Tuto 4: Photographer in the dark (tutorial for night photography)

Before starting

Hello and welcome to this new tutorial session!

This time I'll explain you my method of work to take photographs by night. I particularly like black and white applied to night photography, I think it's a good way to create cool atmospheres with sharp shadows and textures (special mention for rainy night shoots).

Unfortunately I didn't had much occasion to practice it, the fault to a serious lack of time. But I had enough time to practice the technic, I will introduce mine here.

Things you need

The main stuff you must have for night photography (in addition to your camera, of course) is a tripod. I first bought a cheap one, just to practice and make my opinion about my real need. I'm now looking to buy a better one; I'll probably make an update here when I'll have choose one. By the way, my cheap tripod permitted me to notice that for a frequent use, the quality of the tripod seems to be a thing to care about a lot.

I noticed two things that my first tripod doesn't offer: solidity and stability.  Stability in some cases, for example when there is a lot of wind, even with some ballast on it, it was often shaking. And solidity that decreased a lot after less than one year of an infrequent use (resulting on a decrease of stability). Thus, if you're a beginner or if you just don't have a tripod, I suggest you to really choose it with care and to put a minimum of money on it...

Another thing that should help for night shoot is a remote controller for your camera. This will be helpful to trigger your camera without shaking.

There are many sorts of them: wired or infra red for example. Personnaly I bought a Nikon infra red remote controller, it works well if you stay relatively close to your camera...

The objective

I'll try here to explain step by step my way of shooting by night in fully manual mode. Why this mode? Because after several tries I found it was the best way to really get what you expect for this kind of work (even if a auto/semi-auto mode would probably gives you good results, although ...).

First step: what I like to shoot at night

Applied to my passion for black and white, I like to do night shots of specific subjects. Lightened places with strong shadows, monuments or moving lights are what I really enjoy (and always applied to a street ambiance if possible). So the first thing to retain is to try to make yourself happy! The rest depends of you...

Step 2, setting up my gear: The tripod

I'll have a stuff by stuff approach, starting with the tripod...

The very first thing I do once I have chosen the angle of view, is to install my tripod at the correct place. I try to make it as stable as possible. If the tripod has a hook under it, it is possible to hang a bag heavy enough to make the tripod more stable.

It is important to take the time needed to refine the point of view from which the photo will be taken: correct height? Correct angle? For a landscape, is the horizon horizontal? WHat can I see exactly on my viewfinder? Your composition will only be better!

Step 3, setting up my gear: The lens

The first thing I do on my lens when doing night shots with a tripod is to turn off both the AF and the vibration reduction modes (this last one could create ghost vibrations if turned on on a stable tripod).

Then, once I choose my subject and installed my camera on the tripod, I try to make the right focus. The reason I turned of AF and do it manually is simple: AF on dark places isn't always efficient, and... I have time to focus properly, my tripod won't go away (at least, my subject could :).

If I want to focus on a precise spot, I adjust it through the lens with the focus ring.

If I want to focus on a landscape, or if I just can't focus on anything because it's too dark, I use the hypefocal: you obtain it by setting your focus ring on the infinite position. The advantage of this method (used with a small aperture), is to cover a huge sharpness field (just be sure to be at the minimum distance from your subject to avoid unwanted blur).

Here is an example where I used the hyperfocal because it was too dark to see anything for a good manual focus:

Step 4, setting up my gear: the camera

This is not necessarily the most difficult part of the job, but this is the part where there is many little things to think about that we can easily forget. I think it would be more efficient to list all this things on a check list, because this is like a "ritual" you could repeat each time and adapt to situations. So, there is no order, but I like to proceed like this, in manual mode:

- File format: I prefer to shoot in RAW (as usual), to have more flexibility during post-production (PP).

- White balance: On auto mode, RAW files allow to adjust it easily on PP.

- Adjust the sensitivity: I usually put it on 100 ISO. I think you can go up to 400 ISO depending on your material and the exposure time needed to get what you want. I just take care not to be on auto-ISO mode...

- AF: In case I forgot to turn it off on my lens, I turn it off on the camera too, just in case...

- Aperture: At your own, depending on your subject and feeling. Usually a little aperture for landscape, a bigger one for life scenes, people or details...

- Metering: I think I always used it on evaluative mode...

