Night Photography Precautions

Whenever you shoot at night or in low light conditions, a tripod is essential. Obviously. If you try to solve the problem of diminished light by raising the ISO, you'll be disappointed in the unattractive increase in digital noise. In the past when we all shot film, too much grain could be considered artistic. However, in the digital world too much noise just doesn't work.

I also use the mirror-lockup feature as well as the self-timer on the camera. By locking up the mirror, vibration is eliminated. Vibration can be introduced because the mirror flips out of the way to allow the light to hit the sensor and record an image. By using the self-timer, you eliminate the possibility of jarring the camera as you push the shutter. A cable release does the same thing as the self-timer, and if you have one of those, then by all means use it.

You should also not extend the center column of the tripod to making viewing easier (if you happen to be tall). This can introduce instability in the tripod, especially in cheaper models. Even if you have to bend down to look through the viewfinder, that's preferable to getting blurred pictures because your tripod wasn't as stable as it should be.

The attached photo of the Berlin Dome (the cathedral seen through the pillars) was taken from the porch of an adjacent museum. A red neon sign lit up the columns, and I thought the contrast was pretty dramatic.

Lightning strike

On this blog, I never post pictures that aren't mine. However, I wanted to share this image because a neighbor of mine took this a few minutes after a lightning bolt struck my house. I wasn't home -- I'm still in Europe for 5 more days -- and he shot this just after he called 911. He heard the strike and sent his son to investigate, thinking that a tree was hit. His quick action in calling 911 saved the house. The attic caught fire immediately after the lightning blew a hole in the roof. The fire department arrived on the scene extremely quickly and they prevented the fire from spreading. They told my neighbor that in 10 more minutes the house would have been a total loss. There is still extensive damage, and the entire roof has to be taken off and rebuilt. Drywall broke down from the ceiling due to water damage, the AC units were blown, and there is a lot of damage to the electrical system.

All in all, it's a mess. The in-home workshops I've been giving in Photoshop and making money in photography will have to be put on hiatus since everything in my house has to be moved out, cleaned from smoke damage, and protected from the construction. I will live in temporary housing provided by the insurance company for the next four or five months. If my family would have been home and in contact with water -- washing dishes or taking a shower, for example -- the consequences could have been deadly. We are very lucky. In addition, all of my photographs, computer, etc. were spared.

VACATION VERSUS HARD WORK

People think that when I travel, I'm on vacation. I have to chuckle to myself when I hear this. When I get home, friends, family, and neighbors ask me if I had a good time, and while I love traveling and seeing great places, I tell them that I came home to rest because I'm exhausted from my 'vacation'. They have no idea, of course, how I spend my time when I'm traveling and shooting.

The photo you see here is one small example of what I deal with every day. I wanted this elevated perspective on Lake Bled in Slovenia because I had seen a picture of it like this in a brochure. There are no roads up the mountain to make it convenient to get the shot, so I studied maps of the area and asked the personnel at the hotel to identify for me the exact location where I had to go. It took about two hours to find the right trail, and then I had to climb over a steep, rocky trail to get there. I was rewarded with a wonderful (and salable) image, but to do this kind of thing on a daily basis over a five week period means that when I get home, I basically collapse.

Finding Great Locations When Traveling

The key to finding great places when I travel is the Internet. In the past, I used travel books, calendars, magazine articles, and post cards to give me ideas of what to shoot in foreign countries – or even in the U.S. when I left home. With the all-encompassing Internet, I now use this incredible resource to find natural and man-made subjects anywhere on earth.

The photo you see here was taken in Piran, Slovenia, a beautiful coastal town in what used to be Yugoslavia. It is almost due east of Venice, Italy. I found a picture of this place on-line, and I thought it was so pretty that I planned a stop here on my five-week European stock shoot. I had never heard of this city before, but I was glad I took the time to shoot it. I am planning a photo tour to Eastern Europe for next summer, and I am looking for the best and the most exciting locations to include in the trip.

Twilight for Dynamic Cityscapes

The most beautiful time to shoot both large and small cities is twilight. This small village in Austria, Maria Alm, is very quaint and beautiful, and it looks great at sunset and even when the sky is overcast. However, at twilight it’s magical.

In the summer, twilight is late in Europe. Depending on the exact location, it can be 10pm or later. After traveling and shooting all day, it’s exhausting to push yourself to get the best pictures, but that’s what it takes. I had climbed halfway up a mountain to get this picture, and I was surrounded by cows as I made the twilight exposures from a tripod. When I used to shoot film, I used a tried and true exposure formula for twilight (10 seconds at f/8 with 50 ISO). Now with digital it’s a simple matter to just check the LCD monitor and then adjust the exposure compensation feature from there. This was taken with a daylight white balance.

Fisheye lenses

A fisheye lens is a fun to play with when you first get one, but after a while the bending of straight lines gets old. However, one of the most unique applications of a fisheye is to shoot round or curved subjects. For example, the photo you see here was taken in the stunning monastery at Melk, Austria a couple of days ago (I'm traveling in Europe right now, which is why I haven't posted blogs in the last couple of weeks -- after shooting all day I'm exhausted), and it is a multi-level spiral staircase. Since it was curved already, the fisheye couldn’t make it more curved. While there is distortion going on here, it’s not obvious at all since the artistic curves were already there.

I used a 15mm Canon fisheye to shoot this. Tripods weren’t allowed, so I hand held this at 400 ISO and I shot one stop down from wide open. Fisheyes have outrageous depth of field, and even though the lens was about two or three feet to the immediate foreground, even at f/4 I was able to get complete depth of field.