This is part two in a mini-series. This series looks at silhouettes, shadows and light through smoke. They are all essentially the same thing, but we’ll pull them apart to see the subtle differences.
Examples
Bottles on cycle – Elevated view – NepalClose-up of orange long leaves – USA – HawaiiThe shadows of prayer flags are shown against the side of Boudhanath Stupa in Kathmandu, NepalBlack and white image of a curving sand dune in both the light and shadow – Algodones Dunes, California
What you’re looking to do with shadows is to make sure they are well defined. If your camera is on Auto Mode and there is a lot of shadow, it will try to lighten those shadows so they aren’t so black. Remember Making Tone Black, Black? That’s why shadows don’t come out as true to life as they should.
What you want to do is meter for the light areas so they are exposed properly. Conversely, you can meter for the shadow and then adjust your exposure bias/compensation to darken the shadows. Either way will work, but metering for the light (especially if you have a gray card) works best.
Here’s the experiment you can run:
1) Set your camera on Manual mode. ISO 100. If you don’t want to use Manual mode, you will need use the Auto Exposure Lock feature of your camera.
1.5) Depending on your subject, pick an aperture that is appropriate for the amount of depth of field you are looking for.
2) Using spot metering, meter off the brighter areas of the scene. In the example above, I would meter off the pavement as it is tonally close to 18% gray, which is what my camera is looking for. If the subject you are metering off of is bright, you’ll want to change shutter speed until the meter reading from your camera reads about +2/3 to +1 1/3 too bight. If you are metering off the shadow area, make sure it is – 2/3 to -1 1/3 too dark.
3) Recompose and shoot!
DONE!
The trick with using Manual mode in this case is to understand what you are metering off of and what your camera is looking for. If you pointed your camera directly at the shadow area and set the shutter speed so it was lined up with zero, then the shadows will be too light.
There really isn’t a top secret trick to shadows other than knowing where you’re metering and why. Metering for the light area (areas that are being hit by light) will work better, but you need to compensate for their color. All of this is solved by using an 18% gray card and placing it in the light to be metered. Then you can just zero your reading with the shutter speed and you’re set!
Tomorrow we will cap off the mini-series by covering light through smoke. Can you figure out who to make that one work?
Questions? Pop ’em like Pez in the comments section below or email me at peter@peterwestcarey.com.
Today we will cover sun stars. This experiment is simple and can be a lot of fun. First, tell me what the main difference is between these two photos of the Treasury at Petra in Jordan:
The answer is: the sun in the second shot has far more ‘rays’ coming out of it.
This is because I used different aperture settings between the two shots. In the first photo, the f-stop is f/10 and in the second photo the f-stop is f/22. When the aperture of a lens is closed down further, the light coming in around those aperture blades shapes differently when it comes from a strong source, like the sun (or light bulbs).
That’s not to say you don’t get any star effect when the aperture is open further, it is simply more pronounced the further you stop down the aperture. You can use this at night to great affect when there are multiple light sources.
2) Jack up your aperture to the highest number it will accomplish.
3) Find yourself a light source. The sun works, but so do candles.
4) Frame your image (from this point forward, no excuse for boring composition!!).
5) Take a shot!
Done!
This technique can be a lot of fun but it can also become overused. The normal habit for most starting out in photography is to play around excessively with a new technique until they settle in. Eventually they don’t want to use it all the time. That’s normal, so go play!
Things To Consider:
Your shutter speed will slow down when using this technique. Keep that in mind if shooting at night (the second shot of Cusco was a 2 second exposure with the camera held against a column).
You might need to increase your ISO to compensate.
Play around with your exposure as metering can be freaked out by pointing your camera near the sun.
If there is dust on your sensor, a smaller aperture (higher number) will show it. Be prepared to clean things in the computer if this is the case.
Increasing Contrast and/or Clarity in your post processing software to make the rays of the light show more.
Questions? Pop ’em like Pez in the comments section below. or email me at peter@peterwestcarey.com.
Light Trails take a bit of imagination to conceptualize and shoot. While not vital, it helps to be able to plot out how you want your image to appear to understand the camera settings for this type of photography.
Here’s the deal; light comes in to your camera and hits your sensor. As mentioned previously, your sensor’s pixels and little scales measuring the amount of light ‘weighing’ on them (‘striking’ them is another way to think of it and is more accurate).
The more light that hits the sensor, the higher the scale reads. Most pixels have a scale from 0-255. 0 is black. 255 is all filled up with that particular pixel’s color (red, green, blue…if you need a diagram, check out the post on ISO).
