Night Photography | White Balance (WB) & histogram

Experiment with the WB settings when you come upon ambient light sources.  There are a variety of lights and camera settings to match them.   Cameras can be set for White Balance (WB).  There is daylight, cloudy, sunny, tungsten, fluorescent, custom, auto and in some cases you can  tweak each of those individual settings.

Don't worry, when you come upon strong ambient light, you'll find that the Auto WB function of today's cameras are really, really good.

And imaging software can be used to compensate for mixed lighting.  Today's programs are quite user friendly when you shoot in 'RAW' and post process.

Here's the catch;

At night I use the histogram to determine if I'm exposing correctly.  It's dark out there.  Looking at the review on the back of the camera for proper exposure is likely to fool me.  Especially if I have the LCD screen set at "bright".

So, I set the white balance to the color temperature 'close' to the way I want it.  This in turn gives me a histogram that shows me the exposures that match.  

Using those inside functions is a way to really 'appreciate' the camera... ...and increase the odds of making better images. 

Old Faithful Geyser & Jupiter peeking through the steam

15sec  70mm  WB 4100K 

car headlights and ambient light from the Yellowstone Inn

  

return to:  Robert Howell Photography.com              

for more information drop me a line

"See you out there"

                ~~~Bob

Night Photography | Star Trails & foregrounds

There are two things to think about when figuring out the correct exposure for a star trail shot.  

1.  How bright to have the star trails

2.  How bright to have the rest of the image

The first is controlled by the aperture and ISO settings and

the second is controlled by the aperture, ISO and shutter speed.

My favorite star trail images are the ones partnered with a foreground or silhouette.

And when combined with an iconic or recognizable landscape it can give the viewer

a reason to pause, and reflect----and see that feature in a new light….hmmm.. dark?   

And again, with the extended exposures used for night photography,

there CAN be a lot of light!

Liberty Cap in Yellowstone with ambient light 

and star trails in opposite directions. 

The brightest light is Jupiter’s trial.

return to:  Robert Howell Photography.com              

for more information drop me a line

"See you out there"

                ~~~Bob

Night Photography | Clouds

Your first thought might be that a cloudy night is an unappealing time to shoot.  But the long exposure times of night photography accentuate colors from sunsets that have long disappeared or nightly city light pollution.  

Clouds often reflect these colors. They’re your personal floating foreground.  My favorite shots are when I position myself to shoot the sky with small clouds moving left-to-right or right-to-left.   

Clouds are ever changing with the length of exposure.  Longer exposures allow more movement and clouds become translucent…as the background of stars peek through.  

Midnight | Elephant Back Terrace / Yellowstone National Park

~~~See you out there

return to:    Robert Howell Photography.com 

 

HDR at Twilight | Bracketing

Bracketing is the feature to use for shooting HDR. The Nikon D700 allows for a maximum of 1-step Exposure Values (EV’s).

Unfortunately, three shots spaced by one EV are often not sufficient for properly taking HDR scenes at twilight or night.

At default the D700 is already set-up with the exposure bracketing feature assigned to the function button (FN).  That makes it easy to press and dial my 5 or 7 shots-in-a-row bracketing sequence. 

5 or 7 shots are a good number to input into today’s HDR software programs.  It doesn't take the computer any more time than it takes for 3 shots and gives the software programs more information to work with.  For this shot I used 

Nik Software’s “HDR Efex Pro”.

So, with my camera set for 1-stop EV's, my cable release attached, 
and 7-shot bracket dialed-in, I was preset and ready for the sun to make its last short peek before setting.  

~~~See you out there

return to:    Robert Howell Photography.com 

 

Night Photography | White Balance (WB) moods

Experiment with white balance (WB) to make dramatic moods.

If you have a Live View feature, use it to scroll through the various WB settings as you compose your shot and choose a setting that you 'feel' fits the scene.  After shooting the "correct" white balance. I choose 3300K as a cool 'blue' place to start and sometimes go as high as 10,000K to heat it up.   If you shoot in Raw format, you can adjust the WB and the “mood” in post processing.  

The mixture of thermal steam from these Yellowstone Mammoth Hot Springs and the nearby ambient lights create a wonderful opportunity to try a variety of WB moods.

~~~See you out there

return to:    Robert Howell Photography.com