, he is human after all! Don't worry, Thom is not infallible: He misspelt my name wrong. Usually I just let it slide, but with a surname of Dutch origin it is unforgivable that Thom van Vien should get my name wrong. -- ,_ /_) /| / / I e t e r/ |/ a g e l
RE: Evening / night photography
-Original Message- From: Pieter Nagel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Oh, wait a minute, he is human after all! Don't worry, Thom is not infallible: He misspelt my name wrong. Usually I just let it slide, but with a surname of Dutch origin it is unforgivable that Thom van Vien should get my name wrong. Oops. tv
Re: Evening / night photography
Ho hum, only serves to remind me how hopeless I am at anything that doesn't involve people! Tom these shots are fantastic! Don't ask me why, but I really love this on: http://www.bigdayphoto.com/cityscapes/munich_subway_04020001.htm tan.
Re: Evening / night photography
Hi, What film are you using. Regards, Bob Poe --- Naomi van der Lippe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Good morning, good evening, good day all PUGgers I urgently need constructive and practical (what to do, when to do and how to do it) advice on evening / night time photography (in- and outdoors). I only had one successful shot in the dark (and it literally was a shot in the dark, which was displayed on PUG some time back) and have never been able to recreate it. I did not have a shutter release cable then but do now. My camera is an MZ50. Thanks a lot, in advance! Naomi van der Lippe Randburg, South Africa ** Everything in this e-mail and attachments relating to the official business of MultiChoice Africa is proprietary to the company. Any view or opinion expressed in this message may be the view of the individual and should not automatically be ascribed to the company. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by email, facsimile or telephone and destroy the original message. ** = What boots up must come down. __ Do you Yahoo!? Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003 http://search.yahoo.com/top2003
Evening / night photography
Good morning, good evening, good day all PUGgers I urgently need constructive and practical (what to do, when to do and how to do it) advice on evening / night time photography (in- and outdoors). I only had one successful shot in the dark (and it literally was a shot in the dark, which was displayed on PUG some time back) and have never been able to recreate it. I did not have a shutter release cable then but do now. My camera is an MZ50. Thanks a lot, in advance! Naomi van der Lippe Randburg, South Africa ** Everything in this e-mail and attachments relating to the official business of MultiChoice Africa is proprietary to the company. Any view or opinion expressed in this message may be the view of the individual and should not automatically be ascribed to the company. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by email, facsimile or telephone and destroy the original message. **
Re: Evening / night photography
http://home.earthlink.net/~kitathome/LunarLight/moonlight_gallery/technique/reciprocity.htm S Naomi van der Lippe wrote: Good morning, good evening, good day all PUGgers I urgently need constructive and practical (what to do, when to do and how to do it) advice on evening / night time photography (in- and outdoors). I only had one successful shot in the dark (and it literally was a shot in the dark, which was displayed on PUG some time back) and have never been able to recreate it. I did not have a shutter release cable then but do now. My camera is an MZ50. Thanks a lot, in advance! Naomi van der Lippe Randburg, South Africa ** Everything in this e-mail and attachments relating to the official business of MultiChoice Africa is proprietary to the company. Any view or opinion expressed in this message may be the view of the individual and should not automatically be ascribed to the company. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not peruse, use, disseminate, distribute or copy this message. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately by email, facsimile or telephone and destroy the original message. **
