Author: SiobhanKyle

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Live Show Recap: Shadows

Hey there! This week was a fun one, I love more abstract concepts like this one. This week the subject was shadows (you can see my blog on the subject here.) We got some great submissions. Next week we’re doing natural framing, which I love!

AHHHHH the first 4 episodes of our new travel show, Wanderlust, are out now! Only the first episode is listed, but there are links below each video with the link for the next episode, shhhh.

In two weeks we’ll have the very talented fashion photographer Roxy Rodriguez on the show!

Ok, so we start the show, inexplicably, by going over to me with a single question:

  • plans on going south for the solar eclipse? Nope!

Ok, let’s look at your photos:

Now for some photo news:

Now some chit-chat! The part of the show where you say things and we make fun of you maybe:

  • how to turn on notifications for YouTube channels? Click the little bell next to the Subscribe button and choose “turn on notifications”
  • tips on how to be chill like Tony? Have a cool hobby, be Tony.
  • Captain and Tennille of photography? “Are his eyes real or is he one of those cave cats?”
  • millennial hate is booooooring
  • who is choosing our thumbnails? No one! They’re arbitrary. “Yeah, we’re not great at YouTube stuff.” “I don’t know how we got here.”

More questions?

  • any tips on lighting senior citizens? Don’t underestimate people’s vanity. Side-lighting is a no-go. Use a big softbox on axis with the camera if you’re looking to eliminate wrinkles.

Now let’s look at a portfolio! Hey Matthias, that’s a weird way to sign off. Lovely shots. Kinda weird layout, but great having the images full-screen. Pare down some images, combine the categories, simplify.

Over to me for a few more questions:

  • wanna visit Dubai? Yes.
  • any tips for shooting a wedding on top of a mountain? Pack light, dress accordingly, bring oil blotter sheets. Use Google Earth to figure out the lighting and landscape to plan ahead. Watch your alcohol intake in high altitudes!
  • how do you see the future of photography due to people learning online? Chelsea says better work due to more people being educated and exposed to it. Trends come and go quicker, they make people have to be more experimental. The format is a good challenge.

Back to your photos!

  • two of a kind
  • motorcycle selfie
  • mirror image
  • ski lift (Kyle Medina!)
  • parkour 
  • oh heyyy I got a pick! “Girls are so smart.”
  • three men accidental composition
  • “they make these goofy dummies look like big dangerous animals“

Questions:

  • rude dudes
  • how to overcome photo pricing low-balling? Call um cheap. Let them go with the better deal, you can’t convince someone of your value. Some projects are worth parsing out with them though, you can’t cheap out on a wedding.

Back to your photos:

A few last questions:

  • wildlife body? D500 for flying birds, but the 5DSR is the home set-up for backyard perched birds.
  • how to get shots of running dogs and get the eye in focus? Your focusing points make all the difference.
  • rumored RGBW sensors in future cameras? Yes! Very technical explanation to follow.

Speeding through shots at the end of the show, here are some standouts.

And that’s our show! Check out Wanderlust at sdp.io/WL1 and join us next week for “natural framing.” Thanks guys!

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Beginner Photography: Shadows

Hey folks! I like these creative subjects Chelsea is picking for the live show these days. This week the subject is “shadows.” Not just incidental ones that you get when you photograph a subject on a clear day, but shadows that you capture as an element of the composition. I’ve certainly shot images like that in the past, as seen here:

 

But this week I was inspired to create a shadow as an element of a story. I had the idea to photograph my daughter, Eloise, cowering under the covers with the shadow of a monster on the wall above her. So here’s how I went about it:

First, I set up my camera (an Olympus OM-D E-M10) on a tripod in her room. I then picked through Eloise’s vast array of stuffed animals, dragon and dinosaur figurines to find a properly intimidating shape. I placed it on her dresser, across the room from her bed, and propped my phone up behind it with the flashlight app turned on. It took some maneuvering, but I finally got the proper shadow size and placement on the wall. 

For the camera settings, I had it in aperture priority mode, set to the lowest aperture, which was f/4.5. The shutter speed wound up being 1/4 of a second and the ISO at 1600, so it certainly isn’t the cleanest or sharpest picture, but the mood was more important. I went back and forth with it, but still stuck to Tony and Chelsea’s top tip and used a full white point.

