I spend quite some time doing night shots lately and had some valuable info from NPN and several kind tips from Floris regarding the technical side of it.
Here is what happened to me just last night. I arrived to a previous spotted location just during sunset, already had a composition on my mind so basically set up the camera and started to wait.
About 45 minutes later (twilight), the light hit the sweet spot where the contrast is pretty uniform in the whole scene and good balanced exposures can be had at around 60-120 seconds at iso 400.
I made my shot and it looks like this (it's a quick a dirty conversion to jpeg and some sharpening for the web): http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=4278994642&size=large&posted=1
Than, i covered my camera and waited for some time till it got really dark and made my stars shot at iso 1600
At home i made a VERY quick and basic blend with halos and without toning down the FG. It looks like this (it's a very very bad blending job, made just to illustrate my dilemma): http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=4278991634&size=large&posted=1
Well, here is the deal, I'm really really lost here, just don't know what to do- the first shot is as natural as it can get at 72 sec exposure, you can see some subtle star trails and it has volume and plenty of sharp and noiseless details in the fg.The sky can be worked a bit to bring up the passing clouds. The colors are as they got out of the camera.
The second shot, IF blended RIGHT would be one of those night blends that got popular during the last year or so (they are great and I always WOW them in the ESS forum), BUT i'll have to tone down the FG to an almost complete darkness in order to get it look natural with the sky, loosing in the process all the details and the volume until the rocks look basically like silhouettes.
I know it's a very personal decision and i have some thoughts about it, but would love to read what do you think about the whole dilemma. Any additional comments on landscape trends are very welcome too.
Thanks in advance for all the comments.
Nicolas.
Posted by Stan Rose on January 16, 2010 at 9:56 AM
I dont see the 'dilemma' quite the sme way you do. First off, dont concern yourself with trends or popularities--concern yourself with your personal vision and no one elses. My own approach with the night shot is to try to convey as much of the personal experience as you can through the photograph, and in most cases that means going for a natural looking result. I don't think the processing part of your 'dilemma' will be as great if you get an accurate looking fg exposure. In your first example, it looks more like a daytime shot or at least within a short time of sunrise/sunset rather than 40+ minutes after sunset. Its too bright to be "believable" as a night time shot. If you darken it, you lose detail but so what? What kind of detail were you seeing anyways in the dark. Now, to be honest, at least with present technology a photograph simply isnt going to convey the experience of being in a natural setting at night, i think being out in darkness (especially without any artificial lighting around) connects us to a very deep/primitive part of our brain, and that's something you cant just easily do with a 2D photograph. I just started dabbling with some nightime stuff (my latest ESS post is an example) in the last year, and i can tell you that it is not something you can expect to get perfect the first time, 2d, 3d etc. Its a constant learning process to discover what strategies will work for a particular case. Anyhow, have fun with it!
Thanks Stan, when I mention the trends, i basically refer to the urge we sometimes have to repeat someones experience at the field.
I see your point, it's true, night is dark and few details can be seen very good. The 1st one i just provided is left without toning down, it's basically a converted to jpeg raw. I overexposed it a bit at the field to avoid the noise.
Right now, i'm leaning towards working the 1st shot down to create a darker scene with subtle trails. The scene as i remember it had quite an amount of details because of the light reflected from the high clouds.
P.D. I just realized that i described the blended night shots as trendy, but they are beautiful indeed when done right.
By the way, after reading and rereading my post and Stan's answer, i just realize that the main dilemma in this case has a deeper root and it's basically about the surreal or "impossible" vs. the realistic from almost a philosophical approach. And the dilemma per se appears after trying to mix or blend those looks
Posted by Kent Staubus on January 16, 2010 at 11:26 AM
I am mainly a night photographer in winter, since it's dark so many hours of the day. I actually try very hard to NOT replicate what others are doing, but instead try doing something completely different. For example, I am careful to avoid star trails as I think they are becomming cliche. Instead, I use flash to light up my subjects. When I control or even create the light, I am in complete control of the image.
I like your second shot but not your first. First one looks so much like daylight I'm thinking why even bother. I'm not a fan of blurred water, but I'm not sure how you could make it sharp here. It would be difficult to flash all those rocks and not get a lot of spill. One thing you might try is stacking a bunch of photos with short shutter speed, maybe. I think you're on the right track with second photo.
I've begun playing with multi-exposure and blending but so far only have one shot I like. Like everything it takes practice and skill to pull off. Train was moving at 40 mph, and I lit it with 2 monolights and tight 20 degree grids. Long exposure on the tree. Second shot I just used one big honking monolight with 30 degree grid and sync. I wanted to let the shutter speed drag for about 30 seconds to bring out stars in the sky, but it was heavily overcast. I'll try it another night. Final shot is a rare moon dog. Standard long exposure. The wind was blowing about 20 mph and the temp was 32 below zero. No trains were running so I made photos where I could find them.
I happen to be a fan of Maxfield Parrish, so lighting that doesn't make "sense" isn't a bother me at all. In fact, it more or less explores the bounds between what our eyes see and what a camera sees. Your second shot is noteworthy in the Parrish vein, and I like it a lot. The first simply doesn't have enough interest in that huge expanse of sky to carry the rest of the comp.
I played with multiple exposures in landscapes long, long ago with a 4x5 and film, but the difficulties in capturing everything in-camera were almost insurmountable and horribly time consuming. The relative ease of doing so today with multiple captures and computer blends should be grounds for me to revisit the attempt. Thanks for the inspiration!
