Section 3.16. Nighttime Photography


3.16. Nighttime Photography

Nighttime pictures can be the most spectacular ones in your portfolio. City lights, river lights, sky lights, and even car lights can stand out like bright colors on a black canvas.

Unfortunately, you won't get far in this kind of photography without a tripod. You can practice the following techniques by bracing the camera against a wallbut you'll find the job infinitely easier with a true tripod.

3.16.1. Trailing Car Lights

You've seen this shot on postcards and in magazines: neon bands of light streaking across the frame, with a nicely lit bridge or building in the background. The trick to these shots is to keep the shutter open long enough for the cars to pass all the way from one side of the frame to the other (Figure 3-18).

When using film cameras , photographers rely on the camera's B setting, in combination with a cable release (a shutter button on the end of a cord). The B setting (short for bulb ) keeps the shutter open for as long as you hold down the release. Many a photographer has stood out in the cold, thumbs pressing down on icy cable releases, softly counting: "One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three "

BUYERS' GUIDE
How to Buy a Tripod

A tripod has two parts : the legs and the pan head . The camera attaches to the pan head, and the legs support the head.

You can buy a tripod with any of three pan head types. Friction heads are the simplest, least expensive, and most popular with still photographers. Fluid heads are desirable if you'll also be using your tripod for a camcorder, as they smooth out panning and tilting. (This means you, iMovie fans.) They're more expensive than friction heads, but are well worth the money if you're after a professional look to your footage. Finally, geared heads are big, heavy, expensive, and difficult to use.

The tripod's legs may be made of metal, wood, or composite. Metal is light and inexpensive, but easier to damage by accident (thin metal is easily bent). Wood and composite legs are much more expensive; they're designed for heavier professional broadcast and film equipment. The bottoms of the legs have rubber feet, which is great for use indoors and on hard floors.

Good tripods also have spreaders that prevent the legs from spreading apart and causing the entire apparatus to crash to the ground. If your tripod doesn't have spreaders, put the tripod on a piece of carpet, which prevents the legs from slipping apart.


Your digital camera probably doesn't have a B setting (although a few do have Bulb modes). But you can capture these dramatic shots if your camera offers a shutter-priority mode (see Figure 3-3). In this mode, you can tell the camera to keep the shutter open for a long time indeedfour seconds or more for car-taillight photos, for example.


Tip: When preparing for nighttime shooting, pack a pocket flashlight so you can see the camera's controls in the dark.

Try to find a vantage point high enough to provide a good overview of the scene. A nicely lit building, bridge, or monument in the background provides a nice contrast to erratic lights created by the cars passing through the scene.

Put your camera on a tripod or some other steady surface, and set it in shutter-priority mode. After you've composed your shot, set the shutter for four seconds. The camera will control the aperture automatically. Use your remote control, if you have one, or your camera's self-timer mode.

When you see cars coming into the scene, trip the shutter. Review the results on the LCD screen. If the streaks aren't long enough, then add a couple seconds to the shutter setting; if the streaks are too long, subtract a second or two.

With a little trial and error, you can capture beautiful, dramatic taillight shots just like those postcards you always see.

3.16.2. Nighttime Portraits

Nighttime portraits can be extremely interesting, especially when your subject is in front of a lit monument or building.

Put your camera on a tripod or steady surface as you compose the background. The key to this shot will be opening the aperture very wide, to admit as much light as possible. You can do this in one of two ways.

3.16.2.1. Aperture-priority mode

If you can put your camera into aperture-priority mode (as described in Section 3.2.3.1), set the aperture to f-2.8 or f-4.

Take a shot of just the background and review it onscreen. If it looks good, turn on your flash (forced-flash mode) and position your subject within ten feet of the camera. Ask your subject to stand still until you give the OK to move. When you take the picture, the flash will fire very briefly , but the shutter will stay open for another second or two to soak in enough light to pick up the background.

Review the results on the camera. If your subject is too bright, move the camera farther away. Move closer if the subject is too dark.

3.16.2.2. Nighttime-flash mode

If your camera doesn't have an aperture-priority mode, it might have a nighttime-flash mode. It's pretty much the same ideait opens the aperture very wideexcept that you can't control precisely how wide. The camera will attempt to properly expose the background while providing just enough additional flash for your model.

Try it. If your model is too bright or too dark, move closer or farther.




iPhoto 6
iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual
ISBN: 059652725X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 183

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