I didn’t want the light from the flashlight to be too blown out and obvious, but the image was far too dark without it. I hope I was successful it making it look like night while still illuminating the subject.

Then came the post-processing. I use Adobe Lightroom for most of my editing (you can see some of our free videos from the Lightroom book here.) I converted the shot to black and white, as my daughter’s room is cluttered and brightly colored. I cropped and straightened the image, although it still feels a bit weird since I was shooting at an angle from the bed. I added some vignetting to make the room appear darker (it was shot at night, but the flashlight obviously cast a lot of light into the room) and dodged her face a bit so you could see she was there. I added some noise reduction and kept adjusting the exposure until I got what I thought looked best. 

So, there’s my process, and here’s my final image:

So what do you think? Was it successful? I hope I conveyed the universal feeling of fear of the dark that kids experience. What would you have done differently? Let me know in the comments below if you have suggestions. I look forward to seeing all your submissions for the show this week!

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Live Show Recap: Slice of Life

Happy new year! We start the show off well by being mostly on time and having Justin back in the house. We also have some guest doggos in the studio! 

Apparently London goes from posh to sloshed come nightfall.

So this week the topic was “slice of life” which I love. A photo that captures a story in a moment, a candid and not a posed photo.

Ok, we start looking at your photos here, and these were our faves:

Time for PhotoNews!

Over to me for some questions:

  • what do you think Nikon will do for it’s 100th anniversary? Maybe a new DF? Maybe have a beer and relax?
  • what’s up with Tony’s new aerial photography business? Nothing yet, need FAA certifications first.

Now to review a portfolio! Vanexus Photography, absolutely stunning landscapes. Another husband and wife team! Keep your interface consistent between your main page and your categories, also change your store page so they can order directly. Otherwise, it’s lovely.

Ok, back to your photos:

Now to Chit-Chat! The part of the show where we read your weird comments on our videos.

  • stoners
  • droning
  • how to shoot with your spouse
  • buy our books
  • i love you babes
  • badittude
  • apparently we don’t answer this one dude’s questions, but he asks dumb ones

Back to photos!

Over to me for some more of your questions:

  • new years resolutions? Nah, not really. Justin has some, I do not.
  • how old is too old to become a professional photographer? Never. 
  • a review of sharpness tools in PS? It’s in our Photoshop book.
  • what’s the best sandwich? Reubens for Tony, Thanksgiving turkey sandwich for Chelsea or a lobster roll, pulled pork for Justin, chicken cheesesteak for me.

Back to photos, Tony sped through them and picked some out:

More questions!

  • tips on shooting a model for the first time? Watch a shoot on YouTube to learn how to direct a model. If you have an experienced model, follow their lead, if not, look up posing. Pay attention to the overall aesthetic and mood. Take time to interact and develop a rapport first.
  • are all crop sensors of the same brand equal? No, close but not exact. A bigger sensor or faster lens will make a lot of difference.

A few more photos, rapid-fire:

And that’s our show! Join us next week for the subject “shadows” where shadows are a part of the composition, not just incidental.

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Beginner Photography: Slice of Life

Happy 2017! I’ve been sick for all of it, plus a few days so far, so I didn’t go out shooting this week. But I have plenty of photos to choose from for this topic. “Slice of life” might be my favorite subject matter for photography. I’ve always preferred shooting people and especially candids. I like capturing a brief, fleeting moment in time; an expression, a movement, an interaction. Posed portraits just don’t give you that, they are people’s attempts at looking their best, at being still. 

I’m not sure there’s a way to teach this topic, really. Besides using whatever camera settings are appropriate for your setting, the only thing to do is to observe and wait. I covered street photography here, which gives you some tips on how to shoot unobtrusively. For all candid photography, I use live view mode, and flip out the screen on my E-M10 so that people can’t tell when I’m shooting. If you’re shooting strangers, they tend to think you’re not shooting them, but something else in the scene. If you’re taking photos before and after they appear in frame, they’ll assume they aren’t the subject. If you’re shooting your friends and family, or at an event, just shoot excessively. At first people will be stiff, knowing they’re being photographed, but they’ll loosen up once they get used to you there.

