How to photograph nightscapes with long exposure, so they look like daytime shots

While on a trip to the beach recently, I played around with long exposures at night time and realised it was possible to photograph nightscapes so they look as though they are taken during the day. Take the nightscape image shown below for example. As you can see, landscapes that would normally be photographed during the day, can look quite dreamy when taken at night with a long exposure.

This nightscape shown above was taken at Cape Hillsborough National Park (Australia), in total darkness at 8.14pm. It looks as though it was taken during the daytime because the exposure was set to 521 seconds. In other words, the SLR camera actually took the long exposure in just over 8 and a half minutes. It then required another 8 minutes thereafter to finish processing the final image within the camera.

You can clearly see the star trails in the larger image. This is due obviously to the Earth’s rotation.

Other Camera Settings for this landscape taken at night were:

Camera: Canon EOS 5D
Lens: Canon 17-40mm f4 L
Exposure: 521 sec (521)
Aperture: f/8
Focal Length: 17 mm
ISO Speed: 200
Exposure Bias: 0 EV

Here is another example of a nightscape, ie long exposure landscape taken at night.

Because it was quite dark, a torch also comes in handy. What I did, was shine the torch out to the rock so I had something to focus my camera on, pressing the shutter half way down. Then I turned the torch off and pressed the shutter the rest of the way down to take the shot. If you don’t do this, you may find your camera lens swimming a lot trying to focus in the dark, which will make it impossible to photograph anything.

This time the camera settings were:

Camera:      Canon EOS 5D
Lens:           Canon 17-40mm f4 L
Exposure:       181 sec (181)
Aperture:         f/8
Focal Length: 19 mm
ISO Speed:      50
Exposure Bias:  0 EV

Tips for taking nightscapes

Here is what I learned from experimenting with long exposure nightscapes.

• Always use a steady tripod and remote release. Obviously you won’t be able to hold a camera steady enough for 8 minutes without them. It’s also a good idea to use a remote release that will allow you to hold the exposure open for as long as you need. Therefore it’s important to buy a model that has a shutter release lock.
• You need to set your SLR camera to BULB. This will enable you to keep the exposure open for longer than 30 seconds.
• Try an exposure of 3 minutes to start with, then give or take a few from there depending on how dark it is. Note: Your camera will take just as long to process the image afterwards. Therefore if you take the photograph over 3 minutes exposure, the camera will actually take 6 minutes to complete the shot.
• Turn on your camera’s noise reduction setting (if it has one). Long exposure night shots are known for high noise. Therefore you will most likely need to use noise reduction software on the final image. I used Photoshop CS2 to reduce the noise in the two examples shown above.
• Some photographers will tell you that increasing your ISO setting will reduce the time required to take a nightscape. However, I find this causes high noise that will be seen in the final image. Hence I recommend keeping it to 100 or as low as your camera will allow.
  

The most important thing to remember when taking nightscapes, is that you need to be patient. When each photograph takes at minimum 10 minutes to complete, you need to be prepared to be in for a long night. After taking a few under or over exposed shots, or wobbly ones where a gust of wind blows at the wrong moment, you might end up with a keeper.

Tips for photographing hand held panorama’s

How to photograph sunrises

Photographer and author Rick Sammon shares with you his best advice including 8 tips for photographing the perfect sunrise.

1. Know where the sun rises before you go out taking photographs. Once the sun starts to rise, you won’t want to waist any time repositioning your camera gear.

2. Know what time the sun is expected to rise in your particular area. Buying a copy of the local newspaper will tell you this.

3. Use a tripod, because you will need to set slow shutter speeds due to low light conditions. For example, 1/8th of a second or slower depending on the available light.

4. Underexposing your shot will result in richer, deeper colors and shades of reds, oranges and yellows.

5. If you want a small sun in your composition, use a wide angle lens. If you want a larger sun seen within your composition then use a telephoto zoom lens.

6. For composition purposes, don’t place the sun dead centre in the frame. Try and imagine a grid over your composition, like the one shown in the image below.

If you always ensure the sun’s position is over one of the overlapping areas, you’ll come out a winner every time.

7. Like any landscape, don’t place the horizon dead centre of the frame either. If there is a lot of color and light in the sky, then make sure that area takes up the top 2/3′s of your composition. On the otherhand, if there is a lot of color or reflection in the foreground, then compose your shot so the foreground takes up the bottom 2/3′s of the shot. You can view examples of both of these compositions in the video below.

8. Take off all filters when photograhing towards the sun. Otherwise you will end up with a ghost image of the sun, which will ruin any sunrise photograph. It’s also important to remember that a polarising filter is only useful in creating a more colorful sky when the sun is to the right or left of your position. Therefore, in the majority of cases, polarising filters should also be removed for sunrise photography.

In the video below, Rick Sammon explains all these tips for photographing sunrises in more detail.

Tips for photographing portraits outside during the daytime

One of the biggest gripes of photographers shooting portraits outside during the daytime, is that photo’s often turn out with a perfectly exposed background or skyline, yet the person they are photographing are too dark or underexposed.

Take the image below for example. The camera has adjusted the exposure on the scenery as a whole, therefore mistakenly underexposing the actual person seen on the right. This problem occured because the camera gave the brighter background priority, due to it taking up a larger portion of the composition than the person.

