Low light photography

[Marco120588]

Do yellow filters brighten and make pictures easier to take at night or in low light conditions?

How do you think D. Brian Nelson takes his Night Pictures?

http://fotog.net/

How do pictures come out like that in very low light conditions??? What kind of equiptment would be needed????

 

[ksmattfish]

Yellow filters are normally used in BW film photography. Some BW films are extra sensitive to blue, causing it to overexpose. Using a yellow filter underexposes the blue to bring it back to a tonal value that seems right. If used with color film or digital I would assume that the yellow would dominate.

Yellow filters block 1/2 to 1 stop of light, so no, they do not make it easier to shoot at night.

I'm not sure how he is taking these pics. Looks to me like he may be taking advantage of available artificial light (maybe using reflectors). He's probably also using a fast lens (f/2 or better) and high speed film. I noticed that it says he'd be glad to explain his technique if you email him.

 

[carlita]

yeah i don't doubt he's using a high speed film assuming he's not doing any digital adjustments after the fact since most of his pictures tend to be really grainy. i'd seen his stuff before, and i always figured he was using colored lights. i could be wrong... like matt pointed out though, you could e-mail him about it.

if/when you do that, report back here and let us know what he said.

 

[drlynn]

Iwould have to agree about the fast film and wide apertures. The yellowish color casts on most of those photos are consistent with daylight film exposed under artificial light. He's possibly also using a reflector to highlight faces.

The large halos around the street lamps also suggest longer exposure times and a wide-open shutter. If his apertures were small, the lights would not be round, but hexagonal, and they would have a starburst effect.