98. Twilight - April 26-May 2, 2015
Byron-
I decided to try a twilight portrait. I could use electronic flash to illuminate the subject. Any excuse to use flash! I brought Erl to the top level of the Maple Grove Transit parking ramp. I tried several locations on the ramp, this was my favorite. I learned that using an umbrella in a light wind requires a weight at the bottom of the stand.
I decided to try a twilight portrait. I could use electronic flash to illuminate the subject. Any excuse to use flash! I brought Erl to the top level of the Maple Grove Transit parking ramp. I tried several locations on the ramp, this was my favorite. I learned that using an umbrella in a light wind requires a weight at the bottom of the stand.
Deron-
I'm going with this photo over the others that I shot, because it's right after sunset, where you still get that bright light and with the clouds, it really lights up. Also, I like the windmill as a bit of a focal point or subject of the photo. If you look close you can see the house lights down the hill in the valley.
I'm going with this photo over the others that I shot, because it's right after sunset, where you still get that bright light and with the clouds, it really lights up. Also, I like the windmill as a bit of a focal point or subject of the photo. If you look close you can see the house lights down the hill in the valley.
Kevin-
A couple of weeks ago I visited the Getty Museum in Los Angeles on a Sunday evening when they stay open late and walked out of one of the galleries at Twilight. I later commented to Ed LaCroix that the Getty is a place we should try to visit with our cameras on a Sunday night, to capture architecture in that light. Though I imagine we will have difficulty overcoming likely tripod restrictions.
I also considered photographing the Minneapolis skyline at Twilight and Ed helped me find an ideal location to shoot from, a high rise condominium just across the river from the city. But time is of course an issue and I knew it would likely be challenging to get permission to access that building within a day or two.
But I also knew of one place where I knew it would’t be a problem to capture an architectural photograph at Twilight. My house! And it provided an ideal opportunity to combine an evening twilight sky, the tungsten interior lights and exterior lights, and as many aimed pops of a tungsten gelled Nikon flash aimed at the roof top as I could pull off during each 15 second exposure.
Nikon D4s, tripod mounted, 14-24mm f/2.8 Nikkor set to 19mm. ISO 100. 15 seconds at f/11. The image was captured at 8:53 PM, or 36 minutes after sunset (in Minnetonka), which fits Paul’s description of nautical twilight as the sun would have been about 9 degrees below the horizon. Ideally I would have photographed later, to get a very dark blue sky with some starlight visible, but I knew that there wold be no way to balance that exposure with the exposure for interior and exterior lights.
A couple of weeks ago I visited the Getty Museum in Los Angeles on a Sunday evening when they stay open late and walked out of one of the galleries at Twilight. I later commented to Ed LaCroix that the Getty is a place we should try to visit with our cameras on a Sunday night, to capture architecture in that light. Though I imagine we will have difficulty overcoming likely tripod restrictions.
I also considered photographing the Minneapolis skyline at Twilight and Ed helped me find an ideal location to shoot from, a high rise condominium just across the river from the city. But time is of course an issue and I knew it would likely be challenging to get permission to access that building within a day or two.
But I also knew of one place where I knew it would’t be a problem to capture an architectural photograph at Twilight. My house! And it provided an ideal opportunity to combine an evening twilight sky, the tungsten interior lights and exterior lights, and as many aimed pops of a tungsten gelled Nikon flash aimed at the roof top as I could pull off during each 15 second exposure.
Nikon D4s, tripod mounted, 14-24mm f/2.8 Nikkor set to 19mm. ISO 100. 15 seconds at f/11. The image was captured at 8:53 PM, or 36 minutes after sunset (in Minnetonka), which fits Paul’s description of nautical twilight as the sun would have been about 9 degrees below the horizon. Ideally I would have photographed later, to get a very dark blue sky with some starlight visible, but I knew that there wold be no way to balance that exposure with the exposure for interior and exterior lights.
Paul-
I took a lot of photographs for this week’s theme; more than I usually do. I think the theme had a lot to do with it.
