Posted by Erik Stensland on December 4, 2006 at 11:25 PM
I tried to shoot a Jack Brauer type image tonight, you know the long exposure from some crazy location. Well, tonight I climbed up on one of my favorite cliffs overlooking Horseshoe Park and set up my tripod as low as I could due to the howling winds which wanted to throw it off. I arrived before it was too dark so that I could just focus the camera and when it got dark enough I took two long exposure shots with my LF and then a couple with my digital. This image is about 3 minutes long. I probably should have waited until later to get more stars, but I was freezing and couldn't take it any longer. If I wanted to arrive later to do this, how could I focus? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Posted by Tom Kennon on December 4, 2006 at 11:58 PM
Hey Eric, here is a link to a pretty cool site that with a nice video on night photography. It goes into pretty good detail about the setup, focus and has a good formula to use with your digital camera for exposure of different scenes. Hope this is of some use.
Posted by Grant Collier on December 5, 2006 at 12:04 AM
Nice first "crazy night shot" attempt. I mostly only have the safe, two-feet-from-my-car night shots.
If you arrive later, you just need to be sure and focus at infinity. With your LF, you could focus on something very far away beforehand and just leave the focus there. With your digital, you can usually just turn the focus dial all the way CCW and it will be at infinity (though this isn't the case with all lenses, some of which go to infinity and beyond!). Also, if the moon is out, you can just focus on the moon (this is easier with autofocus than with manual).
A bigger issue I've found is trying to compose the shot in the dark, especially w/out a moon. So I like to arrive not too long after sunset, compose the shot, and wait for it to get dark. With digital, you can just take a shot in the dark (bad pun intended), see how it comes out and readjust if necessary (though the noise with digital is a big issue).
Thanks for the input guys! I look forward to watching the tutorial. Grant, my digital is one that focuses beyond infinity. I tried to focus on the moon but it wouldn't do that in autofocus so I had to do it manually. I didn't get it as sharp as I thought. My little viewfinder on my digital makes manual focusing a bit of a challenge. Getting any sort of comp after dark was certainly a challenge. I guess I just need to get there early, dress even warmer and have two tripods for each of my cameras. I'll have to try again when I get a chance. Thanks!
Posted by Tony Bouchard on December 5, 2006 at 11:00 AM
Erik,
My experience with Canon Lenses is that you can trust them to be right at the infinity mark. Give it a try sometime in better light and see if focusing manually to the infinity mark gives you infinity focus.
Posted by Jack Brauer on December 5, 2006 at 12:08 PM
"Brauer attempt"... haha LOL! Nice shot! I like the rolly nature of the terrain you isolated. With the LF, I've found that for the most part you pretty much have to set up at least by dusk to ensure that the focussing is perfect (and it needs to be perfect in order to be able to use an open aperature to let the stars in). If it's a full moon and you're in brightly lit snow (foreground and background) sometimes there's enough light to be able to focus, depending on the lens. Also I've had success with just focussing on the stars, but that only really works if it's mainly a star shot with mostly sky and a distant skyline (no complex foreground).
Posted by Joseph Finn on December 5, 2006 at 12:32 PM
Any attempt to try what Jack does, gets a huge round of applause from me. In my experience (not much) the key to night photography is patience (this may be why I don't do it a whole lot) Great job though Erik.
Maybe we can do a RMNP shoot before the holidays, haven't been out in a while...........J
Posted by Rick Dunn on December 5, 2006 at 2:57 PM
Sounds like... fun?
Nice effort. Nothing unique to add regarding focusing - I was thinking that focusing the digital to infinity should work, and on the LF, focusing on the stars if possible. I think it's Brent D. who has a focusing scale on the bed of his LF, but I don't know if that approach is accurate enough to trust without being able to confirm focus with something being visible on the glass.
During our Wind Rivers outing, I learned another one of Jack's secrets - a small flask of a hooch to help keep you warm!
Posted by Chris Whitted on December 5, 2006 at 10:14 PM
I ran across a page about night focusing a couple of weeks ago when I was debating on trying to shoot the Leonids (I didn't). It's primarily aimed at astrophotography, but here it is anyway: http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/FOCUS/METHODS.HTM
Discussion
8 replieshttp://www.radiantvista.com/archive/video_tutorials/2/
Tom Kennon
If you arrive later, you just need to be sure and focus at infinity. With your LF, you could focus on something very far away beforehand and just leave the focus there. With your digital, you can usually just turn the focus dial all the way CCW and it will be at infinity (though this isn't the case with all lenses, some of which go to infinity and beyond!). Also, if the moon is out, you can just focus on the moon (this is easier with autofocus than with manual).
A bigger issue I've found is trying to compose the shot in the dark, especially w/out a moon. So I like to arrive not too long after sunset, compose the shot, and wait for it to get dark. With digital, you can just take a shot in the dark (bad pun intended), see how it comes out and readjust if necessary (though the noise with digital is a big issue).
My experience with Canon Lenses is that you can trust them to be right at the infinity mark. Give it a try sometime in better light and see if focusing manually to the infinity mark gives you infinity focus.
Maybe we can do a RMNP shoot before the holidays, haven't been out in a while...........J
Nice effort. Nothing unique to add regarding focusing - I was thinking that focusing the digital to infinity should work, and on the LF, focusing on the stars if possible. I think it's Brent D. who has a focusing scale on the bed of his LF, but I don't know if that approach is accurate enough to trust without being able to confirm focus with something being visible on the glass.
During our Wind Rivers outing, I learned another one of Jack's secrets - a small flask of a hooch to help keep you warm!