Tag Archives: night

Lightning

When we first moved to Chicago, we had a lot of storms that came through the city which resulted in some great lightning displays. For some reason, the number of great storms we had in the city decreased in recent years. You could watch them come through on the weather radar but they tended to go either north or south of downtown. However, recently we got a bit lucky.

A storm came through that lasted a long time and produced a steady stream of lightning. At first, I thought it was going to finish quickly and, by the time I could get my camera set up, it would all be over. However, as we sat and watched, the storm continued to be a steady stream of big lightning bolts all around us.

Finally, I decided it was too good to miss so I went and grabbed the camera, the tripod and the intervalometer. I set the rig up in one room to take a steady stream of shots and then retreated to the other room. In days gone by I have had the camera with the cable release and spent my time pressing the release as soon as the previous shot finished. Now I set up the exposure and set the intervalometer for one second more than the exposure. There is still a small window when the lightning might strike without the shutter open but it covers almost everything. Plus, I don’t have to do anything.

Then it is just a question of downloading the shots when the storm is over and running through to see what lightning I caught. Fortunately, there was a lot of lightning but not much rain so the lightning did not flare out the moisture in the air and I didn’t get rain drops on the window to ruin things. The result? A bunch of interesting looking lightning shots. I was happy…

Indianapolis Fireworks

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We took a trip to Indiana which was primarily based around the visit to the Exotic Feline Rescue Center as I shall be posting about here at some point. While the center is near Terre Haute, we decided to stay in Indianapolis. We have been to Indy before and had a great time as well as staying at a nice hotel. That trip got a write up here if you are interested. This time it was the 4th of July and the city was due to have a firework display so we thought that might be a good add on to the trip.

Originally, we had looked up the park where we could view the fireworks. There were supposed to be a number of things going on in the park and it was not a long walk from the hotel so we had figured on taking some chairs and heading there. However, the weather forecast was looking a little like a storm might roll in. This made us wonder whether a change in plans might be in order.

Our decision was made easier when we checked in and found we had a 32nd floor room overlooking the downtown. Now we could watch the fireworks from the comfort of our hotel room and, if it rained, we would be fine. As it happened, it didn’t rain. However, our choice proved to have an additional benefit. Not only did we see the main display, there were many displays happening all around the city. From our vantage point, we could see them all. We sat by the window and watched fireworks close by and far off but going off all evening. It was great. I did shoot the fireworks but my approach is always to fire a cable release while just watching the display. Consequently, I primarily get to enjoy the display but also, hopefully, get some shots at the same time.

Night flight

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A recent flight home meant an arrival into Midway a while after the sun had set. I had been taking some pictures out of the window as we headed back across the country and decided to try my luck after dark. I had thought about trying out some auto ISO shots as I described in a previous post. However, since I was shooting night scenes, the camera does its best to try and make things look properly exposed and this is not what you need. Instead, I had to manually set the ISO to a higher number and then drop the exposure compensation to between -2 and -3.

The shots came out okay but they weren’t terribly interesting. However, as we got lower, I decided to go for something a bit more interesting and slowed the shutter speed down dramatically. I braced the camera against the window frame and decided to see what sort of light trails I could get. The exposures were a couple of seconds or more so this is rather tricky. While the background is blurred deliberately, I had the top of the engine and the winglet in for reference. Avoiding blurring them was more hit and miss.

I tried a bunch of shots and was pleased with the number that came out well. However, the effect only seems to work in a couple of situations. One is a turn. This puts more ground lights in the frame and turns everything into a nice curve. The other is when you are very low at which point everything is moving past you close and fast. I might try this again before too long but will have to ponder what might improve things. One technique issue I was pleased with was remembering to turn off image stabilization. With long exposures, it causes the image to wander so, when bracing, it actually makes things worse. Unlike me to remember that first time out but sometimes I do get lucky!

Glorious Cheating!

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The moon was supposed to be at its biggest recently. I was all ready to head down to the lakefront and get some shots as it rose and the atmosphere magnified it to the greatest extent possible. However, as the afternoon started to wind down, the fog started to roll in. As the sun was setting, the fog banks were wafting between the buildings around us and you couldn’t see the harbor wall let alone the horizon. Oh well, what can you do?

