Ok, i've wanted to ask so many times but this shot is too much for me. How do you decide on your exposure settings? Trial and error, or experience from past trial and error? I've tried some photos similar and would have likely taken at least 15 that were trash at best. I know I don't think I would have gone all the way to f32 with the availible light. Do you normally take a range of attempts or basically bracket and vary the exposure settings quite a bit, or just a few fine adjustments relying on experience to decide the starting f/stop and shutter speed?
I"m stunned with every one of your photos, but this one is really stunning. I also am amazed at how little movement is from the person in the center at 6 seconds
And as always thanks for continuing to share your photos with us.
I try to keep things simple... with as few variables as possible. With camera tripod-mounted, and composition ‘locked’, I stick to 100 ISO and aperture between f8 and f13 (usually f11). That leaves the shutter speed as the only variable. The shot of Ambleside is what some people would call a ‘night’ shot, but it was actually taken in late afternoon, as the light was fading.
There are a few minutes each day, when the ambient light and artificial lights are ‘in balance’, so I try to be in my chosen location in good time. I keep shooting as the light fades, which, typically, will mean shutter speeds going from, say half a second to 10 seconds (after that it’ll be too dark).
So I treat a picture like this as an event to cover... rather than a moment to capture. As the sky gets darker, the street lights seem to get brighter by comparison. The ambient light is cold and blue (mostly due to the snowy conditions) while the artificial light is warm. When the two light sources are in balance, there is a richness and depth to the ambient light, and the artificial lights aren’t blown out.
If night shots are taken a couple of hours later, the scene won’t change. The sky will be black and the street lights blown: too bright, too much contrast, too many deep shadows. By shooting at twilight, you can bring all the different sources of lighting into a range where they can be captured by the camera. So I’m trying to work
with the camera’s limitations... not
against them.
All this is easier to do than to describe. I look at the scene in front of me, not the camera (I can change the shutter speeds with one finger). I get home with a collection of pix to look through. They look like a kind of time-lapse film, so I can watch again the ambient light fading and the artificial lights seeming to grow brighter and warmer. One pic will usually stand out... but the white balance will still need tweaking. With so many difference light sources (and range of colour ‘temperature’) it’s impossible to get them all looking accurate. The result is a compromise... what looks best on my monitor...
