Blue Hour

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KennethHamlett

New member
For anybody that does a lot of shooting during the blue hours, this site provides the blue hours based on your location. No need to input any data it reads your computer's IP address and selects the city closest to you. I have found it indispensable when I need to know that magic time of day.

http://bluehoursite.com/
 
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karlyh

New member
Went out last night with the instructions in my head... Didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped. The website is great... I however have the toughest time with night shots and I don't know why!
Thanks for the link!
 
K

KennethHamlett

New member
karlyh said:
Went out last night with the instructions in my head... Didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped. The website is great... I however have the toughest time with night shots and I don't know why!
Thanks for the link!
Click to expand...

What kind of problems are you having? Can you post some examples?
 
K

KennethHamlett

New member
karlyh said:
Yes, absolutely... and thanks. I tried making this easy as possible, so I put them in a gallery. When you mouseover the photo a window comes off from the right with a little blue 'info' button, there it will show the camera info. Nikonites (examples) - K.H. Photography | SmugMug
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What's more important than the exposure information is what kind of technique did you use? Did you use a tripod? Remote release or self-timer? What spot in the scene did you meter from? If you metered from the lights going down the middle of the scene then that would automatically limit the exposure in the surrounding area, even with bracketing. It's always good to expose scenes like this for the lights (a couple of brackets would work) and also for the surrounding landscape (again, a couple of brackets would work). Then you'll have properly exposed areas for the different parts of the scene and can combine them in Photoshop. Sort of the way we used to make multiple exposures using film back in the "old days".
 
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karlyh

New member
KennethHamlett said:
What's more important than the exposure information is what kind of technique did you use? ".
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I did use a tripod and a remote..... and I can understand now that I may have been too much in the dark, which I was. Not the best town for a sprawl of lights either..
And I have no problem with editing some light in there, it's just if you take those up to the larger view you can see cars on the road with a trail of headlights from movement... I understand that given the slower shutter speed... I lost it with trying to match settings for lighting the sky verses stopping the motion of cars/lights. And the street lights, should they look like mini fireworks?

I'm not sure about metering and bracketing but yes, I was looking down at the center of lights.... I need to learn more about this subject and this is definitely a start.
Thanks for your help
 
K

KennethHamlett

New member
karlyh said:
I did use a tripod and a remote..... and I can understand now that I may have been too much in the dark, which I was. Not the best town for a sprawl of lights either..
And I have no problem with editing some light in there, it's just if you take those up to the larger view you can see cars on the road with a trail of headlights from movement... I understand that given the slower shutter speed... I lost it with trying to match settings for lighting the sky verses stopping the motion of cars/lights. And the street lights, should they look like mini fireworks?

I'm not sure about metering and bracketing but yes, I was looking down at the center of lights.... I need to learn more about this subject and this is definitely a start.
Thanks for your help
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Ok, if you want to stop the motion of the cars AND capture the blue light from dusk AND capture the lights from the surrounding area you will need to expose for those areas differently. With camera tripod mounted and remote in hand, expose for the car movement (faster shutter speed to stop the action). This will underexpose the landscape in the surrounding area but will also capture the individual lights. Expose again for the night sky (exposure depends on how rich you want the sky in the scene). Expose again to get light in the surrounding landscape area (this exposure could reach 30 seconds or longer). Use the photo-editing software of your choice to combine the exposures into one image.
 
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Essence of Imagery

New member
To be quite honest, I see no reason to stop the motion of the vehicles - it's reality - as demonstrated in this image:

baybridge.jpg


In order to stop the motion of the vehicles, it would have taken shooting at an unreasonable ISO or with the speed settings somewhere north of 1/1000th of a second. This calculation is based on the average speed of the vehicles in the image (say 60mph) = 88 ft./sec. and in order to bring it down to an insignificant movement (.088 ft. of movement) you'd be shooting at 1/1000th. That's assuming the vehicles in my image are going that slow - the Bay Bridge is notorious for people doing 65-75 in the 50mph zone. At 1/1000th or higher (shooting at a low-grain ISO) I'm not sure you'd even get a clear image of the vehicles. Perhaps that's something I'll experiment with next time I go and commune with the raccoons at this hangout over the Bay Bridge.

By the way, I loved #8 of 13. Beautiful image, great capture of the lights of the city, and the blue sky - I think that one works just fine.

Image is courtesy of my wife - who's given me permission to use her image.
 
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K

KennethHamlett

New member
Essence of Imagery said:
To be quite honest, I see no reason to stop the motion of the vehicles - it's reality - as demonstrated in this image:

baybridge.jpg


In order to stop the motion of the vehicles, it would have taken shooting at an unreasonable ISO or with the speed settings somewhere north of 1/1000th of a second. This calculation is based on the average speed of the vehicles in the image (say 60mph) = 88 ft./sec. and in order to bring it down to an insignificant movement (.088 ft. of movement) you'd be shooting at 1/1000th. That's assuming the vehicles in my image are going that slow - the Bay Bridge is notorious for people doing 65-75 in the 50mph zone. At 1/1000th or higher (shooting at a low-grain ISO) I'm not sure you'd even get a clear image of the vehicles. Perhaps that's something I'll experiment with next time I go and commune with the raccoons at this hangout over the Bay Bridge.

By the way, I loved #8 of 13. Beautiful image, great capture of the lights of the city, and the blue sky - I think that one works just fine.
Click to expand...

