Night Photography

Windy Night

Vantage, Washington, USA
Canon EOS 5D Mark III | ISO 200 | 32mm | 243 sec | F/4

From last night on the Wild Horse Wind & Solar Facility in Vantage. The conditions were challenging for star photography with a full supermoon and a cloudy sky. We experimented for a few hours with both short and long exposures. In the end, long exposures which highlighted the bright streaking clouds won out.

The final image is a composite of 3 frames: a low-ISO long exposure (4 min) for the majority of the scene, a high-ISO short exposure (0.3 sec) to capture the spinning blades of the wind mill, and a final exposure that shows Nate manually lighting up the wind mill for scale.

Wat Po at Dusk

Wat Po Temple, Bangkok, Thailand
Canon EOS 40D | ISO 200 | 10mm | 3.2 sec | F/22

Wat Po Temple is truly magical at dusk — and surprisingly uncrowded we discovered.

I tried to create an HDR version of this image in Nik HDR Efex Pro using either a set of -2/0/+2 EV shots or just the -2 and o EV shots. But I been able to create subtle and compelling HDR images from photos taken at night and showing significant light blooming. Recommendations or tips anyone? Meanwhile I processed the -2 EV shot for this blog post.

Time Square

Time Square, New York City, NY, USA
Canon EOS 40D | ISO 100 | 10mm | F/22 | 3 combined exposures +/- 2 EV

I got to hang out in New York City for the week-end before attending a conference last week. Here’s a little experimentation with night photography, my new Gorillapod Focus and Nik HDR Efex Pro…

Vectorial Elevation

Vancouver, British-Columbia, Canada
Canon EOS 40D | ISO 400 | 10mm | 5 sec | F/6.3

Vectorial Elevation is a large-scale temporary public art installation comprised of 20 robotic 10,000-watt searchlights that illuminates Vancouver’s English Bay throughout the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The light patterns can apparently be seen from 15 kilometres away.