College photography student. New to forum-ing

[nicholaslawson]

hey there,

I'm an 18 year old college student studying photography. All aspects of photography are appealing to me. But I'm finding myself drawn to Painting With Light photography. If there is anyone out there that can help I'd love to get some advice. Ill try and get a few photos of my work on here soon

thanks guys

 

[2WheelPhoto]

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome aboard.

There is a photographer in my city, who is very good at night photography and painting with light.
Night Photography by Chantal Thorlakson
Check it out.

 

[nicholaslawson]

Thanks Buddy. Everyones made me feel pretty welcome

 

[Derrel]

'Sup Nick??? I used to do some painting with light stuff back in the mid-1980's, using Kodachrome 64 slide film, an aperture of,usually, f/8, a tripod, and a Vivitar 285HV and a Quantum Turbo battery...for B&W work, I would use Tri-X 400...one thing about university campuses, which is where I was doing my night-time work: there is often QUITE A BIT of light present, even at full dark. That was the reason for the f/8 aperture; f/8 is small enough to give more time, in which to move around, and to paint the scene with light from the flashes or flashlights,etc. An exposure time of 30 to 45 seconds, up to one minute, allows you enough time to have the flash recycle, and to "paint" even pretty large buildings.

One of the nicer things about digital as opposed to film is that digital does not suffer from the terrible reciprocity effects that film had. Another benefit is that digital capture also allows the photographer to elevate the ISO setting as a way to adjust exposures. "Some" cameras can be counted upon to time lengthy nightime exposures so that they look right; other cameras will require you to set the exposure compensation to, typically, a Minus 1 to Minus 3 stop value, to make the night shots look, well, like night-time shots.

One of the big benefits of working at f/8 is also that it gives you a baseline, and after a while, you will develop a feel for the right amount of light needed for an exposure.

 

[nicholaslawson]

Thanks Derrel,

I've been having trouble with all of it for a while now. At first I was trying to use auto focusing but it didn't seem to work too well. On my camera I can only do a 30 second exposure. I'm looking for a camera I can use specifically for night time photography as well. I'm on a pretty limited budget but I'm managing to get along with gaining a collection of lights and other bits and bobs but only in the last 2 weeks have I really starting to get into photography, I'm already trying to get hold of a larger flash to help with those dim areas and a new lens may be round the corner but yes... thanks so much for the advice. I'll try and get some photographs up to get some feedback from people as well.