Blaris Old Cemetry

[Jono]

One evening I decided to take a trip to a local cemetry in the country. Now, I am pretty new to the whole picture thing & dont have a clue about composition, balance & all that, as said before I have a 4MP digital camera & take pics of what I see that I like. This batch are a bit dark & bitty, but strangely that helps the charm & atmosphere a little I think.

Anyways, enjoy and all comments appreciated - its the only way I will learn!

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[LaFoto]

So you have actually ventured out into the night to visit this cemetary?
Well, as you will have found out yourself, night photography is quite much a thing of its own and mostly really only "lives" where there are lights there in the night to illuminate your picture.

I see that you had a nice sky and actually were there at dusk.
However, I'm afraid most of your photos are downright too dark. You did make use of the on-camera flash, but you can see, too, that it reaches on thus far and not any further. And it gives some very direct and hard light when it hits (metal something in Photo 1, fence in Photo 3, cross in Photo 5). Use of the flash gave the camera wrong information about the surrounding light then, making all that might have still had some light all dark, darker than it really was.

If you are interested in night photography I suggest you get yourself a tripod. Then test your camera: what is the longest exposure it allows you? And what is the smallest aperture. With my compact digital camera (a Canon Powershot), those two are 15 seconds at f8.

If those are the max settings you can use, try to go back there again and make use of them (or a larger aperture if you so want to), resting the camera totally still either on your (then new?) tripod, or on something solid, putting it to timer, pushing the button and then stepping back so not even your finger touches the camera in the moment it starts to expose.

Wait ... and see what you have got.
If there is way too little light even for 15 seconds at wide open aperture (f 2.8 or so?), up the ISO. But it is recommendable to start trying with a low ISO setting, too.

But keep in mind that few people only can handhold exposures of longer than 1/30 seconds... so something solid to put the camera on is crucial.