Night Photography: Still Life
This was taken around 10:15 PM, no flash, shutter open. Large
This shutter thing has existed forever, but it still amazes me. I feel like I can see in the dark now. I actually close my eyes and see stuff in that ethereal photographic light sometimes. I’m thinking there’s two ways to take photographs at night. One is to put more light on the sensor (over time, with the shutter) or to improve the sensitivity of the sensor so it records an image faster (ISO). I’ve messed with ISO, and seen some pro cameras that can basically see what my eye does. However, I’m this shutter thing means I can see better than my eye does. I look around the dark now and I’m just amazed at how much information there is that’s now within my reach.
These photos aren’t even processed in Photoshop, I maybe hit the ‘auto’ to white and color balance the Digital Negatives (cause it’s shooting RAW files, not JPEG). The camera is an LX3.
For reference as to how how awesome this is, here are two comparison shots (clickable). The first is on auto, and just a bit darker than it really looks. Cause it’s totally dark. I’m not sure you understand this. The second is with flash, all washed out and dead looking.
These are (clickable) shots of the cemetery, taken around 8:15 PM. The dark one is a normal shot taken on auto (0.125 seconds), and about how it looks to the naked eye. The other one is shot with the camera resting on the gate, shutter open for 20 seconds. It’s like a different world. There’s so much color and detail in the long exposure, and you can actually see words on a gate about 40 yards away. In one of these shots a guy was walking across the graves, but he only appears as an invisible ghost in the data. Can click for larger versions.
This is the stillest man I know. This shot at midnight, with him just holding still for 15. Large
M looking at moon. Large
Suffice it to say, this is blowing my mind.
I had a similar experience with a friend’s lumix camera a couple of years back. the night mode settings were just outstanding. we were taking pictures of the sea in matara at mid-night around the full moon and the effect was just mind-blowing – the waves look liked they were in a monet painting. we also captured the effect of the moon thru the coconut trees.I have actually not been able to get that effect with my canon 400D – there again it doesn’t have a night setting :).