Exposure Madness

A few days ago, I was driving back from college and saw this beautiful evening lit up sky. It was a full moon and the way clouds were lit was just unbelievable. I saw it being lit like that a few times before, but never had the opportunity to take some pictures. But this day I was comming back home from college at around 7 pm and as soon as I got home, I grabbed my camera and drove a mile or two from my house to an open field where I took some pictures. This is one of them...

It was pretty dark...you almost couldn't see anything on the ground. Just the clouds were lit up from above. It was a beautiful sight.

About the shot:

EXIF:
- Camera: Canon EOS 400D
- Exposure: 390 sec (390)
- Aperture: f/18
- Focal length: 45mm
- ISO: 100
- Flash: Flash Not Fired
- Post-processing software: Adobe Photoshop CS2
- Date taken: 22.01.2008

Why the Exposure Madness title? Take a look at the exposure time. It's 390 seconds. That's 6 and a half minutes. In order to do that I set my camera on Manual mode, set the exposure time on "Bulb", set the aperture to f/18 and ISO to 100. I would then put the camera on a sturdy tripod because of a strong wind that was blowing. I also put the tripod and camera behind my car where the wind wasn't that strong. I used the Canon RS-60E3 Remote Switch to remotely trigger and hold the shutter. I held it for 390 seconds and then let go. That's it.

The original picture came out darker than the post-processed one that you can see above. But because I shot it in RAW I was able to play with brightness settings. Also some contrast and color correction were done. Plus a vignette.

Candles

First I have to apologise for not posting any pictures for quite some time now. Hopefully I'll have more free time to post pictures from now on.

I did a picture for a "Good Use of DOF" Assignment at DPS website a few days ago. I wanted to experiment with DOF (Depth Of Field) so I decided to take a picture of four tea light candles and focus on the first one. And this is what I got...

About the shot:

EXIF:
- Camera: Canon EOS 400D
- Exposure: 0.04 sec (1/25)
- Aperture: f/5.6
- Focal length: 300mm
- ISO: 200
- Flash: Flash Not Fired
- Post-processing software: Adobe Photoshop CS2
- Date taken: 20.01.2008

I used my Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 II zoom lens. I don't like this lens because it's one of the worst lenses to work with. But when I needed a zoom lens with focal lenght up to 200mm or more, a couple of months ago, I really didn't have enough money to buy a better one. And I really needed one, so buying this one was my only option at the time.

I put the camera on my tripod and zoomed in on the candles. I used manual focus and I focused on the first candle. I did a couple of test shots to correct my white balance and focus. I also added bit of unsharp mask in Photoshop.

Overall I'm quite pleased with the way this picture turned out. Especially considering the kind of equipment I worked with. What do you think?