After seeing an image like the one shown above, those new to portrait photography often make the mistake of overexposing the next shot. While this works to expose the person correctly, it also badly overexposes the background, making it appear much too white or blown out. Let’s face it, in many circumstances outdoor portraits are taken to show where the person has been or visited. Wether it be a day at a theme park or a tourist destination.

How to take good outside portraits of a well exposed person and background

The trick to taking a well exposed portrait photograph (outside during the daytime) is by using your camera’s onboard flash to compensate for the underexposure. A camera flash has a range of only a few meters, therefore the extra light won’t effect your background. This will help you achieve a portrait exposure that displays correct lighting for both the person and the background, as demonstrated in the image below.

Note: Your camera most likely will not pop up its onboard flash automatically in bright daylight conditions, so you’ll need to do this manually. Most SLR camera’s nowadays have a small button for this on the camera’s body. The image below shows where the manual flash button can be found on a Canon 400D, however most SLR’s have them in similar positions.

The video workshop shown below has been developed by DSLRTips.com. Towards the end of the demonstration, it also shows how portrait photographers can use the camera’s onboard flash to get rid of unwanted shadows that appear across the face if shooting later in the afternoon, when the sun is lower.

What’s involved with photographing fashion models?

The equipment used to photograph fashion models, isn’t that different to portrait photography. Fashion photography equipment should include:

• A backdrop that needs to be placed behind the model. In the demonstration shown below, the photographer used a metalic sheet, however a simple material sheet would have also been sufficient.
• A studio flash with a soft box is used in the example below for the main source of light. However, if your taking fashion shots at home, natural light coming through a side window will also work well.
• A bounce is also needed to reflect light underneath the models eyes. This will stop any ugly shadows from appearing across the models face.
• Your camera should be mounted either on a studio pole, or a tripod if your budget is limited.

The video demonstration below talks you through numerous pieces of photography equipment that is needed for professional fashion photography. It’s a useful lesson for those photographers who want to know what’s involved in photographing fashion models. Anyone who’s looked into stock photography recently will have noticed how much this style is in demand.

For inspiration – Who are some famous fashion photographers?

• Patrick Demarchelier specialises in high fashion magazines including Vogue and Armani Exchange.
• Ken Weingart – fashion, glamour, headshots and portraits.
• Zach Gold, fashion photographer.
• Rankin Photography, UK based fashion photographer and publisher.

Photographing seagulls

Using this method of photography did work from time to time, however as you can imagine, it wasn’t a very efficient technique. For starters, it takes a lot of room on your camera’s memory card, not to mention having to search through hundreds of shots on your computer afterwards.

After posting a few shots of seagulls in flight on Flickr, it didn’t take me long to realise they were all quite boring and not too different from the hundreds of other photographs of seagulls.

Tips for taking interesting photographs of seagulls

One of best tips a photographer once gave me for photographing birds, was to stop trying to photograph them flying overhead. Look for different angles and compositions from the norm.

For example, be patient and wait for a gust of wind to ruffle their feathers (like in the image above). You can also make good use of a strong morning backlight to help enhance the white feathers.

Like all animal photography, it’s important to try and capture the character or personality of the subject you’re photographing.

For example, if you sit quietly and watch seagulls for a few minutes, it doesn’t take long to notice the bickering, competitive behavior of these birds.

As you can see by the image below, this competitive behaviour is perfect for bird photography. All you need to do is throw a bit of food in to the picture.

Photograph of seagulls taken by pfflyers1 / Craig

The photographer below has captured the elegance of these birds very well by photographing one in the water.

The same photographer (Tammy Jones) at another time, has seen an oportunity to photograph a nautical scene as shown below.

Always take sufficient time to plan and prethink the composition of your shot. Look for opportunities to photograph seagulls in different positions other than those most obvious.

How to photograph flowers with background blur

A new photographer recently emailed saying he was trying to recreate some of the close up flower shots he had seen throughout SLR Photography Guide. More specifically, he was trying to recreate the background blur seen behind the flowers.

Here was his question:

I recently purchased a Nikon D40X that came with two lens, the 18-55 focal length and another one up to 200mm.  I am trying to recreate some of your shots, for example, the close ups of flowers etc, and trying to get the background as blurred as you have it. But I really think one would need a good macro lens, is this correct?

This is actually a question many new photographers ask. The answer is no, you don’t necessarily need a good macro lens to achieve a nice background blur when photographing flowers. A telephoto zoom lens with a focal length of 200mm or higher will also get the same effect quite easily.

How to use a telephoto zoom lens to photograph flowers with a nice background blur?

To achieve a blurred background with a telephoto zoom lens is easy. The first step is to set your camera’s Aperture to a low number, for example F/5. Now fully extend your lens focal length out to the maximum (200mm or higher depending on your lens). Then move in as close to the subject as your camera will allow, yet still be able to focus. Now take the shot and view it in your LCD screen.

If you find the background still isn’t as blurred as you’d like it to be, try picking a flower where the actual background elements are further away from the subject you are photographing. The further away the background elements are from the flower, the nicer and more effective the background blur.