As the evening rolled on, the fog finally cleared out but, by then, it was too late. The moon did appear amongst some of the buildings so, while it didn’t look significantly different to normal, I still decided to get a couple of shots. The problem with this is that the moon is effectively in sunlight while the city is in night. The top picture is the cheat that resulted. Below are the two shots I took next to each other. One was exposed for the buildings and the other was for the moon. A bit of layering and masking in Photoshop was necessary to get the result at the top. I am not a Photoshop wizard and I suspect those that know their stuff would tell me why it is not as well executed as it could be but this was hardly a client job! Just a bit of fun.

Lightning Up the Mood

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A little night shooting today and a confession about my role in what was going on. We moved to Chicago eight years ago. When we first got here, we were amazed by the storms we got. There seemed to be lots of them and they were really pretty spectacular. When looking out of the window we would see lightning all the time. Sometimes the storms went on for so long it was hard to believe that it was a storm and not someone planting an emergency vehicle outside the window – a neat trick at the height of our place!

Strangely, for the last few years, we have had very few storms. They seem to miss the city and go either north or south of us. Some people are getting a lot of them but not us. This was a bit disappointing to me because I love storms! They are so dramatic and very cool. They are, of course, rather destructive but watching them is exciting. This week we got a good storm. The sky was alive and it was a lot of fun. It was also rather late and I needed to go to bed. Consequently, I cheated.

My 17-40mm lens is not enough to cover the full view south of us so I went with the fish-eye zoom instead. I set the camera up on the tripod, added the intervalometer and basically set it on its way. The gap between the shutter closing and the trigger for the next shot was just long enough to allow the file to write out. Then I went to bed. The result is a LOT of pictures with almost all of them of no use. However, it did capture a couple of shots that I really like. I even tried using the new lens correction facility in Photoshop CS6. Our view is a little less impressive since the Trump Tower blocked a big chunk of the skyline but it still gives a nice look to the storm. Hope you like them too.

Final Overnight Time Lapse

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I mentioned before that I had tried to do an overnight time lapse video. In that post I detailed all of the ways I had screwed up the process. Rather than sulk, I did take all of those lessons to heart and went back for a second attempt. This time, I was a lot more successful. I hadn’t got around to figuring out how to make the tethering work properly but the alternative was acceptable and I had learned the rest of my lessons.

One minor hurdle still existed. Our windows are not at their cleanest at this time of year and shooting through the glass is the only option. We are due to have the cleaners take care of them shortly (although that will probably only guarantee some rain immediately afterwards). In low light and with a wide enough aperture, the dirt smudges are not too much of a problem. I have to make sure the shoot doesn’t include any time with direct light on the window which would make the muck flare up in the shots.

The other minor issue is a function of the double glazing. More intense light can show up the effect of the light bouncing between the glass panes. At night this isn’t a hassle except with the moon which is so bright. For some reason I should be able to figure out but can’t, the center of the window almost totally removes this effect and it gets worse towards the edges. However, the moon is so bright in the scenes it blows out and, since the whole thing animates to a video, the loss of shape in the shots becomes less apparent as the moon zips across the sky.

With all of that said, here is the video itself. It seems to have worked out well. Sadly, the messed up effort seemed to have got some more interesting light sequences from the windows of the building but you can’t have it all. Enjoy!

What a Balls Ups

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I have previously played around with time lapse videos made with an SLR, a timer release and some software linked to Lightroom to create the finished video. I decided to go a little longer with one and make a video throughout the night, starting before sunset and finishing off once the sun had come back up again. This did not prove to be as simple as I had hoped!

It should be pointed out that most of these problems are entirely of my doing. First of all, I did a calculation of how many shots I thought would be necessary to complete the clip. This was more than would fit on one of my compact flash cards. No problem, the camera has a second slot. It turns out that, unlike the MkIV which will switch to the second card when the first is full if you so desire, the MkIIN won’t do that. Okay, not problem. I shall tether it to Lightroom and download direct to the laptop.

This didn’t work. I believe this was also my fault as the MkIIN has a firewire connection as well as the USB and the USB tethering showed up on the computer but didn’t actually do anything. Okay, I can fix this. I shall let it run for a long time and change the card shortly before going to bed and the new card should work through the rest of the night. A fully charged battery and off we went to dinner.

