Tag Archives: night

Night Shoot at Pima

One of the special parts of the trip to Arizona was that Mark and I got invited along by our friend Joe to a night shoot at the Pima Air and Space Museum. I had seen some images from previous night shoots and the idea of photographing the many interesting airframes there in the dark intrigued me. The museum is excellent and well worth a visit, but it can be hotter than hell there and the light can be quite harsh, so this was a great alternative to try.

When I was a student, I used to do quite a lot of night photography. In the days of film, you played a lot more of a guessing game as to how things were working out. Also, film suffered from what was known as reciprocity failure so you could really extend the exposure in low light without necessarily ruining things. Digital is a lot more linear and also gives you the chance to see how things are coming out and have another go.

A lot of the attendees had done this more than once and had come equipped with a variety of tools to play with. Lights on stands, wands of different LEDs, huge flashlights etc. Plenty of things to work with. I had brought some tools along but was definitely keeping it simpler. Joe offered us some lights to work with but, since this was a new effort for me, I decided to keep it simple and try to get one approach worked out.

I had a tripod so I could leave the camera in place and then a couple of strobes to play around with. I had to make some set up adjustments first. Take off IS from the camera since it can wander over long exposures and make things blurry. Second, put the strobes on manual power and experiment with how well they do illuminating things. What I didn’t do but should have with hindsight was to go to bulb mode rather than 30 seconds on the shutter. At some points with the larger airframes, I was very frantic in trying to get everything lit in the 30 seconds. It proved to be rather energetic, and I was pretty pooped by the end of it.

I would open the shutter and then move around the airframe illuminating it with pops of the strobe. I quickly learned to shield the strobe, so it didn’t illuminate me and add me in to the shot. I also came to realize how the larger areas when I stood back a bit needed more light to compensate. All of this is logical but not something I thought of before trying it. More research/planning would have been a good idea. I was also surprised how my shadow could show up in some shots when I have no idea how it would have got there.

I did photograph some of the more famous assets in the collection – how can you ignore a B-58 or a B-36 – but I did also take time for others that were just of more interest to me. The size of the place meant you could easily not come across one of the other photographers for a while. They were helpful in pointing out the hazards of guy wires. Some of the larger planes have wires to stabilize them and these are basically invisible in the dark. If you are running around popping off flashes, you could easily collide with something unyielding. Fortunately, nothing like this for me but maybe some luck in that?

Would I do it again? Absolutely! It was very interesting and got some nice results. It also taught me a lot about what I wasn’t doing right and would set me up for a few ideas of how to do things differently in the future. I think a large flashlight would be an addition I would make, and I would definitely use the cable release and bulb mode. My thanks to Joe for taking us along and to the team for letting us join in.

The Aurora Forecast is Good but Will it Come?

Leave a reply

I can’t imagine that there are too many parts of the world that didn’t hear something about the significant coronal mass ejection that came the way of earth in May 2024. If you lived nearer the poles, aurora discussions were everywhere, and social media posts were full of it. If you lived elsewhere, you probably still heard about the potential technical issues our infrastructure could experience. I have had no luck with previous aurora potential sightings so, while this was of interest, I had a dose of skepticism.

I didn’t make any plans to go and find a location to see the aurora if it was visible in our area although I had checked out the dark skies maps to see how bad the light pollution was here and how far I would have to go to make a difference. I didn’t do anything with this data though. We were watching a movie in the evening and, when it finished, I stepped outside to see if anything was visible. It was about 10pm and there was nothing.

I went to get ready for bed but kept my clothes on just in case. At about 10:30, I went out again and still the skies were clear. I had read that 10pm to 2am was a good window so I was still at the beginning of this so didn’t give up completely. I messed around with a few other things and then figured I would have one more go outside before giving up and going to bed. Fortunately, this proved to be the right choice. I stepped out of the front door and saw something strange in the sky above us like a streak. I watched for a bit and then things started to get livelier.

