Experimenting with light
Published on
03:01
By
Unknown
As soon as I got up a brilliant idea struck me, to capture the lights and fireworks as it was Diwali today. The pictures of fireworks I had seen online over the years looked spectacular and now that I am learning photography , I thought its a great opportunity to get some beautiful shots .The sparklers , the fountain firework, the row of candles and diyas , the colorful bright explosions in the sky, they all look amazing. I was quite confident that it would be a cakewalk capturing these, just point at them, wait for the right moment and 'Click', its done! I was excited and thought would read a few things about shooting fireworks online. As I did some reading, here were few things I learnt :
- Set your ISO to the lowest possible value ( 80 to 100 ).
- Set the camera’s white balance to auto mode.
- Use a tripod to ensure that the camera does not shake and defocus the main subject.
Except for the fact that I dint own a tripod it all sounded simple. There were other articles and there were other tips but the ones mentioned above seemed to have produced a good output like the one below.
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Source: http://www.digital-camera-photography.org |
I thought it was a good pic taken with a point and shoot camera.I was looking forward to some fireworks picture collection of my own by the end of the evening.
After the puja at home, I set off with my camera to capture some light.At a distance I saw some kids getting ready to launch a rocket, one of those which goes up and explodes into bright colors. Now here was my chance, I switched on my camera,marked the trajectory and pointed the camera at a point I thought the rocket would explode. I heard the small 'whoooossh' sound and few seconds later, I pressed the shutter button, result- a blacked out pic. 'Never mind' I thought, the kids lighted another one and it exploded and ended before I could press the button. It took 6 rockets for me to realize its not working and I told myself not to get disheartened as its my first attempt at something like this. Next target - Fountain firework , now that sounded reasonable, I get enough time to focus as it lights up, also gives me enough span to click. I went a little further to find some people lighting those, I checked the settings ISO set to 100, white balance auto, so yes I was all set. And these fountains were the colorful ones , cherry on the cake. As they lighted it I found that these produced a lot of smoke and every time I clicked a pic,I could see more smoke and less of light. Moreover the the pics were very blur, But I kept trying and some of pics looked good in the camera although not as good as I was expecting them to be. Most of the passer by were staring at me as I kept looking for a frame, my camera settings and clicking so many pics(when in reality i was struggling to find the right setting and had no clue what was going on), I was relieved no one asked me to show them the pics there. However it felt good to look and act like a pro, gives you quite a confidence. I came back home and wanted to see the pictures on a bigger screen, copied them to my laptop and well, here they were. Pretty disappointing but well.
I went back to streets to look for more fireworks but guess due to the rain earlier in the evening or may be because of more awareness, I saw less fireworks this year. It wasn't very good for my photo-shoot attempt (feels good to refer to it as photoshoot!!) but definitely a good news for the environment and I was glad about it.I wasn't done yet, I thought capturing those candles and diyas at home would be an experience and would give me enough opportunity to get acquainted with ISO settings. Now that I had all the time in hand, I kept capturing the diyas in various ISO settings to see the difference. I realized that the the light source (candles/diyas/tube-lights) shot with low ISO focuses and provides clarity to it , whereas with higher ISO the pictures come out brighter with a lot of noise.
Here are some of the pictures I felt happy about.
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One of the first attempts at capturing diya (ISO 200) |
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My best click for the night in my opinion (ISO 64) |
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Puja Thali (ISO 400) |
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Liked the way i could see the details of the flame in this (ISO 64) |
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Almost finished candle (ISO 100) |
Although I could not capture the prize winning pics I had decided to when I went out with my camera tonight, I was content with what I learnt. A few hours back I did not know or understand the ISO number I see on the camera , now I do. With that last picture I thought I would call it a day. Kept the camera aside and went out to see the rockets exploding and this time I got a clear shot with the best in the class lens I was using, 'My Eyes'.
Learning:
- ISO - Its the sensitivity of the camera to the light. Higher the number , higher the sensitivity and the noise in the pic.
- Image sensor (the most expensive part of the camera) is controlled with this setting , its is the image sensor that decides how much light to gather.
- At Higher ISO, a lot of noise (grains) get added to the picture.
- To capture a source of light, always keep the ISO low. It gives clarity to the source and eliminates the extra lighting effect around it.
- A tripod is a good idea while shooting fireworks, helps you keep the focus.
well.. good going ! keep it up.
ReplyDeleteThanks AJ!
ReplyDelete