How Light Trails
All fine and well. What happens to create a light trail? Light from a source moves across the scene in front of the camera and is emitting light (or reflecting it, but let’s stick with an actual light sources here, like a lightbulb, or the glowing eyes of the Yeti which actually emit light. Look it up).
As it moves from left to right, let’s say, it essentially ‘paints’ the pixels in its path with something brighter than what was behind it. Often these shots are taken at night, so the background is really dark, maybe a 20 on that 0-255 scale. Now this bright light comes along and pushes the pixel ‘scales’ up to 240 or even maxes them out to 255.
The pixels can’t go back down the scale and thus they show the bright 240 reading even though the light source has moved on to the pixels next to them.
Confused?
I kinda am, so let’s look at a pretty picture.
In this Fourth Of July shot I had the kids stand completely still. I then took a lit sparkler and traced it around them. It’s one of the few times I could get my daughter to remain still, so I I tried it many times to get the above image.
Because the sparkler (emitting light all over the place) was brighter than the background, and the shutter was open for 30 seconds, I was able to trace and have that brightest light recorded on the sensor.
Another pretty picture.
This shot is from Nepal with its mountains and chances to see stars. The exact same thing is happening here, believe it or not. Well, kinda.
On a simple scale I am holding the camera still on planet Earth and it is rotating. The stars are (perceptively, but not actually) holding still. So when the camera moves and the light source holds still, the light appears to move. Which is cool! In this case, the shutter was left open for 445 seconds.
There are two basic ways to go about recording light trails, be they Earth bound or in the heavens.
Method 1 – Long Exposure
This is the method in the first image above. I left the shutter open for 30 seconds in Shutter Priority mode. If you have a cable release or remote control for your camera, you can hold the shutter open even longer (or just hold down the shutter release when in Bulb mode, which might require switching to Manual mode). The long exposure method has its limits and challenges.
First of all, your subject needs to not move, otherwise it will appear blurred while the light trail is painted. I’m talking here about the subject, not the light that is doing the trailing.
Having kids stand still for 30 seconds is about the limits of this challenge according to the laws of physics. Even a relatively slow shutter speed can create light trails. Take a look at this .8 second long exposure of the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica pier in California.
.8 seconds might not be long on the back of a bull, but it is long enough to give just the right movement to the lights on the wheel. In this case, it was pretty easy to get the pier to not move (barring earthquakes).
Get a tripod
Or, if no tripod is handy (as in the picture above) use anything that you can that won’t move. In this case I set my backpack down on the sand, positioned the camera on the back of it and used a self timer to ensure I wasn’t moving the camera, blurring the pier.
Another example. This shot is 20 seconds long and is taken in downtown Langley, Washington.
Method 2 – Stacking Multiple Images
The other main method is to stack multiple, shorter shutter length images into one final image. This takes a special program or Photoshop skills. I downloaded a simple program that costs $17 call Image Stacker. And it does just that. The method used to create light trails is called “Brightest”. Opps! Let me take a step back.
First, plan and take the photos
So step one would be to take the images. You set up your camera on a sturdy surface or tripod. Something non-moving (which begs the question of why I attempted this demo in California). Using either your finger to keep pressing the shutter lease, or a handy product called an intervalometer, take a series of images, one after the other, as close together as you can. This can lead to hundreds of images, or maybe just a dozen if you like.
Back at home
In your computer throw these images (in JPEG or TIFF format) at Image Stacker, choosing the ‘Brightest’ option. The program then looks at the same pixel in each image and only uses the brightest one.
It does this for how many ever millions of pixels you have. If you are shooting at a mainly black sky, for instance, it will see black in all of those pixels except for when a start moves across. Then it will just show that bright spot.
In this way you get trails, which may have spaces in them depending on the time between shots and how fast the objects are moving. By way of example, let me show you a test I did.
Example
I shot 150 frames of the view from Santa Monica towards LAX airport to the south. Each frame was .8 seconds long and a shot was taken each second. I then assembled the images using Lightroom and this cool plugin. The video it spit out looked like…
If I take those same images and stack them, I receive the image below:
Kinda cool. If I had taken one second exposures, the spaces in between lines would be less.
Photoshop can even be employed to create this effect. More information here.
I hope those two methods of creating light trails start you thinking about what you can create. Don’t look to the stars for all your inspiration, grab any type of light and see what you can create!