Here are some of my favorite “slice of life” shots from the past year:

 

Shot on my Samsung smartphone, so the settings were automatic. 1/390th, f/1.9, ISO 40.

I love her expression and body language, her gaze bringing you to his, which leads you down. You even get some context of where we are by the pamphlet he’s holding.

 

Shot with the Olympus E-M10 at 1/400th, f/11, ISO 200. Not sure what I was thinking for the settings on this one, my shutter speed and f/stop were higher than necessary.

My first time shooting California surfers in the wild.

 

Shot with the E-M10 at 1/250th, f/3.5 at ISO 200. 

This feels like a perfect childhood moment to me. The expressions of anticipation, the motion of the boy in front. The car in the background is unfortunate, but that’s city living for you.

 

Shot with the E-M10 at 1/250th, f/4.5 at ISO 200. 

I shot with the sun behind her, with a shutter speed to freeze her but get the motion of her hand and the water.

 

Shot with the 5D Mark III and a 24-70 f/2.8 at 1/60th, f/4 and ISO 1250.

I love the joy and energy in this shot. The bride seeing her friend’s crazy dance, the groom shaking hands.

 

Do these shots work for you? It’s hard to objectively look at your own photos sometimes, especially if they’re of people you know and love.

Do you enjoy shooting candids? What do you do to capture a specific moment? Join us for the live show this Thursday to see more “slice of life” shots.

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Live Show Recap: Best of 2016

Well guys, this was a crazy one. Justin is in California so the show is a bit… slapdash. We lose the stream a few times in the first 20 minutes, but once we realize Skype was to blame, it gets back on track and stays there.

This week we reviewed your best photos of 2016! And we got some awesome submissions. 

So we’re not sure if we’re doing the show next week, but whenever we’re back we’re taking submissions on the topic “Slice of Life.” You can hear Chelsea’s description of what that is here.

We get into your submissions here, and I’ll highlight Tony and Chelsea’s favorites below:

  •  “this looks like a wormhole or some futuristic anus, and I really like that”
  • happy baby
  • Kyle killin’ it, as always
  • lovely portrait
  • “oh my gosh, this is the craziest sea gull I’ve ever seen”
  • juvie praying mantis
  • single-light portrait
  • “drummers like to put blankets in the base drum in case they get cold”
  • Jefferson memorial
  • Horseshoe bend
  • great timing

Chelsea has a cool llama shirt.

Our photographer friend Max has a YouTube channel and is giving away a drone. Find him at sdp.io/Max. 

This insane underwater photo won the National Geographic wildlife photo of the year. Congrats to Greg Lecoeur.

Now to chit-chat! Our favorite segment where you make dumb/mean/funny comments on our videos and we reply.

  • “on our best gear of 2016 video, which was optional to view, by the way…” we’re the worst gear of 2016
  • dropping shits is funny, killing people with drones is not
  • DaddyPRyan, maybe we’ll come to New Zealand if you had a better name
  • Chelsea is always bored

Now we look at a viewer portfolio! LotaLove Photography. Good job with the “booking for 2017” header, contact page and pricing page. “I’m just mad as your wife now.” I would change the formatting so you see full screen images. Lovely shots, just need to display them better. Well done, Charlotte!

Now we get back to your photos, if Tony would stop jinxing the show:

I texted Tony some of your questions and Chelsea pulls some from the comments:

  • rainy day photography tips? Take pictures of your pets, make a mini studio and try product photography, try indoor projects like one of these.
  • what’s your photo management process? When do you delete photos? Don’t delete photos while you’re shooting wildlife, or you’ll miss a moment. It’s easier to do on the computer so you can see everything big, unless you have a 5DSR with those huge files.

More photos:

A big discussion of Ken Rockwell. Give the guy a break.

Some more questions from you:

  • any thoughts on an organized Instagram feed? Cool, but no.
  • are you self taught? What books did you learn from? Tony took some classes, but is mostly self taught. Same for Chelsea, but has learned a lot from art classes.

Ok, we glance through the thumbnails and pull out the ones that stand out at the end here:

Final questions?

