Get By With a Little Help From Your Friends

I failed to mention in my last post, that the shoot was actually a team effort. You’ll be glad to know I didn’t take on the mutant cows alone. I was accompanied by my two friends and fellow photography enthusiasts, Craig and Dave. Having never done any night time shoots with fellow photographers, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but ideas were bouncing around all over the place. It really was a creative and productive evening. If you haven’t gone shooting with photo friends, I’d recommend it!

But the main point of this post is my little friend, <insert photo editing software name here> for some post production tweaks.

I’m not usually one for playing to much with my photographs after I’ve taken them, straightening a horizon or cloning out a dust spot here or there, but I seem to have little time to edit the photos. I try my best to get everything as close to perfect in camera. There are times though when you’re able to fiddle with your photos to improve them, and in many cases that I’ve seen, make them look terrible.

 

You may recognise this location from my previous post, but this photo is a composite of two different photos taken on that same night, neither of which were particularly pleasing by themselves.  The 1st photo had the wire wool spin to the side, the great streaks from the clouds slithering across the sky while the tower wasn’t dark enough to be a silhouette, but wasn’t light enough to show off any detail. I was disappointed, until I saw the second photo, an illuminated tower, human silhouette and a flat, uninspiring sky. Enter photo editing application #1. I was able to combine the two photos with some fairly basic skills to make something that I’m really pleased with that’s had pride of place as my laptop’s wallpaper for some time.

Here’s to friends, be they software, human, or other.

When Day Becomes Night

I seem to be a little out of practice on the blogging side of things, and to be honest on the practical side of things too. For a lot of the winter period, I’ve kept my camera under wraps, hidden away from the cold and wet. This needs to change soon! I didn’t spend that amount on a camera to keep it tucked away gathering dust. But enough of that.

You would think  that having a poo covered boot, being in a field scarily close to some mutant cows at around midnight in the pitch black would put someone off trying to photograph a scene. In fact, in more populated areas, people don’t seem to understand why I’m out at night with my camera perched on it’s tripod. It’s dark, what is there to see?! But this is one of the reasons I love night time and/or long exposure photography.

Have you ever been camping and been able to see just fine in the dark, right until someone turns on their torch? Much like the naked eye, the camera takes time to adjust to the low light levels. It’s just the camera can allow it’s self to take a very long time to adjust, while still taking in all the information previously seen in the scene to make something appear completely different as it is st that time.

The above photo was, as suggested, taken in that field, by those cows, in the pitch black… with that smelly boot on. But because of the increased sensitivity of the camera’s sensor (set at ISO 6400 in this instance) and the shutter staying open for an extended amount of time (30 seconds), the camera was able to take in enough information to make night time appear as day, except with stars. The transformation from pitch black to something that is actually visible on the camera’s LCD display always amazes me as you’re never sure what you’re going to get. I understand this concept and have seen it in action many times, but still find it difficult to explain it. So I like to enjoy it without the explanations, I suppose I should learn to explain it properly if I’m going to take this seriously… stay tuned for that episode.

I should also explain that I’m not entirely keen on shooting at such a high ISO or exposures as short as 30 seconds, as the ISO gets cranked up, unfortunately so does the noise, which is sometimes confused with the lovely grain you’d get on film. But the wonders of digital allow you to test and then reevaluate exposure times.  There’re more photographs from this shoot which I’ll save for a later date, but to give an idea, they’re of the same scene with a lower ISO and a longer exposure time, to increase the quality and a sprinkle of creative flair.