The good news: It allowed me to experiment with a number of settings and combinations of settings on the D5200.
The bad news: Many of them were terrible, some were only moderately terrible, and most of the remainder where not bad except for where they were terrible.
But a few came out all right (I think). Certainly I am going to drop the ISO—I locked this down to a 1600 maximum for some subsequent pictures I took—the next time something like this roles around to see how it cuts down on noise, and change the EV values on the auto-bracketing feature…again, to see the results. The experimentation was fun, but not when the clock is ticking on your window of opportunity as was the case for this theme.
In any event, yes, I’m continuing to play with different camera features and techniques (Kevin).
This picture was taken on the east(ish) side of Holmes Lake in Lincoln. It’s Lincoln’s largest lake, which isn’t saying a great deal by the standards you guys are used to. What was particularly challenging is that between me and the sun (besides one Astronomical Unit or 93,000,000 miles, give or take) was about a forty-foot levy that flanks the lake on the west. So I was already losing some nice background at sunset.
Our story so far…The photo was taken at 8:21:25 (Central)…three-plus minutes after sundown on April 26th. By “civil twilight” standards, that puts the sun around 6° below the horizon line. I shot the image at 1/180 sec at f/22; ISO 6400, aperture priority, matrix-metered; 55-200mm lens focused at 120mm; auto bracketed at .5 EV; camera mounted on tripod. (It was a very cool night and I briefly though about inventing some kind of “warming strips” that could be placed on various parts of metal tripods.) I have no idea if the guy caught any fish, and please tell me you can see the guy in the picture. But I think he and I were the last to leave the park.
The fish probably stayed.
I took a lot of photographs for this week’s theme; more than I usually do. I think the theme had a lot to do with it.
The good news: It allowed me to experiment with a number of settings and combinations of settings on the D5200.
The bad news: Many of them were terrible, some were only moderately terrible, and most of the remainder where not bad except for where they were terrible.
But a few came out all right (I think). Certainly I am going to drop the ISO—I locked this down to a 1600 maximum for some subsequent pictures I took—the next time something like this roles around to see how it cuts down on noise, and change the EV values on the auto-bracketing feature…again, to see the results. The experimentation was fun, but not when the clock is ticking on your window of opportunity as was the case for this theme.
In any event, yes, I’m continuing to play with different camera features and techniques (Kevin).
This picture was taken on the east(ish) side of Holmes Lake in Lincoln. It’s Lincoln’s largest lake, which isn’t saying a great deal by the standards you guys are used to. What was particularly challenging is that between me and the sun (besides one Astronomical Unit or 93,000,000 miles, give or take) was about a forty-foot levy that flanks the lake on the west. So I was already losing some nice background at sunset.
Our story so far…The photo was taken at 8:21:25 (Central)…three-plus minutes after sundown on April 26th. By “civil twilight” standards, that puts the sun around 6° below the horizon line. I shot the image at 1/180 sec at f/22; ISO 6400, aperture priority, matrix-metered; 55-200mm lens focused at 120mm; auto bracketed at .5 EV; camera mounted on tripod. (It was a very cool night and I briefly though about inventing some kind of “warming strips” that could be placed on various parts of metal tripods.) I have no idea if the guy caught any fish, and please tell me you can see the guy in the picture. But I think he and I were the last to leave the park.
The fish probably stayed.
Jerry-
This was taken at the local Catholic cemetery about 15 minutes after sunset. I have a lighter version with more detail in the grass and stone but I like the more serious tone to this one. The guy for whom the marker tolls was born in 1873 and died in 1900. Jerry
D750, 80-400 at 160mm, f11 @ 1/60, iso 3200.
This was taken at the local Catholic cemetery about 15 minutes after sunset. I have a lighter version with more detail in the grass and stone but I like the more serious tone to this one. The guy for whom the marker tolls was born in 1873 and died in 1900. Jerry
D750, 80-400 at 160mm, f11 @ 1/60, iso 3200.