Night Fever

One thing that often stumps people as they get into taking pictures on a more serious level is how to deal with low light or night photography. They point their medium to high end compact at a beautiful scene, press the shutter, and are immediately disappointed with the results.This is because most compacts in auto mode don't support or at least won't choose long shutter speeds. Those that do support longer speeds often only allow them to be used in the 'semi automatic' or manual modes. If you turn on Auto ISO (The Devil) then problems are further compounded as the camera will crank up the sensitivity in order to get you a hand-holdable speed. Of course in this case we're not expecting a hand-holdable speed. Consider the attached shot.

This was shot at ISO 800, 1.6 seconds at f/4, on a 20mm lens. I've adjusted levels and done some slight sharpening in Photoshop 6.0 to get the best out of the medium JPEG because I didn't have the tools to hand to process the RAW file. Local time was around 11pm and the light was fading as we approached this bridge which connects the island containing Copenhagen with mainland Denmark. In a one-chance situation like this it's important to plan what you want to get and how to get it before the 'decisive moment' (as Henri Cartier Bresson would describe it) arrives and then is left in your wake, mocking you about having missed the shot. In my case I took a number of test shots before this, and came prepared with one of my favourite photographic accessories, the Pod, SLR edition. This is a squat cylindrical beanbag with a tripod thread at one side. It's perfect for propping the camera on a rail or similar and letting go for a second or two, when a proper tripod is either too bulky or just not available. What I normally do is set the camera on self timer with a short delay (2 seconds on my SLR) unless I have a remote release to hand, prop it in place, push the shutter, then let go entirely, hovering my hands around the camera until the shutter opens and closes. This allows me much more freedom to use longer speeds than would otherwise be possible. 

In terms of hand-holdable speeds the rule of thumb has always been the reciprocal of the focal length (i.e. for a 20mm lens, 1/20sec). Modern cameras and lenses often include stabilisation which allows a couple of stops of leeway on that, so maybe 1/4 of a second or so. At that speed, given that my lens aperture was wide open I would have had to increase the ISO by three stops, to ISO 6400. Even if my camera supported that the quality would have been awful. Hence the pod. 

I was therefore limited only by the 'environmental' features inherent in this shot - namely the motion of the ship and the crush of people around me. I therefore settled on a compromise of 1.6 seconds, boosted the ISO to 800, and let the aperture stay fully open, as the depth of field would be sufficient given the wide angle lens and the subject distance. More than 1.6 seconds caused visible movement in the bridge itself, and less would have required the use of ISO 1600, which was further than I wanted to push it.

In term of the remaining technicalities then, the camera was on evaluative metering which did a pretty good job with exposure (albeit a bit flat). This is what I'd recommend you try first if you have options. You may find that the whole scene turns out a little too light and lacking in contrast, in which case you can dial in a stop or two of exposure compensation to bring it down. Again, keep taking test shots until you're basically happy with the appearance and then you can concentrate on composition.

Many compact cameras will only go to these longer speeds if given no other choice so if you find your pictures being very dark and your shutter speeds hovering around the 1 second mark, try shutter priority if you have it and see whether you can force the speeds to go long.

Locational Inspiration

I've recently been lucky enough to have a lovely holiday round northern Europe and having not taken a lot of shots recently it was like a smorgasbord of inspiration. I couldn't decide what to shoot and what not to but of course as we're firmly in the digital age I didn't have to make that decision and shot everything. It's opportunities like this though where I think I learn most about this craft. Take the attached pic of Rostock's main square. I took about six variants of this one with different composition, different apertures etc. Happily the exposure was simple. Other places I bracketed exposures due to tricky lighting, messed with white balance to get beige ceilings the right colour, and generally did lots of things that in a more normal or more structured environment I either wouldn't have time to or wouldn't need to consider.

Of course I also shot raw files so if I do get that white balance decision wrong I can sort it out later. Belt and braces and all that.

The Rostock pic is also an example of the balance rules I talked about earlier. The horizon is pretty much on the upper third, the foreground is given plenty of weight of repetitive detail to balance it with the intricate details in the background, which has been maintained by using a small aperture. In the wide aperture variants too much is lost at the back. I have a load of my favourite shots from the holiday on Facebook (totally unprocessed jpegs straight from the camera) and while most are just record shots, there are a few arty ones on there I think - if you have me on your Facebook see if you can spot where I've used the rules and where I've broken them, and I'll post more soon.

Happy shooting :-)

Mini Hint #117 - Auto ISO and the Devil

To clarify. Auto ISO *IS* the devil. If you want high quality shots, turn it off and forget you ever saw it. Your camera doesn't care if you get noise in your shadow areas. It has no vested interest in the quality of your pictures. It's trying to help you get acceptably sharp pictures by speeding things up, but remember - You are its master - take charge and tell it to use ISO 100, unless you consider the conditions and decide otherwise. Or you're drunk.

Compositional Rules

In any pastime or activity there are people who will tell you that there are certain rules that you must not break. Photography is something of an exception in that you will rarely be introduced to the 'rules' such as they are, without also being told that they are there to be broken. What you will also be told however, is that to break them effectively, you must first understand them. In this section I will introduce one such rule. It's the most well known of the compositional rules and it is usually referred to as 'The rule of thirds'.