If you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan. More information can be found at Far Horizon Photo Tours.
Today’s experiment is a fun one and I hope it gets you thinking of light differently, because there are a lot of things that can be done with this one. Just to be clear, Light Trails, as I talk about them here, are different than what most call “light painting”. Light painting, in my mind, is shining a light on something to illuminate it in a particular was to gain a particular effect. Like this:
In this case my friend Michael and I used flashlights to paint in the rocks. Otherwise they would have been very dark, like this:
Light trails are capturing the light directly emitted from the source while light painting is usually concerned with light reflecting off of surfaces. Here’s an example of Light Trails.
My fancy with light trails started with maybe my tenth roll of film about 28 years ago. I worked a swing shift and got home in the wee hours, around 3am. The streets were deserted then (fun fact: There were 5.2 billion people on the planet in 1990. In 2019 there are 7.7 billion. That could be part of the reason, 2.5 billion is a LOT less people driving the streets) and I took to some overpasses to play around with this technique. The idea was to record a set of taillights heading off into the distance. And it’s quite easy with any subject you choose.
Here’s the experiment you can run:
Wait until it is dark. Or find a large enough dark space if you’re impatient.
Set your camera on a tripod or stead surface. The shutter is going to be open for a while so it has to be rock steady.
Switch to Manual mode. Now set your aperture to f/8 as a starting point. ISO should be 200 or so. You can play around with these once you see the effect.
You will want some moving lights. I suggest cars as they are predictable. Strapping a glowstick to your cat’s collar can also work (someone please do this and post the results). You can also walk around with sparklers or a small LED light. Or even a candle.
“What about the shutter speed?” you say? That is going to depend on what you’re shooting. For starters, let’s go with 15 seconds and you will be able to adjust from there depending on how dark your scene is.
Focus on a known element in the frame, like a lamp post or anything not moving. Manual focus works best.
Release the hounds!! I suggest using your camera’s self-timer function (either in 2 second or 10 second mode….or better yet, use a remote control) to help you not wiggle the camera at the start.
Once the shutter is open, move the light source (give the cat catnip just before this point).
Done!
Your first attempt might be odd. But hopefully this gets you thinking. If you ever used sparklers on the 4th of July (or your country’s firework blowing-up holiday) you know what to do next. You can write words, trace outlines or just go crazy.
Are your lines took dark? What do you think you should change to make them lighter (there is more than one right answer)?
Is the scene too bright and you can’t see the trails? What should change?
Part of the joy of travel is meeting new people. Sometimes they are like you and sometimes they are different. Okay, maybe more times they are different and that usually sparks our desire to photograph them. Before you grab your camera and start snapping, I have some tips and considerations for you.
Observe before shooting
You’re not on a vacation or trip to go sniping photos of people all day long, are you? I hope not.
Instead, take time to sit and watch the world go by for a while before taking your travel portraits. The meanest looks I’ve received from subjects are when I come into someone’s space, snap my picture and leave. I’ve learned from those early mistakes.
You will get better results, and more ‘real’ results, when you take just 2 or 5 minutes to sit and observe. You can observe many people at once in a place like a market and they will become more comfortable the longer you stay.
Heck, you might even want to buy something they are selling. Even if there is a language barrier, commerce creates its own relationship. It’s less of a “taking a photo” situation then and more of an exchange.
Get to know your subject
If language is not much of a barrier, get to know your subject.
Ask all the things tourists ask to start the conversation: What’s your name? Do you live here? Do you like it here? Where’s a good place to eat?
Just start a conversation and don’t worry about the photo. Not only will the conversation break the ice, the photo will have more meaning to you when viewed 10 years from now: “Oh yeah, that was the guy who builds model trains and had over 200 of them!”
Conversations bring more meaning to travel. Photographs help you remember.
Straight portrait or environmental
Sometimes a subject’s facial features point you toward shooting a straight portrait. We have all seen people with distinct faces. Chiseled features, lines describing decades of joy or struggle, a beauty that radiates from their eyes.
For those subjects, a straight portrait is all that is needed. Bring the eyes to the top line for the Rule of Thirds, make sure you have good lighting (see below) and snap away. Keep talking to help the person feel at ease. It’s okay if they talk while you shoot; you are shooting digital and can delete the bad ones. Most people don’t like to pose and having a conversation helps them relax.
If the person is doing something, especially a trade of some kind that partially or fully defines who they are, bring that into the image. Environmental portraits are those that show the person within their environment.
