Night Photography Question

XS · Post by XS » Mon Jul 11, 2005 11:46 am

I never seem to have trouble taking cool shots during the day. Plenty of sunshine. Good exposure. No problem with airborn dust causing backscatter, bluriness.

At night however, the airborn dust catches the flash from my camera blasting the dust with light causing the backscatter blur.

Do I need a separate flash unit? Wired to the hot shoe? or will a slave strobe at least help?

Thanks in advance for any helpful hints.

(RE: photography; it's all about the 'image.')

falk · Post by **falk** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:08 pm

Underwater photographers have the same problem. The best solution is to not use flash at all, but to put your camera on a tripod and take long exposures.

If you can't do that, then the best you can do is move the strobes as far off to the sides of the lens as you can.

Lassen Forge · Post by **Lassen Forge** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:12 pm

Yeah, you have 3 options I can think of..

(1) Disable your on-camera flash unit, and go with the separate flash and get it *away* from the camera. That'll reduce (tho not eliminate) the dust flash. (Think shooting in fog)

(2) Do timed exposures using natural lighting - for most stuff this works.

(3) If you're using film, go with a hotter film and shoot regular times natural light. That way you can get action shots with little or no blur. We've done this at some different festivals we've gone to and had really good luck with it.

I'm sure there are other options out there, those are the ones that came to mind, tho... Since I have the equipment available, I'm gonna shoot film this year just to see what I can get away with...

XS · Post by XS » Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:35 pm

Thanks Lens-people. I'm an U/W photographer also. It just seems easier to shoot pix at 6o feet in a current, than to get any successful pix at night on the playa.

I thought about the strobe/lens proximity, and slaved strobe ideas. Perhaps a bit more practical that lugging a tripod around. I'll let the die hard photog's commit to that level of involvement. Plus, I don't want to spend the entire burn looking through a lens. Just like to get some decent shots on the night of the burn.

thanks again.

Post by **AntiM** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 3:12 pm

I just remembered where larry's UW nikon and flash are stored. Would they work well in the dust on the playa?

phil · Post by **phil** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 3:42 pm

I just remembered where larry's UW nikon and flash are stored. Would they work well in the dust on the playa

I've had Nikonos cameras for years, if that's what you mean by an underwater nikon. I wouldn't take one onto the playa myself; your mileage will vary.

Nikonoses have rubber o-rings to seal the water out and are made to be used under pressure. They need to be free of grit to provide a seal. My fear is that I will get playa powder into the camera when changing film, which will then contaminate an o-ring when I'm on a beach somewhere and getting ready to go underwater. Playa powder gets everywhere. Why expose the innards of a Nikonos to it? My opinion only.

Post by **AntiM** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 6:26 pm

Thanks, yeah larry's nikonos is up on a high shelf and has been forgotten for years. Just wondering, and now I know.

XS · Post by XS » Mon Jul 11, 2005 6:57 pm

Hey Lens People.

The whole u/w photo and Nikonos thing intrigues me. I'm an u/w photo boy and used to own a nikonos years ago. I guess it was my use of the term 'backscatter' which comes from u/w photo experience and I could only think of the playa night spots in relative terms. I would never consider using any u/w gear in the caustic environment of the playa, even though the ocean itself is mighty caustic itself.

The perennial problem of night spots and blur, playa dust backscatter, had plagued every photo I've taken a night while on-playa. I was just hoping to get hints on technique to avoid the blur... The tripod/time exposure seems to be the optimal solution, and having a separate cabled strobe would be a close second.

But now that I've been stewing about it, I've come to realize the blur in the photos is part and parcel to the playa experience. It's suddenly a revelation to me that I can't change the playa experience as it happens. There are ways to work around certain things, but I've realized I just need to go, be in the moment and not carry any expectations beyond the greeters station.

But I certainly appreciate all the helpful info, and have a new appreciation for how many diver-photographers are also BURNERS!!! Yay for us!

Let's all go get wet.... uh.... dusty.

phil · Post by **phil** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 8:11 pm

blur is part and parcel

The best night time photos of BM I've ever seen are from Jim Hammer:
http://home.southwind.net/~mrscienc/04t ... ht1med.jpg
http://home.southwind.net/~mrscienc/04templelaser.jpg
http://home.southwind.net/~mrscienc/02temple.jpg

Visit his home page at
http://home.southwind.net/~mrscienc/

XS · Post by XS » Mon Jul 11, 2005 9:23 pm

Oh my God Phil, those are beautiful. The second shot listed reveals a prolonged exposure, but the others don't seem to have that, 'aperture open for a long time blurred action.

