Long exposures at night create images that are impossible for the human eye to see. By accumulating the light over many seconds or even many minutes, images form that can be quite compelling. When I took this elevated view of Guilin, China (after climbing 500 steps), my eyes could barely make out the distant forms in the dark. I had to focus on the moon because otherwise there wasn't enough contrast in the scene for the autofocus mechanism to work. I shot this with a 24mm focal length, and the settings were 64 seconds, f/4, 2000 ISO. How did I determine the exposure? By trial and error. I adjusted the ISO and the shutter speed until I liked what I saw. The white balance setting was daylight for this picture.
2 Comments
Oct 5, 2016, 10:38:17 AM
Gretchen - Jim why did you choose daylight WB?
Gretchen Cole
Oct 5, 2016, 9:43:18 AM
Jim - Gretchen, I use daylight WB for two reasons. I shoot with this for virtually all of my outdoor photography because it's one less thing to deal with, and second, I like the blue tones daylight WB produces in night scenes. The color can always be tweaked later, but there are so many camera settings to deal with, staying with one WB is one less thing to think about.