In the broadest sense of the concept, twilight/night shots are "alternative to the norm" in photography. The "norm" is usually daylight or flash photography.
Why do I go through the mental gymnastics? Well, as with many things, it's all about me.
I took a photo last evening that I wanted to post. Technically, it belongs in the Canon forum. But I would like to get a topic going for the display of twilight and night photos, and the techniques involved. Like denoir (and some of the other amazing photographers here), I've been drawn to the magical time when the light is more chromatic with a balance of sky blue, sunset glow, and street/house lighting all mingling with each other.
I've become a fan of the Alt forum, and after the nice collaboration on the Pano-mania thread, I thought this would be a better home for displaying these types of work than either the Canon, Nikon or Gear forums.
I'd like this thread to be open to all gear, not only the novel Alt stuff, but anything you can capture an appropriate image with. Color or B&W, city, landscape or astro-photography -- the richness of Night, and it's handmaidens, Dawn and Dusk.
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I snagged this shot as we left a restaurant, and were just about to get into the car at the valet service. I grabbed the camera and walked to the rear of the parking lot, snapping a series in the hope of getting a half-way sharp image. Not a "perfect" picture technically (a tripod would have been awesome to shoot at ISO 100!), but it is the shot that I got, and I'm happy to have it.
Hand held in dimming light around 8:20.
Canon 60D, 24-70L @ 50mm, 1/50 @ f/4, ISO 1600. Processed in LR3.4.
Ok I will bite, with something really "alt". Taken with a cooled camera, a 8.3mp APS-C sized sensor, cooled to -20C. The sensor is monochrome and individual exposures are taken for Red, Green, Blue and luminance, with appropriate filters. Taken with an astronomical mount and a 5" refractor, that gives a 484mm focal length at f3.8. This is 8 luminance, 4 red, 3 green, and 3 blue frames, each 10 minutes long. Stacked and aligned, then processed in Photoshop. IC 4603 a reflection and emission nebula
The subject in the middle is called IC4603 and is in the constellation Ophiuchus. Lost of dark dusty areas and some interesting colors.
Gunzorro wrote:
In the broadest sense of the concept, twilight/night shots are "alternative to the norm" in photography. The "norm" is usually daylight or flash photography.
This statement makes no sense to me. Art should have no limits or dictum of normalcy.
Hehe, Jim, a third of my photos or so are night time shots. During my intense 5DII + Zeiss period last year I was out shooting every other evening. I also have standard walking routes so a lot of the shots are of the same subject. Here's a standard stop of mine. These are just M9 shots - I have at least as many from that same spot with the 5DII:
I do almost all my shooting at night, but my kit is as far from "alt" as you can get: 5D II, 100L, 50/1.4, 24LII TSE. My experiences with the Oly 50/1.4 and Ozunon 24/2.8 really soured me on the idea of getting good results with cheap alt glass. I'd love to shoot with some Leica or Zeiss glass one day...
And Gunzorro, where do you live? You have an uncanny knack for creating threads that drag me out of lurkerhood. If you're near DC, we should go shooting...
Interestingly, I find many "Alt" lenses are outperformed by the Canon 24-70 when it comes to shooting at night. I think this is simply because the modern Canon coatings are so good and prevent reflections from the sensor which I think can be a problem with older and otherwise "better" lenses.
For night work I would choose the Canon 24-70 over any other lens that I own, Leica and Zeiss included.
Alan -- That's the first time I've seen the Sigma @ 12mm on full frame for an LA twilight -- not bad on the sharpness! And same for the Samyung 14.
And I see the new Ritz Carlton on the far right. . .
Which segway's into my little series.
Here's a study of an assignment where I got to shoot the J. W. Marriot/Ritz Carlton opening last year at the "AEG Wonderland" at Staples/Nokia/LA Live. I thought it might be interesting to show a series variation on theme, along the lines of denoir's lovely series above.
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Here's the test shot phase. Even though these were tests, after we saw the results, we knew we could use them for the intended IBEW/NECA annual calendar if all else failed. These first shots were a week or two before the Grand Opening, following an afternoon ground survey of angles and candidate buildings to obtain permission to shoot from.
All images shot with 5D and 24mm (24-70L) with intention to composite dark/light images for final publication -- these will be the "light" versions -- dark was to capture windows and signage with backlighting.
This first one is for fun while I waited for the light to be right.
Best result for lighting balance, if needed for publication. We were very lucky to have nice clouds on the test shot day. We had an option to PS the clouds into the final image, if needed for effect -- I had marked my camera position, so I could comp the thing together.
Final shots in sequence for Grand Opening Day, with all the surrounding madness and newsworthiness. I think it is interesting to see the progression of lighting effects as the twilight turns into night. I hope you feel the same.
Beginning sequence to establish image and focus (not intended for use -- too early).
But . . . As it got dark, the arc-lights became highly visible and I decided to switch up my approach. I upped the ISO to 1600! (later 800), and dropped the aperture to 2.8 and then 3.2 to have a chance of "freezing" the sweeping lights (if you can call around 1/10 of second "action stopping"!). A chancy move, but it paid off, and the ISO 1600 image sequence was chosen for the final 16x20 calendar image! You should know these last ones are so out of my comfort zone, coming from 4x5 and Velvia when I first started this annual series back in the early 90s! Live and learn.