You don’t have to make it a full body shot, but bring in the background or foreground as it relates to your subject. Some posing here might be needed, if the subject is okay with it, otherwise let them continue and have them look up once in a while. Here again, lighting is critical.
Lens selection
Most portraits are shot in the range of 50-120mm on a full frame sensor camera. This means about 35mm-90mm on a cropped sensor (depending on the crop).
80-110mm is the ‘classic’ range with 80mm prime lenses being a favorite of many photographers. I’ll go over settings below, just know that this range helps you separate the subject from the background.
When shooting environmental portraits, something a little wider might be needed. In this case, 20mm-50mm on a full-frame camera is better. It helps bring in the background or foreground so you can see what the subject is working on. It’s okay, with environmental portraits, to have a wider depth of field.
Some basic settings
For a classic portrait you will want to focus on the eyes. Stand about 10’/3m away from your subject and have them about 3’/1m away from anything behind them. ISO should be as low as you can go without having too slow of a shutter speed.
Aperture set to f/4 or f/6.3. Some people will go up to f/8 as well. Those are all good as long as you still get the separation you want from the background while getting their whole face in focus. Shutter speed should follow the other settings and if it’s around 1/200, that’s a good place. You just don’t want it too slow to cause blur by you or your subject.
Environmental portraits can have a wider range of settings. Top your ISO around 800 to give enough shutter speed as the subject might be moving. f/8 or f/11 should give enough depth of field while making sure you still focus on their face (not so much the eyes, as you’ll be further back).
This is my lighting of choice for travel because it is the easiest to pack. 🙂
It can be the most challenging as well. You don’t want your subject looking directly at the sun so their whole face is filled with light as this will make their features garish and make them squint.
A defused light can help as well as a gradient of that light. For this, getting close to a window or around the corner from the harsh sunlight is preferred.
You also want to make sure the subject’s eyes aren’t shaded from a hat. It might be comfortable for them, but loses the main subject of the portrait (their eyes). Bringing them out of the sunlight, or lit from behind, will give a more even photo.
Fill flash
A lot of cameras have a flash and with it a fill-flash setting. This is perfect for adding just enough light to get under hats as well as add a catch light to your subject’s eyes when it might be missing. Learn how to use it. Here’s a great article on Digital Photography School to help you learn some basics.
Bounced light
Bounced light is often ignored but can be a boon for portraits. Simply set your subject against or near a reflective surface.
This can be as simple as a white wall. Note though that the color of the bounce will be cast on your subject. This can be beneficial with warm colors, like oranges, but a green cast might make your subject look sickly.
It’s also a way to fill your subject’s face with light without direct sunlight and the squint. Stand with your back to a bright surface/wall and let the reflected, dimmed light help your portrait shine.
Lit from behind
Back-lighting can bring a heavenly glow to your subject, in the right conditions. Late/early day sun is perfect for this as it is low on the horizon and warmer/more golden.
It helps if you have fill light if the backlight is so harsh it blows out all the details behind the subject. Or a reflector of some type to bring light back onto the face of your subject.
To Pay Or Not To Pay
While traveling it is not uncommon to be asked to pay to take someone’s portrait. This can be a sticky subject and has been debated elsewhere online for eons, it seems.
My personal take is to avoid paying (and not take photos) in high tourist areas. While some people make their living from being photographed by tourists (think; Time Square in New York), it feels too contrived. I don’t go on vacations or trips to essentially have a photoshoot I would setup back home.
Although, I am not above buying what my subject is selling, if they have something to offer. It’s a complicated subject, have I mentioned that?
Go with what makes you comfortable. Do some research. Don’t be pushed into paying. Be okay with walking away. That’s my main advice.
Or better yet, bring a portable printer and offer to “give a photo” instead of taking one.
That being said, if you’re shooting because you might want to sell the photo later, you should pay the subject and get their signature on a model release.
Share And Be Thankful
Be gracious. And be appreciative. Be thankful that someone shared their time with you and now you have your own memory on your camera.
And share your photographs with your subject, via the screen on your camera, when you are finished.
Examples
Bhutanese Buddhist monks engage in philosophical debates in the courtyard of a monastery in Bumthang, Bhutan
Man weighing jaggery in market – India
The Golden Temple, or Harmandir Sahib, is a sacred Sikh Gurdwara in the city of Amritsar, India. The temple has a staff of guards who ensure Sikh traditions and restrictions are adheared to while on the Temple grounds.
If you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan. More information can be found at Far Horizon Photo Tours.
