The ethereal atmospheres of light at dusk and soft moonlight, have a character and ambience all their own. I tried to incorporate these atmospheres in my photographs.
The course notes suggested a number of different images to try and capture.
- A floodlit building
- A brightly-lit store front
- A large interior with many people, such as a shopping centre
- A raised view looking along a busy road, such as from a pedestrian overpass.
Photograph set 1: Floodlit buildings
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| Canon EF24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens, 24mm, f/4.5, 3.2s, ISO 100 |
As I said earlier Cambridge doesn't really have bright-lit buildings. I shot this image just before sunset and used quite a fast shutter speed considering the available light so I could capture the ghostly image of the person walking.
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| Canon EF24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens, 24mm, f/11, 8s, ISO 125 |
I wanted this image to be sharp so used a shorter shutter speed and increased the exposure time and used my tripod and cable release to avoid camera shake.
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| Canon EF24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens, 28mm, f/10, 20s, ISO 125 |
The light was fading and I still wanted a sharp image so increased the exposure time a little more and increase the aperture a little. I wanted to try and avoid any noise and kept the ISO at a relatively low level.
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| Canon EF24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens, 24mm, f/8, 30s, ISO 125 |
Photograph set 2: A brightly-lit store front
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| Canon EF24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens, 24mm, f/6.3, 1.3s, ISO 125 |
For this first shot I tried to hand hold the camera and thus it has a little camera shake. In hindsight I should have increased the ISO and therefore been able to increase the shutter speed.
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| Canon EF24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens, 28mm, f/5, 1.3s, ISO 125 |
For this second shot I was able to steady the camera on a post and therefore shoot the image hand held without compromising the ISO level. However, because this shot is hand held there is still camera shake.
Photograph set 3: A raised view looking along a busy road
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| Canon EF24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens, 24mm, f/7.1, 30s, ISO 125 |
Most auto-focus systems in modern cameras operate using contrast-detection. In dark conditions contrasts are often too low for auto-focus to work. I therefore used the available light from the passing cars to manual focus this scene.
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| Canon EF24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens, 24mm, f/5.6, 15s, ISO 125 |
Some more examples of low light photography in Cambridge
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| Canon EF24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens, 35mm, f/18, 15s, ISO 100 |
This image was taken just prior to sunset and I tried to make use of available light by using a long exposure with a small aperture and low ISO.
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| Canon EF24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens, 47mm, f/11, 25s, ISO 100 |
Photographing during low light can be fun and rewarding. However, it does require a little skill and some specialist equipment such as a tripod and cable release are both extremely useful.