Inspiring..... Ah.... I guess I could carry the tripod in my art car, the Pimp Rocket..... hmmmm.......

Thanks man.[/list]

unjonharley · Post by **unjonharley** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 9:42 pm

I get my nite shots with the cam corder. Then search out the stills. Remove, ajust and print. Always fun to run a few feet of night vision. Green people are funny.

Ranger Genius · Post by **Ranger Genius** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 1:10 am

A few playa photog tricks: use your bicycle seat as a tripod, or try this handy trick: loop of twine or rope attached to a bolt the size and thread of your tripod mount on the bottom of the camera. Step in the loop and pull up: voila! poor man's tripod. You can also stabilize your elbow or your camera against anything upright and sturdy, such as lamp-posts, et cetera. A cable release makes it much easier to do all of these things without jogging the camera while depressing the shutter release. A mini tripod can also be very handy, if you don't mind getting down in the dirt every once in a while. If you want to do very long exposures but want higher POVs, cross-apply the bicycle seat.

I've done photos of exposures up to 1 sec on my bike seat, and bulb exposures as high as roughly ten seconds braced against the lamp posts.

unjonharley · Post by **unjonharley** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:05 am

I have a walking/treck staff. Ajustable from canne to tall staff. Remove the knob and screw on the camera. $42 at a sports store. It has been all over the world with me. In a crowd you can shot over them with a camcorder that has aLED screen. Attach it to the cane, lift it over head, train it with screen and shoot.

PleasureSean · Post by **PleasureSean** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:21 pm

While long exposures/high ISO shots without a flash are the ideal way to shoot at night to avoid the flash lighting all the dust up like snowflakes, it is pretty impractical most of the time as (1) most people don't shoot with SLR/DSLRs, (2) most people with SLR/DSLR's don't like to haul around a tripod, and (3) long exposures only work for fairly stationary subjects (i.e. not people). Most people are going to use a flash, but the problem going on is that most point and shoot cameras flash systems are geared to fire a little too bright flash for a hypothetical subject that is about 8-10' away. On the playa, this intensity of flash lights up all the dust flying through the air that you can't even see with ambient lighting and hence the dusty/snowing look. Fret not, there is a better way with most standard digital camera - it's a little more time consuming (surprise!) and requires about 20 seconds of postprocessing per picture with software afterwards, but the results are so drastically better that I think its well worth the effort. Here's how.

1. Lower the intensity of the flash on your camera or alternatively lower the exposure compensation on your camera. Some dig cameras have exposure compensation for the flash itself which is ideal but others just have overall exposure compensation adjustment (just about every dig camera has one or both of these features) - adjust the flash or the overall exposure down - usually -2/3 stop works best for the cameras I have. This way, you get an underexposed flash picture, where you can see the subject kinda dark but the flash is not bright enough to light up all the dust in the air. Experiment with your camera - it may be that only -1/3 works best for you, or you made need to dial it down a full stop. You don't want it so dark that you can't see your subject, but you don't want it so bright that the dust shows up - look in your dig camera review screen to find the right balance.

2. Then afterwards at home in Photoshop or Adobe Elements, increase the exposure of the picture back to normal levels. You do this by increasing the gamma of the picture (In photoshop press Image-Adjustments-Levels and then move the middle slider a bit to the left). I'm not sure what the keystrokes are in Elements (but look up GAMMA in the help menu and it should tell you how to increase the exposure/gamma). You want to increase the "exposure/gamma" of these underexposed playa pics which increases the grey midtones and not increase the "brightness" of the picture which just increases the highlights.

Check my Bman pictures at www.pleasuresean.com - and you'll see pretty much all of the night time shots do not have the dusty snowflake look and this is how I did it. It sounds daunting but is completely simple once you figure it out. If you take the time to figure out how to do this, your night photos will really stand out. Figure ths out before you go as you might need to refer to your camera manual to see how to adjust the exposure and you really don't want to be trying something new with all your night pictures up there.

And while we're here - here's another photo tip:

Use the forced flash function when you are taking a picture under a shade - this works for both dig and film cameras. Most cameras will meter off of the superbright light playa in the background of your picture and the subject of your photo under the shade will come out way too dark without a flash. Just turn on the flash on your camera (not the auto mode, but the forced flash - it's the little lightning bolt symbol on most cameras) and the fill flash will do wonders for your pics in the shade.

Cheers.

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