Tag Archives: night

Niles Canyon Railway Train of Lights

A short distance south of us is a preserved railway, the Niles Canyon Railway. They run services all year along their corridor which runs in the attractive Niles Canyon between Niles and Sunol. During the time around Christmas, they run a train with lights illuminating the vehicles. They have a mix of coaches and open cars all of which have lights and illuminated shapes along the sides. A diesel locomotive at each pulls the train in each direction.

I figured I would pop along to see what it looked like. I got to Niles ahead of the departure which was still before the sun had gone down. I found a location near the station where the train was just up a bank from me. I got some shots as it passed by and then headed up the canyon to be in Sunol when it arrived.

As I drove along the canyon, it was clear that there were a few places where it would be possible to stop and see the train pass. I picked one location and waited for it to come through. This was a far better place to shoot from. I was at pretty high ISO and handheld but the low shutter speed did mean that I had parallax issues causing the distant parts of the train to blur out a lot.

The train is pretty slow – like all preserved railways – so I was still able to get to Sunol ahead of it. I saw it come in and the crew turned it around for the leg back to Niles. By now it was quite dark. I chatted to one of the team after it left on the return leg and he explained that they would run a second journey later in the evening but this time starting at Sunol. Ridership was very good so this is obviously a popular trip for people.

Golden Gate After Dark

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A previous post showed the time lapse video I created from me shot sequence on the Marin Headlands. I didn’t just sit and let the sequence go, though. I also had a second body and took shots with that. Unfortunately, I only took one tripod with me so the initial shots were handheld trying to make use of reasonable handholding technique combined with the benefits of image stabilization in the lenses.

Once the time lapse sequence was done, I was able to use the tripod to get some shots in the dark. Cities always look cool at night. The proliferation of lights makes an interesting skyline look even better. Combine with that the motion of some elements and things get interesting. The motion can help or hinder. Streaking car lights are good but planes in the sky can be a distraction since they take on a significance that was never there when you saw the view.

The Golden Gate Bridge is an interesting foreground element. I chose the spot I wanted, even though I couldn’t park there. I parked further up the hill and walked down. (The walk back in the pitch black was a touch more interesting since the path is narrow at points and drops away very steeply!) Getting the white balance right to show the bridge color as it appears at the time is tricky. Auto analysis is not much use and there are few things that you can sample to give an accurate gray.

I have enjoyed night photography since I first started taking pictures. There is something quite peaceful about being out at night with your camera. However, this location probably doesn’t fit that mold. The place was busy the entire time. Meanwhile, I could watch numerous people taking pictures of themselves and the view struggling to understand why the camera “wasn’t working right”. I helped out a few but, after a while, I decided it was easier to just relax and let everyone do their thing. Without a tripod, there was only so much you could do to help.

Golden Gate Sunset Time Lapse

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After my buddy John had headed back into San Francisco, I had the choice to go home or to head back to the Marin Headlands to see whether I could get some shots across the Golden Gate to the city. The sunset was not too far off although the cloud levels looked like they might take away the best light. However, I figured the transition might make it worth a time lapse attempt.

I had come prepared with both a tripod and an intervalometer. As it turned out, I thought I had got this wrong when the intervalometer had dead batteries. However, I did have a backup plan with the Triggertrap iPhone app. (It turned out later that I had brought spare batteries with me for the intervalometer so I actually had more redundancy than I realized. However, I did manage to harm things a bit by nudging the tripod a couple of times when shooting so it didn’t all go well.

Even so, I did get a good set of shots to process. I was more conscious this time of having some spare footage before and after the sequence to make sure it didn’t have a sudden ending or one that cut off some aspect of motion. This ended up being the tour boats. They come out to the bridge and turn around. They provide some good motion in the sequence but also need to be complete or the eye is too aware of their sudden demise. Consequently, after shooting the sequence I wanted, I had to keep it running for a while in order to avoid the boat suddenly vanishing.

All of this was then processed in Lightroom and LRTimelapse, a program I have posted about before here.

MetLife Blimp

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We have had the MetLife blimp flying around our area a lot recently. I don’t know what brought it to us. It may have been tied to some sports events or perhaps it is just a campaign for brand awareness. The blimp has been based out of Livermore Airport near us. Nancy had seen it at night over there lit up when she drove past.

Then we had it flying one evening. I had seen it previously just before sunset but I wasn’t ready to get a shot and by the time I was, it had gone. Shame because the light was great. Then it showed up at night. It was pretty dark so I had to really take the ISO up. My camera has pretty good high ISO capability but nothing like the current generation of bodies. However, it did a reasonable job.