Today’s moonrise experiment is actually for you to try in a few days but I want to make sure you have time to read and prepare. I know there’s a lot of hype about the next full moon because it is also a lunar eclipse visible to North and South America, plus little bits of Africa and Europe.
But before that eclipse happens, the moon has to rise.
The key to a good moonrise photo is to get out the day before it is actually full. I prefer the day before because then the sun is higher in the sky and Golden Hour light is bathing the foreground while making the moon not too bright in comparison.
For instance, the next full moon is on January 20. In Seattle, the moon rises at 4:32pm that day. The sun sets at 4:52pm. That’s just 20 minutes for the moon to get up above the Cascade Mountains and into a nice position for photos before the foreground starts to dim appreciably.
It’s better to go out shooting on Feb 19, when the moon rises at 3:23pm and the sun sets at 4:50pm. On that day you have practically a full moon in appearance and an hour and a half for the moon to get higher in the sky.
Some Resources For Planning
Let me give you a couple of websites to find full moon dates and times in your area:
You can actually get all the info from the Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE) but it’s good to have the other sources as well.
I like TPE because it has a free desktop version for PC and MAC, making planning at home/office easy. You can use TPE to plan your shot. Here is a good post on how it works and how to use it.
Here’s the experiment you can run:
This shot was actually two days before a full moon.
1) If you are not familiar with shooting the moon, read my post here first. It has what you’ll need to know for this experiment.
2) Use the tools above to find out when the full moon is rising at your spot on the planet.
3) Plan to head out the day before the full moon to shoot. Use TPE to find a good location to shoot the moon and pick a place where you can find an interesting foreground. If you want some inspiration, take a gander at this post where I interviewed Michael Riffle about his wonderful Seattle moonrise photo. Luck works sometimes, but preparation gives you better odds.
4) Go out and shoot the moon!
Done!
Shooting the moon can be very fun and often frustrating. The best planning can be dashed by a badly placed cloud or fog layer. That’s another reason I propose people shoot the moon the day before the full moon; because if things don’t work out, they can still go back the next day (but note that the moonrise time changes by often more than an hour each day).
I also profess shooting the day before because in the Puget Sound, where I often shoot, we have mountains to the West that cover the sun before it actually sets on the horizon.
If your Western exposure is predominately flat, then you can have better luck shooting the day of the full moon. Plus, sometimes, the full moon is technically in the wee hours, such as 1:12am, which means the full moon rose the day before.
Things To Consider
Arrive early! I can’t stress this enough from my experience having to set up in a hurry. Give yourself at least an hour. You’ll enjoy it more if you’re relaxed.
Invite a friend, even if they don’t shoot.
Metering will not change rapidly while the sun is still up. The scene will be evenly lit, so meter before the moon comes up. This is a good time to use Manual Mode.
Make sure to not clip highlights because that’s what the moon is, one big highlight.
Lacking much else, use the Rule Of Thirds to align your shot.
Enjoy the moon and I hope you get to see the eclipse, which is a whole other ball of wax to shoot. Although, if you’ve been following the past weeks of Photography Basics – A 43 Day Adventure, you already have the knowledge you need to nail it.
Questions? Pop ’em like Pez in the comments section below. or email me at peter@peterwestcarey.com.
Today’s experiment might be a little more involved than its previous companion, Making Black Tones, Black. This is because white objects will show color cast from an incorrect white balance better than black. You will need to be on your toes to work your way through today. Good luck!
Making White Tones, White
As previously mentioned in Making Black Tones, Black, the metering in your camera will not always expose properly. Scenes with a dominant black or white element might come out gray. Read through the previous post if you haven’t already, because I’m not giving a lot of tips today to see how well you can reason through the steps needed.
Here’s the experiment you can run:
1) Set you camera on a table and switch it to any mode you like, except Manual.
2) Set your ISO according to the amount of light available and place a white object in front of your camera, about four feet away. Make sure the white object takes up the central area of the camera’s field of view. It can fill the whole screen if you like.
3) Take a photo. (Note: When there is lack of contrast in a scene, cameras have a hard time focusing. You may need to place something else in the focus area for the picture to take, or switch to manual focusing.)
Now then, two things might have happened here. Likely, the white object became more white in the second photo, closer to its true color and brightness. This is good.
You can fiddle around with the exact amount of over exposure you want depending on the lighting in a scene. +1.3 is just a starting point. But you might have also seen a difference in the color of the white object, even if slight.