- Shutter speed: This is the last important parameter that I set up. I adjust it live, while looking at the exposure indicator in the viewfinder and try to get it at the right place (e.q. 0EV). This is for the theory, but in fact, depending on the situation and what I expect from my shot, I can go to overexposure if I need a longer exposure, for example for this kind of result:

In some special cases, like for astrophotography, thunderbolt-photos or really dark scenes, you could go for the "Bulb mode" which allows the photographer to fully manage the exposure time: you pull the trigger when you want to start the exposure, you pull it again when you want to stop it. This option is available on serious cameras and allows exposure time of 30 secondes to several hours (think about having enough battery).

There is no magic formula, as in cooking, it's all about balance of these ingredients for a harmonious result. I often make several attempts before getting the right result ... 

Step 5, remote controller and "mirror up"

As I said above, I use a nikon infra-red remote controller, it allows me to trigger my camera without adding motion blur. 

If you want to go really deeper about controling the vibrations, here is a last tip: use your remote controller on "mirror up" mode (if available on your camera). I won't go on hard explanations, Wikipedia does it better than I: "Mirror lock-up involves flipping the mirror up well before the shutter opens, allowing the vibrations to die down before exposing the film".

Final step, some examples

Finally, here are some photographs I took using the way I just described, just one among others...

Tuto 3: A walk with the Lensbaby Composer

Before starting

Hi everybody! Many time has passed-by since my last tutorial. My life changed a little since the 21th of November: I'm now the father of a little Mahé, a wonderful little boy that brings us much happiness... and eats all of our time! This being said, and now that you shed a tear (yes yes), I'll talk to you about a particular lens that I discovered there is not so long. Its name is the "composer lens" and it's proposed to us by the Lensbaby firm. Those lines won't really be a tutorial but more an introduction about this lens, a way to use it, and why I found it interesting for my black and white work.

Things you need

Before starting, and if you'd like to know more about Lensbaby, you should visit the official website of the firm, this is over here: http://lensbaby.com.

The objective

The firm proposes many lenses and optics (and accessories too). The idea here isn't to introduce their catalog (I own no lensbaby action), but to focus (it's the case to say, you'll see) on the one I bought: the Composer (http://lensbaby.com/lenses-composer.php).

Special thanks

Before starting, I must admit that I discovered this lens thanks to a photographer called Victor Bezrukov  that I discovered on Google+, and his Lensbaby album. I really suggest you to have a look at him and his gorgeous work!

First step: The idea

I bought few months ago a lens called "the composer". That's a good thing, I just wanted to compose some nice photographs thanks to it. 

In short, the idea of this lens is to manage the sharpness field (or the blur field, make your choice) of your photographs, more accurately than just by playing with aperture and depth of field. 

In fact, this lens allows you to add a second level of blurring: after making the focus on your subject (as you usually do when taking a photo), you'll be able to add blur on the spot of your choice on the focused field.

If you understood, I won, if not, an example should be better! Here is the kind of images the composer can lead to:

I first focused on the plan of the motorbike like with any lens, and then moved the sharp part of the photo on a precise spot of the subject so that it's the only clear part of the photo.

Step 2: The lens

This result is possible thanks to the particular built of the composer lens, as you may notice:

The composer is a 50mm lens. It has manual focus and manual aperture: it's your job to change the aperture rings as you want, thanks to a special magnetic tool (from f2, when no magnetic ring is engaged, to f/22):

I didn't read any review of this lens, but based on my own experience, it seems to begin to be sharp at f/2.8 (I don't think we can consider it sharp at f/2).

The focus ring works like on any other lens. There is another ring that allows you to tighten the position of the moving head of the lens.

To use the composer, you can set your camera to aperture priority or manual mode...

After focusing thanks to the focus ring, you just have to swivel the lens' head to move the sharp point where you want on the frame. It doesn't look that hard, the most difficult thing will be to do it quick if you use it for street photography for example. In other words, mastering this lens implies few times of practice.

Final step: Why I like it?

For its main effect, of course. I find on it an excellent way to highlight to the extreme the subject or the idea of a photograph.
For street photography, it can add a particular dynamic to a scene, particularly for moving subjects:

I also like to bring out my subjects thanks to the composer:

The last way I like to use it is for the photography of details. It gives me the impression of shooting with a classical lens, while zooming in or out with a long exposure (I'm not sure you see what I mean here...):

I didn't really try it yet for landscape and architecture photography, but I expect it has a good potential (for example by doing an extreme focus on a building for a street panorama view. Maybe I'll post an example of that when I'll have done one!

See you soon,
Damien