Before we get into that though I think it important to mention balance. This is the balance of an image and its composition rather than that of the photographer, who may be extremely lopsided with no negative impact on their pictures... Sometimes you will see an image that feels awkward, lopsided, or weighted too heavily towards one side, or the top or bottom of the frame. Often in images seen in magazines or online portfolios, this is a deliberate choice by the photographer to induce a sense of unease in the viewer, usually considered appropriate to the subject matter. There will often be a story associated with the image, which the feeling of awkwardness somehow enhances. Conversely though, many photographs seen in magazines and particularly on posters will feel very relaxing as your eye wanders over them; as of everything is in its right place and the whole thing feels balanced. Left and right are given equal precedence whether that be subject points, large background elements, or similar levels of nothing. The foreground and the background (usually frame bottom and top, respectively) each have something to offer, whether that is interest or space. This is compositional balance, and is what many photographers strive toward, much of the time.

And so to the rule. If you take a typical scene with a main subject, some background interest, maybe some empty space, and imagine you're looking at it through a 3x3 grid, like a noughts and crosses (tic tac toe) board. The image is split equally into nine squares or rectangles. The rule of thirds asserts that if you place your main subject on one of the four intersection points, and any horizon or other horizontal dividing lines across either the top or bottom third, you will likely end up with a more balanced and interesting photograph than if you point your central focus point directly at the main subject and fire the shutter. Go back to those landscapes on the net or in magazines or on posters. Many of them you will see follow or almost-follow this rule, and the ones that don't are not even close, like they set out to deliberately go against it. Even those where the subject is central or symmetrical horizontally will often have a horizon or other dividing line on the upper or lower third boundary.

As I said, the rule is meant to be broken but first (grasshopper) you must understand what you are breaking and why. Take the rule of thirds with you on your next landscape photography trip, or next time you visit a stately home or monument, and see how different your photos turn out from those you took before. Sometime soon I'll return to 'the rules' and discuss how and when to go about breaking them.

Infrared Pics

It was sunny on my way home tonight so I stopped close to work and took some test shots with the Canon Powershot G5 and my Cokin P009 infrared filter. Here are the results after some basic photoshopping. I won't win any awards for composition or subject but I'm happy with the result of the test. :)

By the way...

The pictures from the stately home on the roll of Velvia from the Halina TLR came out really well. There's something about a well focussed and exposed 6x6cm slide that blows pretty much everything else out of the water. No matter how big the print, a 6x6 Velvia on a lightbox will always grab the eye for me.

Wow long time no write

Well it's been a LONG time since the last post. Over a year in fact. During that time I have done photos at weddings, photos on holiday, photos of airshows, but only in the last couple of weeks have I actually done any creative photography, and for that I have some old technology to thank. Film. I'd started a return to film for some of my photography - mostly high speed black and white stuff like the lovely Ilford Delta 3200 - a few months back, when I spotted a good condition EOS 3 on one of the used equipment sites (probably Ffordes though it may have been Mifsuds) and decided to treat myself to what was my absolute dream camera all through the latter part of the 90s. I've not been disappointed and it's a beautiful piece of kit, but that's for another day. I then ended up at Jessops in the Trafford centre buying film to put in it. £60 later I was the proud owner of 5 rolls of Kodak Portra, a couple of Sensia process paid slide films, a Velvia, a Delta 3200, and a couple of rolls of 120 Velvia and Provia to put through my Halina TLR. Most of it is still in the fridge if I'm honest (which is more than I could say of Jessops, where film has been consigned to a wooden drawer full of a hotch potch collection of plastic bags and multipacks beneath the counter), but I have been through a few films lately.

Like many people I suspect, I've had a few rolls of exposed film kicking around in the bottom of a bag for a while, and some still sat in the last camera I used them in, partly exposed and abandoned. Some of them dated from at least five or six years ago, some black and white, some colour slide, one infrared black and white that I was sure had been spoiled by the way I changed the film in shade instead of complete darkness, not fully understanding the process of how to use it at the time. I checked around for a place that still understood infrared film (not quite trusting Tesco or Jessops...) and found Metro Imaging in London, where the very helpful Tony reassured me that he knew exactly what needed to be done, but warned that really, it did need to have been handled in complete darkness. Hedging my bets I elected process and same-size contact sheet and didn't expect much from it, so imagine my surprise when it turned up and pretty much every frame had come out, some complete with the trademark white leaves and black skies of infrared photography.

Inspired by the unexpected success I have since bought some more infrared film (the choice is much more limited these days) by a company called 'Efke', then discovered that in order to shoot it I needed a proper infrared filter instead of just a red like the Kodak stuff of the past, so I've also bought one of those. Next I discovered that I could do the same thing on my DSLR (to an extent) and on my compact so the next accessory was a lens adapter for my Canon G5 to allow me to fit the IR filter to that, and hopefully get instant results. Finally at lunchtime today I got chance to take out the oldest of all my SLRs - my dad's old Pentax ME with a broken shutter button - and shot 15 shots (tripod mounted, remote release, f/16, exposures ranging from 0.5 to 8 seconds) of a power station across a field containing horses. In my imagination, the power station looks dark and foreboding, the grass is white, the dry grass in the adjoining field probably darker, the sky a light grey flecked with streaks of jet black, and the horses look ... perfectly normal. Hint - when shooting infrared, seek out animals in some of your shots. Cows for example are a stereotypical IR subject, as they look entirely unchanged and unconcerned about the white foliage they're chewing on.

So the lesson for me from this whole thing. If you're low on inspiration, go old skool, dig out those unprocessed films from your past, and get them sent off.

Oh, and if you put film in your camera, finish it and get it processed, or even just finish it, wind it back, and keep it somewhere cool and dark. Of all the films I've had processed, the only ones that really showed any image quality problems at all were the ones I left part-used for years. In those ones, the old frames, left wrapped around the take-up spool for years, had faded and lost most of their interest. By contrast (scuse the pun) the ones that were older than these, same film type, but left would back into their casings, in their plastic tubs, in a darkened bag in the wardrobe, came out pretty much fine.