I grabbed my camera and the tripod and went out to grab some shots. I also let Nancy know this was all going on since I hadn’t taken my phone outside with me. For the next hour or so, I just stared at the sky. The colors that the camera reproduced are far different to what I could see. It is a more sensitive device for this light than my eyeball, but I could clearly see purples and greens in the sky. The colors weren’t rapidly changing but you could see the transitions occurring. One of our neighbors returned while I was out so wandered over to ask if I could see anything and I pointed behind them. They were amazed by the sight and spent the rest of the time I was out looking as well.

At one point, I was beginning to be a bit tired, and the colors were fading a little, so I decided to call it a night. Just as I said goodbye and walked back towards the house, the skies lit up again. It was not letting me go that easily. I watched for a little longer and then decided I had got a good enough experience and headed indoors. It was certainly an amazing thing to witness. Maybe somewhere with less light pollution would have made things better but it was pretty good seeing all of this over our houses. The following night was supposed to be another good one, but the intensity was less, and I decided to sleep instead!

London Before Sunrise

Leave a reply

Our return flight home included a layover in London. Our flight in arrived before sunrise and brought us up from the south over to the east end and then back across Docklands, south of Westminster and in to Heathrow. I fortunately had a window seat although I was a bit far from the window itself so there was a certain amount of shooting while reaching across. Trying to pan appropriately for the movement of the aircraft was a touch tricky but I managed to exploit the low light capabilities of the camera to get some okay shots.

We flew across Biggin Hill and I was able to shoot almost straight down on the runway and ramp areas. Then we came up towards Woolwich and I could see the ferries and London City Airport. From there it was not far to the Thames Barrier and then the O2 arena. The high rises of Docklands were next. On to Tower Bridge with the Shard and London Bridge Station. Next stop was The Palace of Westminster with the London Eye and Waterloo alongside. Last was Buckingham Palace and Knightsbridge. Some fun sights to see. In daylight, I can navigate this area easily but, when it is dark, you have to work from key references.

Delta/LATAM Comes in After Dark

Leave a reply

Delta picked up a few ex-LATAM Airbus A350-900s as part of that airlines restructuring during the downturn in the airline business caused by the pandemic. They went initially in to storage and then have been progressively moved to Singapore for updating to the Delta configuration. Seattle has been the location for them to come through on their way to Asia. I have missed a few but one was due to come through when I could see it. Sadly, it departed a little late from Victorville and was showing due in after dark.

Since it was an unusual movement, I figured it was still worth the effort. I would use the 500mm since it has a wider aperture and test the low light capabilities of the camera to the full. It still meant some very low shutter speeds but I let the tech compensate for my low skill levels. I was pleasantly surprised by how well some of them came out given the lack of light. Since this shoot, I did also reprocess with PureRAW3 and this improved the quality of the shot further.

Shooting at SEA After Sunset

Leave a reply

One of the things that photographers that have only used digital cameras can’t appreciate is ability to shoot in low light conditions. When I was shooting film, you were already struggling with image quality with ISO 400 film. Early digital cameras got very noisy as the ISO got ramped up but, these days, the capabilities of shooting in very low light are truly amazing for those of us that are old enough to remember what it was like. ISO1000 black and white film was adventurous!

Now I feel quite comfortable trying all sorts of silly things. I had gone down to SEA one evening to try and get a departure that was possibly going out just before sunset. Sadly, it didn’t play ball and the sun was gone by the time it headed out. However, I was there and the camera can do silly ISO numbers so why not. It still needs to drop the shutter speed down quite low but, with a fast burst rate, the chances of getting a reasonable shot are not bad.

I figured I would play around with shooting departure shots as the last of the light was fading away. It was more about trying something different rather than aiming for the perfect shot. I did have some interesting planes to play with but also plenty of Alaska 737s. The light was pretty dim and ISO51200 is quite something to work with but the image quality is really very impressive considering what conditions you are shooting in.

Shooting After Sunset

Leave a reply

For a while, I had been thinking about trying to do some night photography of airliners. I had seen some good shots people had got but SeaTac does not have a lot of ambient light to illuminate aircraft flying overhead. It would be better if there was a large public space under the approach that would provide so brightness to work with. I was down at SeaTac to pick up a colleague and knew I would be there as the sun went down so I decided to have a go at some shots.