Upon my return, I find that the camera is not shooting any more. Foolishly, while I worked out that a 16Gb card would be fine, I didn’t remove the 8Gb card that was in there so the card was full. I swapped the card with another one quickly and set it off. A while later I come back to check on it and nothing is happening. The new card is full. I hadn’t formatted it first. What a fool. I also have a flat battery. This is not going to be good. Fortunately, the MkIIN came with the DC adapter as standard (unlike the MkIV – how tight are you Canon?) so I swapped that in, put in a fresh card and formatted it. Then I went to bed.

This finally worked. The remaining shots worked fine. The result wasn’t too bad but, since it had some obvious jumps in it – the moon was traversing the scene when the gaps occur – it wasn’t usable. However, it did teach me a bunch of thing that I now need to deal with for the second attempt. let’s see if I can balls that up as well!

Night Skating

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As has been the case a few times recently, I was down in Millennium Park recently at night. I was there to see something else but, while I was there, I took some time to watch the ice skaters. There is an ice rink beside Millennium Park that is free to the public to use. If you don’t have skates, they are available for hire. However, if you come equipped, you are free to skate!

The rink stays open relatively late each evening and I spent some time from above watching everyone having fun. Of course, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to take some pictures (and also some video – I figure that all of these clips will one day be part of a larger montage of Chicago footage). Since it is dark, it is time to try other techniques.

I was surprised how well lit the rink was. I could get some quite fast shutter speeds if I wanted to. However, that wasn’t really the point. I can come during the day if that is what I want. Instead, the slow shutter speeds were actually what I was looking for. The question then becomes how slow.

I was mounting the camera to the railings with a flexible arm and clamp so my motion wasn’t a problem. If the shutter speeds got too long, the blur of the skaters became so vague, it was hard to see whether they were there or not. A slightly faster speed meant they became a bit more distinct. This was what I was after. You still needed to get the larger groups of skaters to make it show up noticeably though. The perfect combination was when someone would stay totally still (or close to it) during the shot. Then you had the juxtaposition of the movement and the lack of movement. That was my favorite.

Painting with a Flashlight

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Following on from my previous post, a group of us found ourselves at the Bean at night and with a flashlight in my bag we started playing around. One fo the guys had brought his son along and we gave him the flashlight to illuminate his face from below. Then we started trying other things with the flashlight. Initially we tried playing it on other surfaces to paint on them but this was not very effective with the ambient light. Then it was time to try writing with it.

I started with my name as you will see above. Rob is pretty easy to do when you are writing backwards. Shielding the light with my hand between strokes of the letters worked pretty well. However, as the words got longer, it became harder to keep visualized on what the letters should look like from this side.

I got the hang of it – after screwing a few up but hey, it’s digital – and managed to get a couple of different captions. They looked okay on the back of the camera but they look better on the computer screen. We also did one that was a message to our missing comrade but that one was not on my camera so you will have to search Facebook to find where someone else posted it!

Night Wanderings with Friends

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As I mentioned in a previous post, sometimes it is useful to have someone come to the city to encourage me to get out and about. A few friends had been to Chicago in a previous week to do some shooting but I had been tied up when they arrived. They were planning some evening shooting and I had been out all day and had plans for the evening so missed it. I was a bit disappointed but there you go.

Consequently, I was pleased to see that a few of them were planning to come back a few days later for another session. This time I was free so agreed to meet up. Some of the group that were coming I knew and others I hadn’t met before. I headed out to the Adler Planetarium – our meeting spot – and started taking some shots. A few guys were already there taking their own shots so I wandered over to find out if they were some of the people I hadn’t met before.

While it was true I hadn’t met them before, they were not part of our group. However, in common with many photographers, they were a friendly bunch a we chatted for a while. They had come to town from Texas and were looking to get as many things in to their trip so I suggested a few spots that they might like to try.

After a while the rest of the guys did show up – well, all but one who had wandered off on his own – and we started taking some pictures. The skyline was lovely as usual and we took some shots around the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum. Then we headed across to Millennium Park. I’m becoming a regular.

Shooting around the Bean at night is good since the long exposures you need tend to make any of the other visitors disappear. You get a cleaner shot if you plan it right. We got a bunch of shots and then we started playing around with a flashlight. More of that to come!