Long Exposure
a blog by Peter Neill
Winged Beast! - August 19, 2008
I took this photo in Powerscourt Gardens after spending 5 minutes waiting for this guy to land on something I could get close to!
Field of Nightmares….. - August 12, 2008
Took this HDR made up of 4 exposures in scotland - I really like the mood, hence the title…..
Highlands - August 7, 2008
I was away at the weekend in the Scottish Highlands. One would think that my favorite shot of such a trip would be of some sort of mountain range, but not so, this wasp was my favorite shot of the weekend.
Carlsberg Comedy - July 25, 2008
I got the chance to do some photography for some of the comedians at the Carlsberg Comedy Festival last night. It was a great gig and I am very happy with the results. Taking low light images without any flashes in a crowded arena always creates a welcome challenge!
Steady now… - July 18, 2008
You know those indoor shots you take on your camera in the evening, the ones that after you take them, seem bright enough, but really blurred? Often those are the result of you trusting your camera too much.
If you are like me, you like to avoid using your flash as much as possible, as it makes events and people look lifeless ( unless you have a gary fong diffuser ). As a result of that preference, I pretty much never shoot in Auto mode on either a DSLR or a point and shoot as in low indoor light the flash always pops up. The next most commonly used setting on many cameras is the P mode (Programmable exposure) and its this setting that people often migrate to as thier mainstay after abandoning Auto mode. This is fine, as its a good step away from Auto and toward knowing your camera, however in the situation I am describing P mode can often choose too slow a shutter speed to get a clear image. Everything ends up blurred due to motion of A) The camera and B) your surroundings.
If you can cope with a little darker image (unless you up your iso, but this is not always the best option, more later), there is a way to eliminate much of the blur I am talking about. Many Cameras have a Tv mode (Time Value / Shutter Priority), using this, you can tell your camera to lock at a certain shutter speed, while leaving it free to adjust the aperture. If I am using a lens with not too long a focal length, or I am at the wide end of a zoom, I in this situation keep this value at approx 1/60th of a second. This I find is as slow as you can go with handheld without getting noticeable camera shake in the image. Your images may end up a little dark but here are some things to combat that:
1) Up your ISO, If you are at say, 800 on a good DSLR, and the images is still do dark you can up to 1600
2) Black and White is your friend - If number 1 leaves your image looking too grainy, often converting to Black and White or taking it in black and white in the first place can make it look great. What looks messy and dirty in color can look amazing in Black and White
3) Brighten your image up using the Levels and Curves tools in Photoshop. Never ever use the brightness/contrast tool in Photoshop, it is not your friend, it hates you. Instead take the take the time to learn the Levels and Curves tools. Google for tutorials on this, there are loads. After adjusting your image with these, and if your image ends up too grainy, you can use a noise reduction filter in photoshop or a great plugin such as Imagenomic’s Noiseware Professional to turn a high iso grain image into something much better.