This can happen as your camera is not always 100% consistent in figuring out the color temperature of a light source. It may adjust from one shot to the next, even when the camera and subject don’t move.
Read up on White Balance to figure out how to adjust for that.
Things To Consider
Keep an eye on your camera’s Histogram to make sure white does not become blown out (if possible).
Don’t forget to change your exposure compensation back once finished. Otherwise you may have blown out photos when next you use your camera.
Drinking 8 glasses of water each day helps your body stay healthy.
Example
I have one example for you today. While it is not truly white (there is a lot of blue cast in glaciers) it fits the bill. It’s actually the reflectiveness of the scene that you need to trick your camera into appreciating.
White just happens to be the most reflective color. In this case, I adjusted the exposure by +1.3 and the “After” image is closer to the dazzle I saw when there. It could probably be bumped up even more.
Questions? Pop ’em like Pez in the comments section below. or email me at peter@peterwestcarey.com.
It’s such an alluring photo subject and confounds beginning photographer more than it amazes. The problem is, when the moon is high in the night sky, it is contrasting the blackness of space more than most people realize. Our eyes and our brain do a great job of making the moon appear just right. But cameras don’t have it so easy.
One big tip; shoot the full moon as it is raising the night before it is full, or as it is setting the night after it is full. This way it is raising and setting against a brighter sky, making exposure easier.
Second, spot meter off the moon itself to make sure it is exposed correctly. The moon will trip you up with how bright it is. It is just a really big reflector of the sun and needs to be exposed as such. The problem is it tends to be so small in the frame that the metering favors the blackness of space over the moon. Spot metering will be your friend. Don’t have spot metering? Underexpose by 1-2 stops.
Theory Into Practice
For instance, in a situation like the one below, taken at Bryce Canyon National Park as I waited for the sun to rise, the meter wanted to hold the shutter open much longer to bring in the sky and tree. Instead, I chose an evaluative metering pattern and underexposed by 1 2/3 stops to make sure the moon wasn’t too bright. ISO 100, 320mm, f/6.7, 1/350 second
When focusing, don’t swing all the way to infinity and call it good. The moon, believe it or not, is not that far out there. If you choose to manually focus, as a lot of cameras will have a hard time locking focus, bring it back from infinity just a bit.
Also, bring something into the photo. If you’re lucky, that something might be right in front of the moon as in this shot from New South Wales, Australia. ISO 1000, 300mm (and then cropped more), f/5.6, 1/1000 second (This was pure luck as I sat with friends on a deck enjoying conversation and not really thinking of the moon.)
It’s important to note in the photo above, the tree in the foreground is slightly out of focus because the aperture is open all the way. The moon is quite far from the tree and a bit more aperture would have brought the tree into sharper focus. And as the shutter speed was 1/1000, I had room to close the aperture at least two stops and brace the camera.
The Moon With Grounding Elements
Even if something isn’t right in front of the moon, give it a bit of perspective and size. Try to catch it low to the ground or mountains or hills to anchor it just a bit. Wasatch Mountains, American Fork, Utah, USA ISO 800, 400mm, f/6.7, 1/250 second
If you are trying to capture a lot of ground in the image and it is a full moon, be careful with exposure and play a bit. In the image below, I manually exposed for what I thought was a proper setting and then moved the shutter speed around to get it right. Mind you, this image needed a lot of work in post processing to make sure the moon wasn’t too overdone nor the foreground not too dark. Whidbey Island, Washington ISO 500, 300mm, f/5.6, 1/320
When the moon is a couple of days past full, you can expose as if for a normal sunny morning and not worry too much. Nepal ISO 50, 300mm, f/7.1, 1/400 second
Likewise, crescent moons can be easier or harder, depending on whether they are waxing (moving towards half then full) or waning (moving towards new then half). For shots when the sun is out, expose as you would for the normal sky. That’s pretty easy.
When the crescent is coming up or is already up at night, you might need to underexpose by an even greater amount as the moon is reflecting even less light. ISO 640, 135mm, f/5.6, .3 seconds
Histograms Can Help
If you are using the rear display of the camera to check settings, use the Histogram feature (explained here) and make sure the spikes on the right side of the screen drop to the bottom before moving off. If they aren’t at the bottom, you are losing detail in the moon.
For instance, this is the Histogram of the tree and the moon shot far above.
Quick Histogram lesson: Left side is dark, right side is light. If that mountain, representing where light is falling, is not at the bottom before it hits a side, detail is lost. In this case, some black is lost, and that’s ok. The moon is represented by the mountain in the middle.
