Night time, the right time...post your late hours photos here.

Todd Lambert wrote in post #13301763

Just WOW ! That one left me speechless ! Awesome work, Todd !!

Thanks Francois! I'm working on another version of it that I think will be better (processing it a bit different and putting the crop back to the default size I shot it at rather than 16:9 as it is now)

I'll post it when I finish it. The time-lapse this is from turned out pretty well too. Hopefully I can get some free time sometime soon, so I can put some of this stuff together and show it. (right now it's just a bunch of individual files still)

Anyways, thanks again.

Todd your work is amazing! Seriously your website leaves me speechless everytime I view it

I have a question on photographing stars/star trails if you don't mind answering, are star trails easier to achive when you shoot more on the wide open side? I really don't have much experience whith shooting stars/star trails in general due to living in the city where you can barely see the stars anyway but I've always wanted to try it some day, so I was just wondering if that's the best way to do it.

nikeskate875 wrote in post #13320064
Todd your work is amazing! Seriously your website leaves me speechless everytime I view it

I have a question on photographing stars/star trails if you don't mind answering, are star trails easier to achive when you shoot more on the wide open side? I really don't have much experience whith shooting stars/star trails in general due to living in the city where you can barely see the stars anyway but I've always wanted to try it some day, so I was just wondering if that's the best way to do it.

Thank you!

Yes, the wider the better, generally. Wider angle lenses help to reduce the amount of time before stars start to trail. You can still get nice stars with a 35 or even a 50 lens, but your ISO will need to be higher.

Shooting wider, actually gives you a bit more exposure time, so you can lower your ISO. It's sort of a happy median type thing. You want an ISO high enough to pick up faint light, but not produce too much noise. You can use the aperture to bring in more light, but not too wide or it will start to vignette more. Focus isn't usually an issue, since you'll be shooting at infinity anyways.

So, with the exposure triangle, you have exposure time on one leg of the triangle.. and it's best if you lock that into 30 seconds or less (this is variable based on how wide your lens is).

That leaves aperture and ISO. You sorta balance out those two in order to get your exposure. Most of the time I will shoot wide open or just one stop down as the vignetting is less impacting than noise is to me. I generally try to stay under ISO 2500 if at all possible. Preferring to be around ISO 1600 if I can get away with it.

That said, even using a 5D2, and a 24L at ƒ1.8, you're going to get noise. You'll almost assuredly need to have a good routine for noise reduction. I've used Noise Ninja in the past, but I am moving to Nik Dfine instead as it gives me more control over where and what gets noise reduction.

This type of photography is really a stress test on equipment, since you're often shooting at the your equipments max performance levels on all accounts. On top of that, you're shooting something that you can't see as well as the sensor can with your naked eye, so in some regards you're shooting a bit blind. It can be quite challenging but very rewarding too.

Anyways, sorry for rambling... thanks again for checking out my stuff, I appreciate it

Damn, you already got snow?!

I'm hoping we get some snow again this year..

heh no.... that photo is from 2009.. didnt try a b&w conversion on it til today

Af Chapman,Stockholm Sweden.

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Todd Lambert wrote in post #13320110
Thank you!

Yes, the wider the better, generally. Wider angle lenses help to reduce the amount of time before stars start to trail. You can still get nice stars with a 35 or even a 50 lens, but your ISO will need to be higher.

Shooting wider, actually gives you a bit more exposure time, so you can lower your ISO. It's sort of a happy median type thing. You want an ISO high enough to pick up faint light, but not produce too much noise. You can use the aperture to bring in more light, but not too wide or it will start to vignette more. Focus isn't usually an issue, since you'll be shooting at infinity anyways.

So, with the exposure triangle, you have exposure time on one leg of the triangle.. and it's best if you lock that into 30 seconds or less (this is variable based on how wide your lens is).

That leaves aperture and ISO. You sorta balance out those two in order to get your exposure. Most of the time I will shoot wide open or just one stop down as the vignetting is less impacting than noise is to me. I generally try to stay under ISO 2500 if at all possible. Preferring to be around ISO 1600 if I can get away with it.

That said, even using a 5D2, and a 24L at ƒ1.8, you're going to get noise. You'll almost assuredly need to have a good routine for noise reduction. I've used Noise Ninja in the past, but I am moving to Nik Dfine instead as it gives me more control over where and what gets noise reduction.

This type of photography is really a stress test on equipment, since you're often shooting at the your equipments max performance levels on all accounts. On top of that, you're shooting something that you can't see as well as the sensor can with your naked eye, so in some regards you're shooting a bit blind. It can be quite challenging but very rewarding too.

Anyways, sorry for rambling... thanks again for checking out my stuff, I appreciate it

Thanks so much for the help, I really do appreciate it

I'm in the process of saving up/planning a road trip to do route 66 hopefully in the summer of 2012 so this info will deff be useful for all the night shooting I plan to do. I I'm excited to night shoot outside of the city environment I live in.

I've tried Noise Ninja before and didn't really like it, so I'll look into Nik Define for sure

Ah cool, I've shot quite a bit of old route 66 between Oklahoma and New Mexico. It's a great piece of history for sure.

The wheel in London.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/andys1/62901559​56/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/andys1/62908351​29/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/andys1/62942475​41/

^^^ very nice, is this in TX?