A while back now one of my contacts and I from Flickr decided that it would be good for us to meet up around the local area and go for a night-shooting together. It may sound strange to some people, but shooting long time exposure’s on your own, or with one other person who doesn’t have a camera capable can tend to become very boring quickly, so having two people shooting long exposure’s, it makes the evening a bit more fun and interesting.
Anyway, we decided to meet down Southsea Seafront and then go from there to wherever we may end up. We met at around 7:30, and the guy’s name is Steve. Nice guy, nice camera, awesome lens! The sun was just setting as we walked off toward Old Portsmouth direction and I shot this, purposely too long to get cloud streaks (just) and the sea nice and smooth
We continued walking, slowly, shooting whatever and messing about as we went. Neil and his mate, Rob, joined us from the beginning which was great, since they are both interested in photography too, although can’t afford a SLR’s yet. I desperately wanted to get a "good" shot of that old church near Southsea castle, so we headed through that scary tunnel…
…And on to the church. I shot a few times, but they came out pretty bad, so I went for a mega-long exposure and it came out like this…
Hm, not greatly impressed with that. It seems that its a bit of a tough thing to photograph. Both photo’s I’ve taken of this church have both come out not as good as I would have hoped. Ah well.
We continued on walking toward Old Portsmouth and as I shot more and more photo’s, the better each one came out. I am now shooting in RAW too, and I am no longer doing BULB-mode exposure’s, when the metering is within the boundaries at least. Adam was with me for part of it and suggested to take a long exposure of a ferry moving past, this came out great, and what a weird effect on the water!
Possibly the best shot of the night was this one, taken on Spice Island looking at the Spinnaker tower.
And another shot, even better from just down the road a bit more…
We eventually run-out of land to walk on and I had enough by this time anyway, my final shot was this HDR-look-a-like of the Wight Link Ferry in the docks.
An awesome night’s shooting, and I am still improving on my methods of long exposure’s, which is great. I must say a big thanks to Steve for coming out, and of course Neil, Rob and Adam too!
Hey there!! I was wanting to ask you, I have recently bought a cable release for my 350d, and tonight for the first time ever I took an exposure for longer than 30 seconds! woo hoo!! However…. lots of noise, a hell of a lot! even on ISO 100!
Now to be fair… I was shooting for like.. 2 minutes.. but still, I couldnt print these pics and hang them – they’re just too noisy. So.. have you any ideas/experience/tips about how to get rid of that? I know that what I should really do is actually go out and try using the inbuilt “noise reduction” before emailing people out and trying to get advice but.. you know what this interweb thing does to us.. patience has gone the way of dial up. So any tips, very appreciated! How effective is the inbuilt “noise reduction” in the custom functions?
Hi Neil,
I’ve found the in-built noise reduction VERY good. I shot a few photos a while back which were 3-4 minute exposures at ISO100 without in-built noise-reduction on and they were terrible. I’d highly recommend turning it on, I always have mine set to on.
The only disadvantage is if you take a 2min exposure, for example, after the 2 minutes, the camera will then flash BUSY for a further 2 minutes for the software to run.
A bit irritating, especially if you take a 10-20minute one! I also use the 30-day free trial of noiseware just to remove any other noise just that bit further.
Finally, I also shoot in RAW when I am taking night/photography-type stuff. RAW is great for adjusting white-balance, but as well as that, it brings out so much more detail in the shots you take, compared to JPG. I use Picasa for almost anything, since Picasa can adjust white-balance (sort of) as well as reading the 350d’s RAW files. Photoshop is probably better, but its a VERY steep learning curve!
Hope this helps!
Daze
Hi Neil,
Your pictures are awesome, congratulations!
Regards from Argentina
Diego