I agree with Essence. Part of the appeal of this type of image is the interplay of movement against the stillness of the city. Traffic flow shows the city is alive.

Love this shot Essence!
 
ohkphoto

ohkphoto

Snow White
karlyh said:
Went out last night with the instructions in my head... Didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped. The website is great... I however have the toughest time with night shots and I don't know why!
Thanks for the link!
Click to expand...

I think you did a pretty good job. What were you looking to get and what specifically made you unhappy with the shots? I especially like #8 and #10 --I think those were good captures.

Best regards
 
K

karlyh

New member
Thank you everybody... I have so much to learn and really do appreciate your feedback.. Kenneth, I need to learn more about the editing software I suppose to apply what you're telling me... Taking all of this on board and hopefully it will click with me one day.

Those shots haven't had any editing and to answer the question, What was I looking for, I suppose I thought it would have been less shadows and lit better. I wasn't sure about the lamplights.....although, I liked it, I wasn't sure it would fly as a good photo...lol

One more quick question.... Does it stand to reason, if I were shooting a city with more lighting, giving the sky a city glow (for lack of a better way of putting it) would it have mattered about me standing in such low light?
I wondered about the cars/movement/lights if that should be an issue... I suppose it is what the individual wants, right?

I'm such the beginner and I'm sure these questions are really lame, so forgive me for that. I see I've made another blooper on another thread about HDR and thinking I was using it...LOL OOPS! :rolleyes:
Thanks again.... And the photo of the Bay Bridge! AWESOME! Just beautiful! I could see that on my wall!
 
ohkphoto

ohkphoto

Snow White
karlyh said:
I'm such the beginner and I'm sure these questions are really lame, so forgive me for that. I see I've made another blooper on another thread about HDR and thinking I was using it...LOL OOPS! :rolleyes:
Thanks again.... And the photo of the Bay Bridge! AWESOME! Just beautiful! I could see that on my wall!
Click to expand...

No such thing as lame questions, Karlyh, and "bloopers" are how we all learn. We all started somewhere, and as fast as technology changes, everyday is a new day and some days we're all beginners. Believe me, there are days when I make some real blunders (and not just in photography!)

This group of people is the best and kindest group I've come across for experts as well as beginners and all of us in-between. Photography, like life itself, is a journey. So, just keep shooting, and "bloopering" and asking questions!

Best Regards
 
K

KennethHamlett

New member
karlyh said:
Thank you everybody... I have so much to learn and really do appreciate your feedback.. Kenneth, I need to learn more about the editing software I suppose to apply what you're telling me... Taking all of this on board and hopefully it will click with me one day.

Those shots haven't had any editing and to answer the question, What was I looking for, I suppose I thought it would have been less shadows and lit better. I wasn't sure about the lamplights.....although, I liked it, I wasn't sure it would fly as a good photo...lol

One more quick question.... Does it stand to reason, if I were shooting a city with more lighting, giving the sky a city glow (for lack of a better way of putting it) would it have mattered about me standing in such low light?
I wondered about the cars/movement/lights if that should be an issue... I suppose it is what the individual wants, right?

I'm such the beginner and I'm sure these questions are really lame, so forgive me for that. I see I've made another blooper on another thread about HDR and thinking I was using it...LOL OOPS! :rolleyes:
Thanks again.... And the photo of the Bay Bridge! AWESOME! Just beautiful! I could see that on my wall!
Click to expand...

Always remember, it doesn't matter how much light is around you it only matters how much light shines on your subject. It's kind of like shooting concert images. You might be sitting in the dark, but the stage is fully lit and that's what you're exposing for. With the night shots, you are exposing for your subject and not based on how much light is where you happen to stand while taking the shot (unless you are in the field of view of the subject). Keep shooting. Trial and error is the best teacher. Remember, it doesn't matter what anyone else wants to get out of the image, at this point it's all about how YOU want your images to appear.
 
E

Essence of Imagery

New member
karlyh said:
One more quick question.... Does it stand to reason, if I were shooting a city with more lighting, giving the sky a city glow (for lack of a better way of putting it) would it have mattered about me standing in such low light?
I wondered about the cars/movement/lights if that should be an issue... I suppose it is what the individual wants, right?

I'm such the beginner and I'm sure these questions are really lame, so forgive me for that. I see I've made another blooper on another thread about HDR and thinking I was using it...LOL OOPS! :rolleyes:
Thanks again.... And the photo of the Bay Bridge! AWESOME! Just beautiful! I could see that on my wall!
Click to expand...

To answer your question, you really NEED to be standing in a location with as little lighting as possible to avoid light pollution on the foreground. The Bay Bridge was shot at around 11:00 p.m. in a grove of trees, with raccoons investigating why we were there. The motion of the cars should create the feeling of the city being "alive" - however if you REALLY want a city panoramic without that movement, one might suggest taking the shot at 4:00 a.m. in the morning - then overlaying it with the shot you took during the blue hour.

I truly believe that if you're sincere about wanting to learn, then questions are the only way you're going to go about it. I was self-taught, and the learning curve cost me around 10,000 shutter actuations. Honestly, out of the first 10k images shot with my camera, I believe that possibly 50 are images I still use/like and are ones that I'd publish publicly. The rest is in learning, taking it out of "P"ansy mode and learning to use the "M"aster mode... ;)
 
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