Night sky and fill flash = ....

[Compaq]

Some cool portraits of the place where my girlfriend rents with some student friends. Ohh, and a few shots of my girlfriend

1

Huset by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr


2

Huset 3 by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr

3

Huset 2 by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr

4

Heidi hoppar by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr

5

Heidi baklyst by Anders Myhre Brakestad, on Flickr


Thanks for watching. Comments always welcome!
Anders

 

[jwbryson1]

Cool post!

 

[MLeeK]

LOVE the ghosting image!!!!

 

[PlanetStarbucks]

Yeh, cool technique to get the ghost. Definitely adding this one to my goodie bag.

 

[Compaq]

Wow, thanks. This was pretty much for experimental purposes more than anything else, so I was happy to see that it actually worked. Now, if I spent some more time on the compositions and working out the best exposures, I could do something really kewl. Something to write down in the notebook!

 

[WesternGuy]

These are neat images. Shows what can be done with a little imagination and soem creativity - good job. Just curious - how many "fill flashes" did you used in the building scenes?

WesternGuy

 

[Compaq]

Thanks. Just used one, about 10 meters away (30 ft). Stood a little too close for the jump shot

 

[sactown024]

are these multiple exposure shots? how many?

 

[12sndsgood]

That last one turned out great. shows you why you should always try and go out and experiment sometimes.

 

[Compaq]

are these multiple exposure shots? how many?

One exposure. Fill flash on house and ground.

 

[jfrabat]

OK, share more about the technique... You DEFENETLY got me interested! Where did you place the flash? Is it a regular flash off camera? What are the photo settings? Where you triggering the flash mannually? I want details!

 

[Derrel]

Good post,Anders! I really liked #2. And the last shot as well.

 

[AlexanderB]

are these multiple exposure shots? how many?

One exposure. Fill flash on house and ground.

From Flickr page of the photo: Fill flash, 30 seconds exposure @ f/2.8. ISO-800

 

[Fairylensphoto]

The sky is awesome!

 

[Compaq]

I can try to explain in a little more detail what I did, as some are interested I'm always happy to help with what limited knowledge I do possess!

I set the aperture to f/2.8, which is as wide as I can go on my Tokina 11-16/2.8. I wanted as much light as I could possibly gather with the lens, to get as much detail in the sky as possible. Secondly, I set the shutter time to thirty seconds. There's a two-point balance here, consisting of (1) the amount of light I want and (2) stars starting to "streak" due to a long exposure time. I chose thirty seconds, because I knew, from experience, that this is pretty much as long as I can go before the stars streak too much. You can see a tiny bit of streaking in the shots here, already. Thirty seconds gives me more light than, say, 20 seconds - I wanted to get as much light as possible.

The third thing I needed to decide, was the ISO. I chose ISO-800. Not too much noise, yet I get more detail from the light gathered (to say it like that). ISO-100 would give me "cleaner" shots, but with less detail in the sky.

Lastly, I had my flash. If I didn't use it, the light would be much, much darker (Image 1). I have an old Vivitar flash, on which power settings can't be directly changed. I just tried what it looked like from a certain distance, and just used that for all the shots. Seeing as the shutter speed was thirty seconds, I had plenty of time to move around to get the angle I wanted. In addition to this, I wouldn't really matter if I walked in the frame. I would be very dark, and ghost when I walked. If I stayed in the same place for long, then I might have appeared on the final image as some weird blurry shadow.

As for the angle I used, I chose one that didn't bring too many harsh shadows in the frame, either on the field or on the house itself. I made sure to be in front of the tripod, or else it would cast a shadow.

It's all just basic reflections of how light works in photography Maybe this helped some!

Image 1

Unedited RAW file converted to JPEG using Irfan View.