I've always been fascinated by lights on the freeway, esp coming down from I880s down Sunol or be in watching the traffic report early in the morning on TV. I thought I'll give this a try.
Few challenges.
1. I crisscrossed at least half a dozen east-west roads between 85 and 280 freeways for a decent overpass to do it, but all of them had grills over 7ft. The metal mesh was a pain to navigate your lens through(now central expwy is coming to mind, doh!)
2. picked a late evening. didn't have enough cars to fill up the expressway to get consistent color in the composition.
I took this shot atleast a dozen times, but couldnt tell where the green horizontal lines at the bottom came from. Too naive with photoshop to figure out layering and stuff.
having been a digital-vari program user all of my SLR life, this was my first time using the "M" mode and mucking with aperture/focal length and such.
Specs:
ISO 200
shutter speed: 25s
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 55mm
Matrix Metering(don't know what this means!)
Question: Would it have helped, if I chosen the twilight time to shoot this - with a tad more natural sunlight? Would it have softened the dark contrasts of the headlights/tail lamps?
Please fire way your comments.
Good idea for the picture, Karthik, but a few things could've been done different, to avoid the over-exposed areas.
ReplyDelete* Traffic lights included in this picture makes for over-exposed conditions.
* Horizon where the angle which the cars are with respect to the camera creates out white out conditions where its over-exposed.
* Its pretty tricky to get this picture correct. U need to be pointing at an angle such that almost all the cars at are not directly facing you.
Vugane maams.. lovely.. the cars moving in the night with low shutter speed always makes excellent images.. I also like the way you cropped/framed it.. with horizon just about at the top end of the shot.. gives a certain depth to the image..
ReplyDeletebefore you read any further.. i would also tell you that, this picture can fixed pretty well with some nice post processing.. did you shoot raw??? if you did, we can work on it and see how it looks..
the light from the incoming traffic is way too harsh.. u can take the same exact shot again with much better results.. without doing much..
all you do is reduce the darn shutter speed.. as long as there are a bunch of cars taking off when light turns green.. you just need 5-6 seconds.. if the number of cars is less.. then may be 10-12 seconds.. and u can also increase the aperture.. you still need some depth of field and smaller aperture also reduces all that harsh light.. any particular reason why you ended up with these two numbers ??? f course. i am assuming you can get enough vehicles to moving when you are shooting..
another thing you have to be keen on is to look for the right crop..when you shoot at night shots with long shutter.. you have to crop it right.. the right hand side of the image is just too dark.. it is ok at times to keep it that way if it adds something to the pic...but in this case, IMO, it doesn't.. it just wastes the real estate..
as a side note: another trick we can use when we need to keep the shutter open for a long time but the light is a bit bright/harsh is to use filters.. a good ND or a grad ND filter will work nice.. basically, anything that gives you a few f-stops to play with will work..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_density_filter
Vugs..nice picture. I love these pictures.
ReplyDeleteI was about to suggest ND filters too.
Also, you can probably meter it differently. Maybe center weighted metering would help.
Karthik, a few years ago, I tried shooting the Golden Gate Bridge. I know, this isn't the best illustration of shooting cars at night time, but by keeping the horizon free of cars which can be at the same spot for a longer duration, I tried to reduce the over-exposure.
ReplyDeleteThis is the link I meant to include when I wrote the previous comment:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/navjav/308823764/sizes/l/in/set-72157603166320354/
Another cool long exposure shots:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.redbubble.com/people/robsmithphoto/art/687688-3-going-home#
Hey, Am not sure what the green line is, it sure looks like the reflection of a car (was yours parked behind the camera while you were trying to shoot?? If yes, wonder how it came there!!)
ReplyDeleteI think I've figured out what the green lines are, Karthik. It is a reflection of the head on traffic (basically, its the same pattern as the oncoming traffic, shifted by 180 degrees).
ReplyDeleteWhy is the reflection in the picture? I still haven't figured this one out.
Thanks for your comments folks:
ReplyDelete@Naveen. I hear you. Overexposure. Lose the traffic lights - distraction. stay away from the line of sight of the cars. thats one of the reason's i chose on the curvy section of the expressway, but as Dumma would put it, the foot bridge height and mine combined, was still not tall enough ;)
@Sheshu. Maams, will try this with 5-6 secs exposure. only reason i went longer was due to the sparse traffic. Will also read up on the ND filter. thanks dude.
@Dumma: Will try the ND filter concept. how much will that set me back?
@Preetu. thanks for the link, that helps.
@manoj, no, i was on a fotobridge, but looks like Naveen's thoery is as close to reality than anyone else's.