  • can we make videos about real estate and product photography? Yes, Tony wants to work with photographers in genres he doesn’t usually cover.
  • when is the best time to use the different priority modes on your camera? Shutter for wildlife or sports, aperture for portraits, manual for shooting in the studio or when you have time to mess with your settings, but still using auto ISO.
  • we disappoint many dogs and many people

And that’s a show! Subscribe to our channel or periodically check sdp.io/live to see when our next show is, we’ll be looking at your slice of life shots. Thanks for sticking around! Happy new year to us all.

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Beginner Photography: Best of 2016

Happy holidays! This post is going to be a look back on my photography journey so far this year, as we’ll be reviewing your best of 2016 photos for the live show this week. 

So, this might not be much of a dramatic transformation as I only started this series 4 months ago, but I can certainly say I’ve tackled new projects and stretched myself. I mean, I was second shooter on a wedding! That’s crazy. I found out which genres I’m not great at (landscapes, still life) and some that I was surprisingly good at (spooky, wedding, street). I started shooting with a borrowed Olympus E-M10 with a Lumix 14-42mm lens, which felt like a revelation after using my Samsung smart phone for so long, but now I am feeling limited by my gear again.

I found that I need to work on mastering my camera settings. I still rely on automatic mode a bit too much, I don’t nail focus as often as I’d like. I’m better at finding my shots rather than creating them, I could use to plan more.

So I’m going to post my favorite images from these past few months below, in chronological order:

Adventure: 

This shot was taken with my phone, so the settings were out of my control. But the sun was high, so the shutter speed was fast and the ISO was low. I love the mood, the action, and the colors. I feel I successfully captured the joy of children in summer. 

 

Travel:

Another phone shot! I could not have planned something like this. Just a beautiful moment I happened upon in the Muir Woods. The light filtering through the trees, the backlighting of that lone stump.

Street:

I loved this bright turquoise wall, and I only had to sit for a few minutes to catch someone walking by it. I shot at 1/400th of a second at f/8 and ISO 200.

 

Spooky:

This is one of my most successful shoots to date, and one that I actually planned out instead of winging. I dressed up my daughter in a vintage dress and applied some makeup to appear dead. I shot behind an old school and an abandoned church at sundown for the mood. The leading lines bring you to her and then off into the darkness. 1/60th, f/4, ISO 800.

 

Wedding:

This shot is one of my favorites, and it may only be because I know the people in it. I cut off feet, but I love the mixed eye contact, the anxious energy and mood. I was second shooter for a friend who lent me her Canon 5D Mark III and 24-70 f/2.8. It was shot at 1/1000th, f/2.8, and ISO 1250 which is insane. I could have certainly shot at a lower ISO and shutter speed.

 

Bird:

Another example of the right gear making the shot. I was shooting with the D500 and a 200-500 f/5.6. This was shot at 1/800th, f/5.6 and ISO 100.

 

Night:

My first attempt at night photography was my most successful. Shot with the Olympus at a 6 second exposure, f/5 and ISO 200.

 

So those are my favorite shots I took this year. I got to play with cameras I will never own and shoot with really talented photographers. I got to do some travelling and force my family into modeling. I got to practice making art in a way I haven’t in years. I am really enjoying this, and I hope you are having fun watching me try and fail and try and sometimes succeed. You can see all my past posts here.

What do you think I could use to work on this year? What would you like to see me try? What have you learned shooting this year?

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Live Show Recap: Portraits with Scott Borrero

Hey! We had a big get for last night’s live show. We had the winner of Adorama’s Top Photographer, Scott Borrero on the show! He’s a great photographer, a prolific Instagrammer, and Twitter ranter. He was so fun to talk to and gave great constructive criticism for the portraits we reviewed. If you haven’t watched Top Photographer yet, you can see it at sdp.io/top and watch the past episodes and look forward to the next season!

He talks about some behind-the-scene info on the show, like that in the first episode they only had 30 minutes to both shoot and edit! Here’s his tips on getting Instagram followers (which, like it or not, is part of the business):

  • be consistent
  • put in time, quality over quantity
  • enjoy it

Engaging on social media can get you work, bottom line. Adapting to the time is important and it’s a way to market yourself for free.