When the exposure is jacked up 2.25 stops, we get this:
And the image looks like this:
That’s a quick way to use the Histogram to tell if your moon shot is truly exposed properly against a black sky.
Our Atmosphere Has An Impact
A golden moon will, when just popping over the horizon, be as dark as it looks. Meaning, it’s not as bright compared to the scene around it. In this case, such as during a harvest moon, the exposure for the moon is often the same as the scene around the moon, much like a shot a couple of days before a full moon rises. But this effect changes quickly with the color of the moon, once it starts getting away from the colored sunlight striking it (and the horizon) and takes on the full power of the sun going past our atmosphere.
Lastly, scout out a location before the moon comes up if you are looking for an added element. Remember that, month to month, the moon will change positions on the horizon as it raises and sets, so don’t expect it to be in the same spot the next month. Use a tool like the Photographer’s Ephemeris to help you plan ahead.
Oh, one more thing, zoom in as much as you can. You may notice all of these shots start at 200mm and go up. A good zoom lens will be your friend and don’t expect great shots with a point and shoot unless it has more zoom than 4x. 10x is a good place to start with those type of cameras.
And use a tripod!
Speaking of which, only one of those shots up there was taken completely handheld. Knowing what you know about shutter speed and the general 1/focal length rule, can you guess which one?
If you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan. More information can be found at Far Horizon Photo Tours.
For those who might not be familiar with the phrase, a cityscape is like a landscape except you replace the land with all kinds of man-made things, mainly, a city. I haven’t always been a fan of these images until I gave it a try myself. If you’re interested in capturing better images of your favorite cities, read on.
Time Of Day
Time of day is important in shooting cities and so is vantage point. These two work together to produce either dull, blanched city images or stellar imagery fit for MOMA. Or at least your wall at home.
If you have the option of picking the time of day (i.e. you are not on a scheduled tour with no flexibility), then I suggest you grab a photo planning tool like Photographer’s Ephemeris, LightTrac or Photo Pills. These are all tools I have purchased with my own pennies and that I have used for years. They each do photo planning a little differently but they all work very well.
With one of these tools in hand, figure out your vantage point for a city shot. This can be fairly easy with the help of Google Earth and the myriad of geolocated photos within. See where others have taken city photos and find a fitting location.
Next, using one of the above tools, plan your time of day. If you are shooting your local city, you will know when the best time to shoot is (hint: sunrise or sunset) but if traveling, the tools will help make sure the sun is where you want it.
Lighting
Where do you want the light? Ideally behind or to the side of you for starters. When you get a little more practiced, especially in post-processing, you can place the sun behind your city for some interesting effects.
Here’s an example with two shots of Seattle. They are about 20 minutes apart, but the angle with regard to the setting sun is the key to a different feel in each photo.
What you are looking for when picking time of day and vantage point is nice warm light on the city, if you are going for the pretty effect. Try to avoid the middle of the day as it can wash out the brilliance of all that glass and brick. And don’t forget dusk (the Blue Hour) as a great time to mix cool light with warm city flare.
New York during the Blue Hour is an excellent playground of photos
A polarizing filter works best when the main source of light is 90 degrees to the direction of your lens. Off to the right or left, that is.
A polarizing filter will also help in reducing reflections on glass (as well as making the sky in your cityscapes more ‘punchy’ and defined) and this may be a good or bad thing.
If the light is coming from directly behind you, the filter will have little to no effect. If the sun is directly in front of you, you may get a ghosted image of the sun in your frame if your filter does not have an anti-glare coating on the inside.
Here are two quick examples of Seattle with and without the filter:
Use Panorama Techniques
This technique is easy with modern smartphones as the mode is built in. But if you are shooting with a camera that does not automatically stitch your images, take a look at this post on Digital Photography School for more info.
Shooting panoramas is most handy when your city is big and you are close. Two examples I can give are Lima, Peru and Brisbane, Australia. The vantage point of Lima still didn’t allow for the city in one image. And Brisbane was just too close . So to increase the amount of detail, I shot them each as a panorama and stitched them in the computer.
Be Inspired
The best way to get inspired, for me, is to view inspiring images. Take a look at these shots on Fine Art America for a view of quality images from all over the world. Performing an image search on the likes of Flickr is also a good way to find what you are looking for (for instance, here is a search for “cityscape San Francisco” with dazzling examples).
