Shutter Mike Photography

The “narrow” in this instance is in reference to the depth of field used in the photograph.  The part of the image that is in focus is a very small (narrow) portion while the rest of the image is blurred out.

Ideally in photography you will compose your image, wait for or create the right lighting and have a lot of patience until the subject is just as you want it.  But sometimes time is not on your side and things don’t go your way in photography and the world’s lack of cooperation results in a less than ideal photograph.  That is where a little post-processing trickery can come in handy.  Yesterday’s Photo of the Day of the Alamo did not look like that when I started.  The weather was not cooperative while I was in San Antonio so I had cloudy, gray skies for three days.  but even if you had a perfect sky day there are other things that can become an unwanted distraction in your image.  For crowded tourist sites such as the Alamo people will probably be your biggest challenge.  But with a little PhotoShop magic gray skies c an be blue again and unwanted photo intruders can disappear.

My first attempt at photographing star trails was not a total loss.  I did not get the images I was hoping for but I did get some images that were acceptable and a good list of lessons learned for attempt number 2 (and 3 and 4 and 5…).

First the basics, what is star trail photography?  A star trail photograph is one in which you capture the motion of the stars as the earth rotatesby using long exposure shots.  The trail of light you see in the image is the star at various points in the night sky as time passes and the earth moves.  In my image above I got the start of the concept.  But most star trail photos you see will have significantly more movement, i.e. longer trails, of the stars.  So for next time I have a few pointers.

1) The darker the sky the better.  That means you are going to need to head away from metropolitan areas and the light pollution they emit.  I also shot this three nights before the full moon which resulted in too much moon light to get optimal star trail images.  So drive out into the desert or country away from the city lights and consult a moon calendar before you go to make sure you have it as dark as possible.

2) No exceptions, you are going to need a tripod for this.  Hand holding will never work unless you have the steadiness of a rock for very long exposures.  But why risk it, take your tripod.

3) Focusing can be a bit tricky with photography in environments that are this dark.  If you can focus manually that is good.  Alternatively you can focus on something that is lit enough to see in the distance with auto focus then switch the camera to manual focus and aim the camera in the direction you plan to shoot.  Don’t do your star trail photography in the direction of the light source.  This will lock int he camera set auto focus and maintain it as long as you don’t change the focal length.

4) Camera settings: You will want to experiment here and find what works best for the setting you are in, but in general these are the settings that I found worked for me.

• The lower the ISO the better to prevent noise (100 is best)
• An f/stop in the range of 2.8 – 4.6 worked well for me
• Set white balance to auto

5) Composition: Composition was a bit of an after thought my first time out photographing star trails.  But it shouldn’t be.  This is a matter of personal taste, but I think having something in addition to the night sky in your composition really enhances it.  That could be a building, trees (be careful of windy nights where a tree can blur in a long exposure) or a mountain or hill  the distance.  Make sure you pick something that is going to hold relatively still during your long exposures.

6) For the actual photographs you have two options.  Really long exposures using bulb mode or multiple long exposures.  I tried both and found that the bulb mode exposures did not work well for me.  I was getting too much noise and light interference.  If I had had a darker night that might not have been an issue.  But in this setting I found that the multiple long exposure method worked better. To use this method:

• Set your shutter speed to 30 seconds.
• Set the drive mode (as it is called on my Sony) to continuous.  Might be sports or action mode on some cameras.
• Connect a remote shutter release cable and after you click it once lock it so that it stays held down.  This will allow the camera to continually take 30 second shots one right after the other.
• The number of shots you will need depends on how long you want your star trails to be.  I would recommend at least 5 minutes, which is 10 shots.  But the longer the better.
• DO NOT MOVE THE TRIPOD OR CAMERA.  This will ruin things for the next step.

7) Processing the images.  Once you have 10+ images you are going to need to combine them into one to make the final image.  There is a free star trail software program you can download that does a really good job of stacking your images and giving you a JPEG or TIFF file.

8) A few extras to bring along that can help.

• A flashlight
• A chair, you are going to want to be comfortable while you wait for these long shots.
• Extra charged batteries.  Long exposures like these can really drain your batteries.  Be prepared.
• A guide to the stars.  You might want to know what you are photographing.
• A jacket.  It can get cold out in the middle of nowhere at night.
• A friend.  It can also get lonely and scary out in the middle of no where at night.

So now I think I am ready to head out to the desert again and try my hand at star trail photography once more.  The next new moon is towards the end of the month according to my moon calendar and I am ready with what I learned this first time around.  Check back for attempt number two.

I have lived in Arizona (almost) all my life and I am sorry to say I have only been to the Grand Canyon once (and that was over 20 years ago as a kid).  I know, I should be ashamed of myself being a photographer with this “hole in the ground” in my back yard and not taking full advantage of it.  It is on my 2011 Photography Resolution list to get to the Grand Canyon sometime this year to photograph.  So Outdoor Photographer magazine’s recent article by photographer George Stocking is a great inspiration to me.  10 Tips For The Grand Canyon offers the insider tips of a great landscape photographer and is well worth a  read even if you don’t have any immediate plans to visit the Grand Canyon.