So we don’t get into a ton of your photos this week, that’s just how it is when we have a guest, but there’s a lot to learn from the information given in this show. Don’t worry, we’ll do portraits again (we seem to every few months.)

We get into your shots here. We hardly give any picks this show, I would just watch through to hear Scott’s critiques, they’re really specific and helpful.

  • first pick! 
  • someone submitted a photo of Chelsea and Scott didn’t realize it was her

Over to me for some viewer questions for Scott, and some weird stuff happens with my head:

  • Were things tense between contestants on the show? 
  • What’s your workflow from camera to Instagram? 

Next we review a portfolio, Deveney Photography. Scott, Chelsea and Tony all have different ideas about pricing pages. Good “About Me” page, try and put all your sections on the main page, use a different leading image, there are better in your portfolio. 

We take a few minutes to look through Scott’s Instagram (@scottborrero) to see how you get 372,000 followers! He bought a point and shoot to take video and to shoot casually.

 Now back to viewer submissions:

  • “you gotta thump it, just thump it real hard”
  • only the second pick of the night!
  • Scott talks photo cliches

Over to me for some more questions:

  •  what point-and-shoot did you get? Canon G7-X Mark II
  • Smaakjeks is insane
  • how did you get your first business client? Going door to door with business cards!

We finish out the show with your worst photo submissions! We asked people to stump us and send in pictures you thought we could not say anything nice about.

  • “Oh a bone wreath, Scott, I’m gonna let you take the lead on this one!”
  • “a mother and father bringing another generation into the world”
  • “I think what’s nice is they keep their grass at a really good height?”
  • “the birth of a serial killer”
  • “I hate to see like, an entire nose, I only like to see a small fraction of a nose”
  • Tony is really good at this.
  • “This kid came from those freaky shadows and now he’s a monster”
  • “He’s a badger that just turned into a man”
  • possibly a prison tattoo

And that’s our show! What a blast. Go watch Top Photographer to see the competition and Scott’s win. 

Tune in next week to submit your best photos of 2017! Happy holidays to you all, have a great week until we see you.

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Beginner Photography: Portraits


I feel like my photography is one step forward, two steps back. Once I feel the slightest bit confident, I have a shoot that I just cannot get right. This is one of those weeks. I’m starting to feel limited by my resources. I would have killed for an external flash for this week’s project. My Olympus does not seem to do well in low light, even though I didn’t feel like my setting was particularly dim!

So this week the subject is portraits, which we did a few months back (you can see my blog post on it here.) It is discouraging to see that my shots then were better than what I came up with this week, but the setting was certainly more conducive to shooting portraits.

So, since I took individual portraits last time, this week I decided to try and take some family shots of my husband Eric, my daughter Eloise and me. Here’s a super helpful video that Tony made on shooting groups:

Here are some tips from that video, some I followed, and some I didn’t:

  • Neutral clothing. You don’t want distracting logos or bright colors busying up the shot.
  • Clean background. If you don’t have a home studio, pick a clean background and get as much distance as you can between your subjects and the background so that you can get some background blur.
  • Use soft light. It’s very difficult to light everyone evenly, so if you can use a bounce flash or a softbox, do.
  • Shoot from the waist up. The face is the most important subject, you don’t need the whole body.
  • Camera Settings. Use a moderately fast shutter speed to freeze any movement, somewhere between 1/60th and 1/125th, depending on if children are involved. You’ll need a high f/stop as well to get multiple people in focus. Somewhere between f/8 up to f/16 depending on how many people you are shooting. Your ISO is going to have to go up accordingly.

So I wound up breaking a lot of these rules, and my shot suffered as a result. I don’t have a home studio, it was far too cold to shoot outside, so I though I’d try getting an environmental shoot of our family near the Christmas tree. That meant we were using indoor lighting, a mix of the tree lights, a regular lamp, and the small bit of outdoor light we had coming through. That made a pretty inhospitable environment. Here’s what I came up with:

 You can tell just by looking at it that my f/stop and shutter speed are too low (0.6 seconds? f/4.5?) I also didn’t realize I had my ISO set to 200 for the whole time. I’m not sure what’s in focus, but it’s not our faces.

And that was the best of those.

 

This is essentially a snapshot. Eloise wanted to pose with the cat, who is facing the opposite direction. 