Go Back
Lastly, don’t forget to return, return, return to the scene of the crime. Again and again. Cities have moods and those moods change with the seasons, events, weather, etc… No two sunsets are exactly the same and they bring different light.
Maybe there were no clouds in your shot today, but there will be next week. Is there a clearing storm in your area? Get out and shoot the gloom and the light!
Griffith Observatory in front of downtown Los Angeles, distant view – USA – California – Los Angeles
Show Me What You’ve Shot
On a personal note, I love the inspiration I receive from other photographers’ images. Please feel free to share a link to your own cityscape images below. While you are at it, help us all out and tell us a little about from where you took the shot and what city is pictured.
Other Examples
View of Fes – Morocco
View of downtown Los Angeles with Hollywood sign in foreground – USA – California – Los Angeles
Santa Monica buildings in silhouette at sunset – USA – California – Los Angeles
View of cityscape – Spain – Malaga
Los Angeles Sunset From Above
Multi-coloured prayer flags hanging over Kathmandu cityscape – Nepal
Paris, France from the Eiffel Tower at dusk
Kathmandu with a brilliant sunset in the distance
Sunset From Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur, India
Before Sunrise In Seattle, Washington, USA
Elevated view of cityscape – Cusco – Peru
Los Angeles At Night Below The Griffith Observatory, California, USA
If you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan. More information can be found at Far Horizon Photo Tours.
Different Times Of Day = Different Light = Different Photos
The purpose of the 40 Photography Experiments series is not to bring up earth shattering concepts, but to start you looking at light, and how you capture it, in a different way.
Today’s experiment will seem obvious, but it will be helpful to run through it, even if you read the title and commented, “Duh!”
Here’s the experiment you can run:
1) This experiment will go slow, so let’s try Manual Mode today. As the light will be changing in this experiment, you will need to think through changes to Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO as appropriate. If you get stuck, leave a comment and I will help out. 2) Choose a subject which is in an area where light will change during the day. Outside will likely be best, but items inside, with ample windows, work just as well. 3) Shoot your subject at three or four different times of the day. Keep the framing and point of view the same in each image so they match up. In other words; same subject, same camera location. Use a tripod if needed.
Done!
Some things to think about while performing this experiment:
How is the light helping or hindering your shots?
How does the mood in the image change?
What would happen if you got obsessive and shot your subject each hour?
Get crafty and try this experiment with more than one object at a time.
Here are three shots I took yesterday of a tree out front of my house.
The first two were fairly close together, about two hours apart. But I missed the chance for a sunset shot, opting instead to wait until night and catch the accent lights (with a little bit of camera blur from having the shutter open for .5 seconds and no tripod!).
Same tree, totally different feel.
Lighting Matters
Changes in lighting will make a dramatic shift in the mood and content of your photos. Remember, you are taking pictures of light, not just of objects. How that light plays and interacts with your subject is important.
What I hope you learn from this experiment is to not always accept the light that is given to you and take bad pictures because of it. Sometimes you might stumble upon a great subject, but the lighting in horrible. Wait a while, or maybe half a day, until the lighting improves.
Come back on a different day or different time of season. Think long term and visualize how you want the light to appear with a particular subject then take steps to make it happen.
I would love to see your experiments if you want to share them. Just include a link in the comments section below.
Questions? Pop ’em like Pez in the comments section below. or email me at peter@peterwestcarey.com.
If you enjoy the series, consider learning photography first-hand on a professionally led international photo tour in Nepal or Bhutan. More information can be found at Far Horizon Photo Tours.
Yesterday’s topic was Photographing Silhouettes.
Simple!
Today’s experiment might be a little more involved than its previous companion, 
It’s important to note in the photo above, the tree in the foreground is slightly out of focus because the aperture is open all the way. The moon is quite far from the tree and a bit more aperture would have brought the tree into sharper focus. And as the shutter speed was 1/1000, I had room to close the aperture at least two stops and brace the camera.
If you are trying to capture a lot of ground in the image and it is a full moon, be careful with exposure and play a bit. In the image below, I manually exposed for what I thought was a proper setting and then moved the shutter speed around to get it right. Mind you, this image needed a lot of work in post processing to make sure the moon wasn’t too overdone nor the foreground not too dark. Whidbey Island, Washington ISO 500, 300mm, f/5.6, 1/320
Likewise, crescent moons can be easier or harder, depending on whether they are waxing (moving towards half then full) or waning (moving towards new then half). For shots when the sun is out, expose as you would for the normal sky. That’s pretty easy.