I used the 70-200 f/2.8 to get as much light as possible. The sun was going down so I was going through quite the transition of lighting conditions. Some were just twilight while other were when things were getting quite dark. The autofocus was also struggling since the center point was being used and the underside of the jet lacked much contrast in the dark. I still got a few usable images. The lack of light means they aren’t too great but it was fun to try something different. Now to find a better location!

Night Touchdown

Leave a reply

I posted about some night photography I tried on jets approaching SeaTac. After finishing that up I was heading to the terminal to pick up my colleague and I decided to go for a shot of touchdown in the dark. This was not going to be an easy one to get since it is really pretty dark at the north end of the airport so little ambient light. I was relying on the lights of the jet and pushing the ISO to a really high level. It is true that the noise gets really tough in those conditions but when looking at the image at a normal size, it really is not a big deal. Besides, it is a shot we would never have done in pre-digital days.

How Dark Can This Thing Shoot

Leave a reply

Every once in a while, I really test the high ISO capability of the cameras I have. The R3 got an early test when I was at Red Flag, I went out on two evenings to shoot some night departures and experimented with the ability of the camera to perform in those conditions. The high ISO capability of cameras has not moved on too much to be honest. The max ISO I used on my 1DXII was 51,200 and the R3 is still the same. It does appear to be a bit cleaner but they have possibly hit a bit of a limit. What I had not tried out before was an electronic viewfinder in such conditions.

The first night, I went out into the dunes to be ready for the B-1 departures. As it turned out, they didn’t launch that night. I did get some fighters coming out my way for a while before I concluded that this was a bust and I was heading back to the hotel. I tried shooting a few of the jets but I discovered the limitations of the camera pretty rapidly. When there is no light, the electronic viewfinder really struggles. The frame rate of the viewfinder drops like a stone and tracking a subject becomes pretty problematic. The frames per second drop too so the chances of a result are slim. With an optical viewfinder, this is not an issue but the chances of a good shot are also slim.

I returned to the hotel feeling pretty dispirited by this result. I wondered whether this was a real problem for adopting the R3. The following night, I went out again with the B-1s again being my main target. This time I had some tankers heading out before the B-1s launched. It was a very different evening. Sure, the lack of light still makes the chances of getting a good shot pretty low but the camera seemed to have no problem tracking the subjects and keeping the viewfinder frame rate up to a perfectly acceptable level. If I had only gone from the previous night, I would have concluded that it was unusable.

The embedded images in the RAW files looked pretty good but the Lightroom edits required a lot more work. DPP might be the answer or DxO PrimeRAW could do a good job. However, that is not the issue. Will the camera allow me to shoot at night with very dark subjects. Apparently, the answer is yes. It can handle it. However, it can’t track an almost black subject with a couple of navigation lights like an optical viewfinder can. That is a limitation that I may have to live with.

Backlight For A Seastack

Leave a reply

During the evenings at Cannon Beach, we could see lots of lights out on the water. Fishing boats were out at work and their lights were very bright. I am not sure whether they only fish at night or not. During the day, it would be hard to spot them without the lights giving you a clue since they were generally quite far out. However, one boat was closer in than the others. It was right behind on of the sea stacks near Haystack Rock. With a lot of mist in the air, the light from the boat was diffused and provided a backlight to the rock. It wasn’t lone before the boat came out from behind the rock and the effect was lost.

My Attempt At Aurora Shots

Leave a reply

There was a prediction that the Aurora Borealis would be visible well south in the US and, with clear skies in the area, I figured I would definitely go and see if I could get some shots. I thought my best location would be Mukilteo since I could be on the waterfront with an unobstructed view to the north. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one to have that thought. There were tons of vehicles lined up trying to find a space in the parking lot at Mukilteo.

I didn’t even bother to mess with this and turned around. I figured I would try the park at the other end of the waterfront and found a parking spot as soon as I arrived. No need to park on the street outside the park. There were still a lot of people there waiting including a few cameras pointed skywards. Unfortunately, we didn’t have anything to shoot. The predicted aurora never got as well developed as far south as us. I got a few shots including some where I tried to work out whether it was just ambient light on clouds in the distance or some sort of illumination from above but it was a bust.