 

So that night was a flop. The next night I thought I’d try shooting in another room that had slightly better light. But you’ll see the shadows cast by overhead lighting.

This actually came out a bit better. My ISO was jacked up this time, so it’s a bit noisy, but seem to have gotten more in focus.

 

My husband in the chair where he draws.

 

So these photos are fine. My mom will be glad to have them. But they are not good. Did I mention how hard it is to shoot a photo with yourself in it? Because oh man, what a focusing nightmare. 

Here’s a whole page of videos on how to shoot portraits. Seems I need to revisit them myself!

And just for fun, here’s an in-between shot, once our dog Hungry busted into the room:

Look at that guilty dog face.

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Live Show Recap: Night Photography with Kyle Wolfe

This show was a blast! Even though I’m quickly being replaced by Kyle Wolfe, I understand why. What a talented and well-spoken guy. If you somehow don’t know, Kyle is a 17 year old photographer from California. We met him through our Facebook group and the live show. We were blown away by his talent and dedication and got to watch him grow as a photographer over the past few years. And now we finally got him on as a guest! 

Also, please let us know if we should continue calling the show Tony & Chelsea Live or go back to our old name of News, Booze, and Reviews!

We got so many stunning submissions this week, sorry we didn’t make it through more. This show is worth watching all the way through for the tips and editing that the crew gives! You can see my attempt in my blog here. During the live show we also did a gift guide for people you hate, and everyone’s favorite topic, Chit-Chat. 

I honestly don’t know if they gave picks and stars this week, we were so focused on talking to Kyle. But let’s see! 

We started reviewing photos here:

  • beautiful southern lights, could use a UFO though
  • just watch all of this because there are so many good tips for shooting the sky at night
  • star trails over a lighthouse

Time for Chit-Chat! The part of the show where you say mean, dumb, or funny things in the comments on YouTube and we berate or celebrate you for it!

  • “but mooooom!” Chelsea said I had a dumb face and looked like the Ikea monkey. We’re best friends.
  • Chelsea deserves more laughs
  • News, Booze & Reviews is back!
  • totally not a green screen
  • so many sponsors
  • we set Kyle up for that one
  • but really though, back button focus is great

Let’s review a few Squarespace portfolios. First up, Roberto Jara. Gorgeous work! Pare down your portraits a bit. Maybe change your layout so that your images are full screen instead of  square thumbnails. 

Next up we looked at Simon Nicholson’s portfolio. First off, get rid of the cover page, people don’t click through often. Delete similar or images, keep the best ones. Make your formats between pages consistent.

Let’s get back into your photos:

  • incredible lines and great tips on how to capture them

Over to me for your questions and comments:

  • How’d Kyle get into photography? From our great teaching, mostly  😛
  • Sharky wants to know who of T&C, Matt Granger, and Sharky are in the ocean, who would Kyle let drown? This gets some serious thought.
  • Astrophotography, how you do it? Use your widest aperture and varying ISO. Generally f/2.8, ISO 3200 and 20 second exposure. Take multiple shots and use image averaging to cut out some of the noise. There also some crazy mathing to pick the shutter speed.

Now our holiday gift guide for people you hate! I thought of many of these, and it appears that this is my hidden talent.

  • GoPro Karma (which falls out of the sky)
  • Galaxy Note 7 (which catches fire)
  • Pebble smart watch (which was shut down and discontinue)
  • Bargain Lightosphere (disappointing and cheap!)
  • 5lb bag of  Haribo sugar free gummy bears (they give you explosive diarrhea. Read the reviews)
  • Hot dog toaster (because why?)
  • An empty Leica box (the pinnacle of disappointment.)

Ok, back to your photos:

  • Simon  again! Killin‘ it.
  • gorgeous sky
  • “this episode is brought to you by Quaker Oats”
  • moon rainbows?

Kyle is team I-S-O, don’t tell Tony.

Over to me for some more questions:

  • how to make the Milky Way pop,and reduce noise? Avoid the moon, avoid light pollution, stack images to reduce noise. A fast lens on a full-frame camera helps.
  • Kyle, who are you favorite Instagrammers? His dear Stunner friends, Iris, Fyn, Maya, Claire, Nick and Matthew. And these talented astrophotographers, Michael Shainblum, Ian Chen, Farhan Zaidi, and Martin K.