Like Stan, I don't see a dilemma here. I just try to balance the luminosity of the foreground, sky, and stars, until I like the way they look. The blending is often atrociously hard.. no way around that really for the look I like. Don't miss the usefulness of the lighten blend mode - it looks to me like you could drop the exposure of the first one significantly, plop the star shot over the top in lighten mode, and maybe mask out some stars where the clouds are, and it'd look pretty natural. Part of the trouble with night shots is in order for them to look acceptable in print it works best if you brighten up the image as much as possible without losing the feeling of night - getting that balance right is one of the hard parts.
Your blend actually looks like it was taken under moonlight, which can work just fine if that's the look you're going for.
Kent>Thank you. Controlling the light seems to be an interesting option and i've done some light painting in the past. I feel i like more the results attained with a led flashlight rather than using flash.
Hank> thank you, i got the same feeling about that huge empty gap in the sky. Glad to hear you'll be attempting it.
Floris> well, thanks a lot and thanks again. I was really having a headache whit this blending.
The lighten mode, did the trick for me just as you've described it. I balanced the exposure in the FG using a reference shot i've made at high iso which for me represented basically the scene i've witnessed- textures in the FG catching reflected light rom the clouds, and some stars appearing behind the clouds. And now it's almost the way I've wanted it to be when I set up my camera in the first place: a slightly surreal scene in a "more than a human eye can see" approach. And i think it could print well also; I've checked for artifacts and noise. http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=4280261414&size=large&posted=1
Thank you!
Discussion
7 repliesHere is what happened to me just last night. I arrived to a previous spotted location just during sunset, already had a composition on my mind so basically set up the camera and started to wait.
About 45 minutes later (twilight), the light hit the sweet spot where the contrast is pretty uniform in the whole scene and good balanced exposures can be had at around 60-120 seconds at iso 400.
I made my shot and it looks like this (it's a quick a dirty conversion to jpeg and some sharpening for the web):
http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=4278994642&size=large&posted=1
Than, i covered my camera and waited for some time till it got really dark and made my stars shot at iso 1600
At home i made a VERY quick and basic blend with halos and without toning down the FG. It looks like this (it's a very very bad blending job, made just to illustrate my dilemma):
http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=4278991634&size=large&posted=1
Well, here is the deal, I'm really really lost here, just don't know what to do- the first shot is as natural as it can get at 72 sec exposure, you can see some subtle star trails and it has volume and plenty of sharp and noiseless details in the fg.The sky can be worked a bit to bring up the passing clouds. The colors are as they got out of the camera.
The second shot, IF blended RIGHT would be one of those night blends that got popular during the last year or so (they are great and I always WOW them in the ESS forum), BUT i'll have to tone down the FG to an almost complete darkness in order to get it look natural with the sky, loosing in the process all the details and the volume until the rocks look basically like silhouettes.
I know it's a very personal decision and i have some thoughts about it, but would love to read what do you think about the whole dilemma. Any additional comments on landscape trends are very welcome too.
Thanks in advance for all the comments.
Nicolas.
I see your point, it's true, night is dark and few details can be seen very good. The 1st one i just provided is left without toning down, it's basically a converted to jpeg raw. I overexposed it a bit at the field to avoid the noise.
Right now, i'm leaning towards working the 1st shot down to create a darker scene with subtle trails. The scene as i remember it had quite an amount of details because of the light reflected from the high clouds.
P.D. I just realized that i described the blended night shots as trendy, but they are beautiful indeed when done right.
I like your second shot but not your first. First one looks so much like daylight I'm thinking why even bother. I'm not a fan of blurred water, but I'm not sure how you could make it sharp here. It would be difficult to flash all those rocks and not get a lot of spill. One thing you might try is stacking a bunch of photos with short shutter speed, maybe. I think you're on the right track with second photo.
I've begun playing with multi-exposure and blending but so far only have one shot I like. Like everything it takes practice and skill to pull off. Train was moving at 40 mph, and I lit it with 2 monolights and tight 20 degree grids. Long exposure on the tree. Second shot I just used one big honking monolight with 30 degree grid and sync. I wanted to let the shutter speed drag for about 30 seconds to bring out stars in the sky, but it was heavily overcast. I'll try it another night. Final shot is a rare moon dog. Standard long exposure. The wind was blowing about 20 mph and the temp was 32 below zero. No trains were running so I made photos where I could find them.
Kent in SD
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/duckgrabber/ChrstmsTank.jpg
http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s5/duckgrabber/nCorsonGdFth.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2656/4239108157_5ba30f856e_o.jpg
I played with multiple exposures in landscapes long, long ago with a 4x5 and film, but the difficulties in capturing everything in-camera were almost insurmountable and horribly time consuming. The relative ease of doing so today with multiple captures and computer blends should be grounds for me to revisit the attempt. Thanks for the inspiration!
Your blend actually looks like it was taken under moonlight, which can work just fine if that's the look you're going for.
Hank> thank you, i got the same feeling about that huge empty gap in the sky. Glad to hear you'll be attempting it.
Floris> well, thanks a lot and thanks again. I was really having a headache whit this blending.
The lighten mode, did the trick for me just as you've described it. I balanced the exposure in the FG using a reference shot i've made at high iso which for me represented basically the scene i've witnessed- textures in the FG catching reflected light rom the clouds, and some stars appearing behind the clouds. And now it's almost the way I've wanted it to be when I set up my camera in the first place: a slightly surreal scene in a "more than a human eye can see" approach. And i think it could print well also; I've checked for artifacts and noise.
http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=4280261414&size=large&posted=1
Thank you!