Night time photography can be a bit tricky.  It requires a bit more thought and equipment than daytime shooting.  But with some practice you can easily get the hang of it and the benefits are well worth the extra effort and time.  So I have put together a short list of night photography tips that I have picked up along the way to help you out when shooting after dark.

1. Always (always) use a tripod.  The settings necessary for good night time photography do not allow for hand holding the camera.
2. Use a low ISO (400 or less).  This may sound counter-intuitive since a higher ISO is generally used for low light situations. But if you are following tip #1 above you can keep the ISO low and compensate for the low light with aperture and shutter speed thereby keeping noise to a minimum.
3. Set your aperture to f/5.6 – f/8.0.  This is obviously going to depend on your exact lighting conditions but this is a good rule of thumb and starting point.
4. Use l0nger shutter speeds.  With the low ISO and aperture int he f/8.0 neighborhood you can get the proper exposure through keeping the shutter open longer.  Experiment with different shutter speeds to get your ideal exposure.
5. Keep the anti-shake off.  When you camera is on a tripod this feature is not necessary and the camera might actually try to compensate for shake that is not there.
6. Use a cable release.  The less you touch the camera directly the better.  Event he act of pressing the shutter could be enough movement to blur the image.
7. After framing your shot close the eye piece cover to prevent light from getting in.  Since you will not have your eye against the eye piece during these long exposures you want to use another method to keep the light out.  Most cameras have either a cover you can place over the eye piece or a little “door” that closes over it.

I came to the HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography party late.  Before I really understood what HDR was all about I saw so many photographs processed using the “grunge” and “painterly” settings for HDR and I thought they were just too over-processed for my taste.  So I associated all HDR with those looks.  But after I started playing around with it I realized there were so many more options.  Also, for architectural and real estate photography HDR can save an image by allowing  you to expose for both the light and dark areas of your subject and then merge them into one perfectly exposed image.  There is still room for artistic interpretation as well and if the grunge or painterly or another custom processing of your image works then that is great too.

Here are two images to give an idea of what you can do with HDR photography versus processing the same image in PhotoShop.

This is the PhotoShop edited photograph.   I did not do much here but I did increase the vibrance and saturation a bit and lightened the image overall.  This is not a bad image in general.  But the sky is very dull and the shadows in the lower left corner are a little dark.

This is the HDR processed version of the image above.  It is a combination of three exposures of the same scene; one exposed normally, one over exposed and one under exposed.  This is the essence of HDR photography in that it allows you to correctly expose for all areas of the scene with different shots and then merge them all together.  This image is not perfect either; the saturation could be toned down a bit and the patio furniture has lost its true color.  But those things are easily corrected and it is more a matter of personal taste.  What is more important is the sky and the dark areas.  I was able to expose for the sky alone in one image and capture the blue hues and the glow of the late afternoon sun.  The shadows on the back wall and around the rocker are also now gone.

I have been dabbling in real estate and architectural photography lately as well as HDR processing.  It is not as easy as it may appear to get the perfect shot of real estate.  So practice is essential.  A friend of a friend was kind enough to let me practice on their beautiful Scottsdale home recently.  Here are a few of the shots after I processed them through Photomatix Pro 4.0.2.

A quick Google search will turn up everything you need to know about how to photograph fireworks.  So rather than reinvent the wheel I have a few quick tips here and then a directory of some of the better fireworks photography sites I have found.

Quick Tips for Photographing Fireworks

1) Tripod – It goes without saying (although I am saying it), you MUST use a tripod for decent fireworks photographs.  With the longer shutter speeds required for night photography the steadiness a tripod provides is essential.

2) Aperture – You might think that since it is dark out you want to open you aperture up to f/5.6 or bigger.  Makes sense, but actually I have found that keeping your aperture around f/8 is ideal.  You need to balance the night and the great amount of light that the fireworks give off.  Use your aperture priority setting as well so you can determine the f/stop and the camera can set the shutter speed accordingly.

3) ISO – My Sony Alpha 850 can go up to an ISO of 6400.  For extreme low light situations that might be perfect.  But remember that even in the best cameras the higher the ISO the more noise you are going to get.  Since you are already using a tripod you can set your ISO lower and take advantage of the steadiness of the tripod to use longer shutter speeds rather than higher ISO.  If possible keep your ISO at around 100-200.

4) Focus – It is not easy to focus on the distant horizon and leave it focused while you wait for the fireworks to explode while on auto focus.  One good trick is to let the camera focus while on auto and then while holding that focus switch it to manual so that you basically lock in the focus.

For more great fireworks photography tips here are some additional resources.

Tips for Photographing Fireworks

How to Photograph Fireworks Displays from Digital Photography School

Photograph Fireworks – Wired How-To Wiki

Thanks to Matt at Awesome Toy Blog for pointing out this great Photography Cheat Sheet designed by Miguel Gantioqui.  It has all the things you need to remember for capturing a great photograph without relying on the auto setting of your camera all awesomely designed into one “cheat sheet.”