Back to your photos:

One last question from me:

  • What is your biggest photography related goal? For Chelsea it’s to do more creative videos and shoots. For Tony it’s working with talented photographers in other genres and learning from them. Kyle wants to get published and have a gallery show.

One last stunning photo here, and then we’re out! It was a great show, thanks for all your submissions. And of course thank you for our talented guest, Kyle Wolfe! Tune in next week with maybe a surprise guest? We’ll be reviewing your portraits.

 

 

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Beginner Photography: Night

Wow, you guys. Night photography is incredibly difficult and I love it. Between keeping your camera steady for long exposures, balancing mixed lighting, and simply finding a focal point, I really had my work cut out for me. 

First off, if you want to really get into night photography, read chapter 10 in Stunning Digital Photography. There are so many things that go into making a proper night shot, and so many different types of night photography depending on where you shoot and what your subject is. If you want to do star trails, start with this video:

And there’s a lot more free info on this page of our site.

I live in a city and don’t fancy staying out in the woods by myself to attempt star trails, so that was off my list. And as cool as light painting is, I wasn’t really interested in trying that yet either. So I went for what we have plenty of in the city: lights. As always, I was using my (borrowed) Olympus E-M10 and Lumix 14-42mm. I also borrowed a tripod from a dear and generous friend, as there was no way I was attempting night photography by hand. The first night I went out was a bit after sunset, and it got dark quick. I shot the Ben Franklin Bridge from a pier beneath it and amazingly captured some star constellations in the sky above it! Then I went down to the Philadelphia Water Works behind the art museum to try and get a shot of Boathouse Row, a lovely string of boathouses along the river decked out with Christmas lights. That shoot was… less successful. I didn’t have quite enough reach with my lens, the angle wasn’t great, and it was too dark out to make interesting light in the sky or on the water. Since it was so dark and we were so far from the houses, my shutter speed was crazy slow which made the water look smooth and glassy instead of freezing the motion. Because of this I went out again two nights later and tried again at the blue hour, when the sun had just set. I think this time was a bit more successful, but I still wasn’t thrilled with the results. The angle and distance from the houses just didn’t make a compelling shot.

So here’s what I picked up from my shoots:

  • Be prepared. Dress for the weather, bring a tripod for long exposures (you’ll need them!) and a spare battery (they die quicker in the cold). If you’re in a rural area, bring a flashlight! You don’t want to be messing with your camera in the dark. Also choose your time, setting, and weather wisely. A clear night makes for better shots than any inclement weather or haze.

  • Choose your camera settings in advance. I set my camera to aperture priority, chose a moderate aperture and low ISO to reduce the noise and let the camera set the shutter speed as necessary. The first night I went out I bracketed my shots to get a good range of exposures to work with. The next night I just adjusted my exposure compensation by hand when I felt I needed to. You’ll want your shots to be brighter than you’d think, because you can recover more details when you edit them.
  • Editing is key. Shooting in the city, you get lots of ambient light and your lighting is mixed from all the different light sources. Adjusting the white balance in post is a must. I needed to adjust the crop drastically for every shot (my tripod didn’t have a smooth pan and tilt.)

So my first shots were of the bridge, and here’s the one I liked the best:

Not sure if you can see in a jpg, but the big dipper is at the top! 

Now I’ll show you boathouse row on my first shoot vs. my second shoot:

Meh.

Better? But I still don’t love it.

Here’s a panorama of the Water Works:

There’s a lot going on here with no real focal point though.

 

A cute little building with a glimpse of the FMC Tower.

 

Gazebo, tree, boathouses.

 

Doorway.

 

So that’s what I wound up with. I think my bridge shot was the most successful, which is a bit disappointing since it was literally in the first 10 shots I took. I really wanted to make Boathouse Row happen, but I just didn’t have a great angle on it. I think I still underexposed most of my shots which is unfortunate. I didn’t rely on my histogram like Tony suggested (always listen to Tony)! But how’d I do? 

I can’t wait to see all your shots during the live show this week with our special guest, Kyle Wolfe!