Next time I came across the blimp I was up at Sonoma. I heard an odd noise and thought it might be a helicopter. However, Skypark does not allow rotorcraft. Instead it was the blimp shooting a low approach. They weren’t on the banned list so I guess it was okay! The climb out was quite dramatic!

Backstreet Bar

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While out at night in Chicago, I came across these place. It is actually the backdoor to the bar and it has a more obvious entrance on a well lit street. However, something about this entrance looked so much more interesting and slightly suspicious so I couldn’t resist getting some shots.

Devon Energy

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Energy is big business in Oklahoma. Oil and natural gas are a large part of the economy and, judging by the size of its downtown location, Devon is a big player in the market. Until I went there, I had not heard of the company. However, once you are there, you can hardly miss their tower which dominates the skyline. It is a pretty simple structure in principle but there are a few features that catch the eye. The gentle curve in towards the top is interesting and the texture on the windows had me looking at various ways to shoot it.

The overall shape did make me think of something less than flattering though. I did not read the Lord of the Rings books as a youngster (or since) but I have seen the movies. The shape of the building made me think of the eye of Sauron atop the tower in the films. You may think I am delusional for seeing this but that was how it struck me. I am not suggesting Devon is an evil corporation – it’s just the building reminded me of a film.

As the sun went down, I had varying options with the light on the tower so tried shooting from various angles and played with the exposure to get the effect I was after. I also got a few shots of it after dark when I was walking back from dinner. I’m not sure whether I like the building or not but it has certainly got my attention.

Bricktown at Night

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As part of the regeneration program that is underway in Oklahoma City, an area known as Bricktown is becoming a focus of development. It is a short walk from the heart of downtown. What was there before I don’t know but I imagine bricks had something to do with it. There are a lot of restaurants, bars and hotels in the area with a canal structure running through them. It is also the home of the minor league baseball stadium.

I stopped off for dinner one night after wandering around the city a bit. After my meal, I was walking back to the hotel and grabbed a few shots of the area. It was pretty dark and I had the ISO ramped way up but you can get a bit of a feel for the area. You can also see the lights of the baseball stadium in the background. I guess that they had a game that night. There are also horse drawn carriages plying their trade on the streets. This was a familiar sight when we lived in Chicago. They have gone to town on the lighting of these examples though. I guess it helps get some attention.

Oklahoma City Memorial at Night

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In previous posts about the federal building memorial in Oklahoma City, I talked about how it is lit at night and that I wanted to go back. This I have now managed to do. I showed up around sunset and walked around the whole memorial. I was traveling light so no tripod, only a GorillaPod. This worked fine for most things. I was interested to discover text on the end of the memorial which lit up at night. I had thought it was a blank wall previously.

The subtle lighting across the memorial was very nice. As the sky color faded, I got a bunch of shots, some with quite long exposures which helped to blur out the other visitors of which there were plenty. The gentleness of the scene was what I wanted to convey since it was even more apparent in the dark than during the day, even though it is a calm place then too. That the place feels so peaceful while remembering such a violent event is a tribute to those who created it and maintain it.

Night Flight to Oakland

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Heading home from a work trip meant an evening flight back into Oakland. Our run in brought us across Tracy and Livermore and I could get a good view of the towns before we crossed the hills near Fremont. The lack of lights is a good indication of where the hills are sometimes. There was a lot of cloud lurking over parts of the area and this was lit from beneath by the city lights. The effect was rather cool as I looked out so I tried to get shots that expressed that too.

I grabbed a few shots out of the window. Something interesting was happening with the camera as the first shot of the burst was what I was expecting but subsequent ones seemed to go for a far longer exposure with the associated increase in blurry failures. I shall try and work this out but if you know why this might happen, please let me know in the comments.

Night Star Trails

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My buddy Paul was in town and we had a day of shooting and exploring planned. However, we wanted to have a go at star trails in the evening as well. Consequently, we set up at Schellville as the sun went down to shoot the trails around the Douglas DST parked on the field. I set up two cameras at different angles and with different lenses to try and maximize what I got. The sun was still going down when I started so the exposure was varying a bit more than I was prepared for but a little tweaking in post got things back together. We also did some light painting on the airframe in a couple of frames to make the scene pop a bit more.

The biggest thing I learned during this was to start when it is darker and to take mosquito protection. I got badly bitten during the early part of the shoot and the bites reacted quite severely! Also, doing this in the winter so you don’t have to wait so late for it to get dark might also be a good plan. However, it went reasonably well and I have a few things I will know to do differently next time. I might also try a trail on one camera and a time lapse on the other.