Night Photography

If something appears in the visible spectrum, your camera’s sensor should be able to record it.

Even if  you can’t see it, if in view of the lens, it will show up. 

This is assuming you leave the shutter open long enough.

What your camera can’t do is “freeze” the whole image as a still image.

If either your subject or your camera moves during the exposure, expect ghosting or blurriness. 

Understanding this is key to being successful in your low-light efforts.

With my camera on a tripod and a wide angle lens, I took a drive down Mission Boulevard  to see what I could come up with.

It would have been a lot nicer had I been a passenger instead of being the both the driver and photographer.

I had manually focused the camera on my dashboard, stopped down the aperture on my wide angle to f11  and set a  6 to 8 second exposure, using IS0 100 as a starting point.

Reasons I chose these settings:

1. I wanted trails of light so I wanted at least 5 seconds that the shutter remained open
2. I wanted some depth-of-field as well, so I chose f11 and I used a wide angle.
3. I wanted the instrument panel to light up, so I based my exposure on that.

Since there was no person it the picture and there is such a mixture of light sources, I just set White Balance to Auto.

This picture would have been better had I really secured and immobilized my camera and tripod inside the van but it’s tough driving and taking pictures simultaneously. If you notice the blurriness, it’s because of camera shake.

Next time I will:

• get someone else to drive
• use a flash during the long exposure with different colored gels
• try to include the rear view mirror or the side mirrors in the picture
• use a superclamp to secure the camera. The tripod, though heavy, wasn’t sufficient