Night Photography...and beating laziness.

I'm trying to kick my lazy habit.  And I took a step in the right direction last Friday.  Although, it took me 4 days to post about it, so I still managed to procrastinate on something.

It's strange how hard it can be sometimes to convince myself to do certain things that I actually really want to do.  For example, I've been wanting to play around with some night photography down by the lake.  There are some lights at the far end of the lake that I thought would look nice, and I've been waiting for a long time for a clear sky to get some stars in the photo as well.  Friday night was exceptionally clear and the moon was just a sliver, so I finally got what I wanted.  But then the excuses started:  It's cold out, it's too dark (of course it is, it's night photography!), I'm already in my pajamas and settled in for the night, night pictures require very long exposures and it's already close to my bedtime...and so on.  Eventually I got tired of listening to the complaining in my own head, got up, got dressed, grabbed a flashlight and my camera bag and walked out the door before I could change my mind.

Here is the result.

Not as many stars as I'd like.  Even with no moon, it doesn't really get that dark in the city.  Sigh.

And I had my white balance set to sunny, so it took at bit of color correction after the fact to get something even remotely close to realistic.

This one above is one of the previous photos, with no color correction, and with the focus way off, set to almost it's nearest setting instead of almost it's farthest setting.  Oops.  Kind of neat, but not quite what I was going for.

Next time I'll try a few different white balance settings to see what works best.  It's always hard to tell from the camera screen on location what it will look like once I get back home.

I find the pictures always look a lot brighter on the camera screen too.  I usually set my screen to the darkest it will go, and I make sure the pictures look really bright even on the darker screen, and I still end up with underexposed pictures once I get home!

These ones I took from the backyard when I got back home.

There were a lot of light streaks in the sky that night.  I'm not sure what that was all about.  I've never noticed them before.

CHECKLIST for my next trip out after dark:

- Figure out how to focus in the right direction before I leave the house

- Do some test shots in the backyard first with different white balance settings to see what works best

- Try the "long exposure noise reduction" setting on my camera

- Set my screen to it's darkest setting

- Start with manual settings ISO=3200, aperture f/4, shutter 20 seconds  and adjust from there

- Pack my camera, 2 lenses, tripod, remote trigger, and a flashlight and maybe something to sit on

- Experiment with some light painting with the flashlight in the foreground


I've still got a lot to learn about night photography, but it was fun to get out and play!