Nighttime Photography During Arts Alive
January 25 2016 06:32 PM Filed in: Curiousities
Taking pictures at night handheld is generally not a good idea, as there’s normally not enough light. But I was curious to see how far I could push in-body-image-stabilization, so during a recent Arts Alive! in Eureka, California I rather aimlessly took some shots. I’m not overly fond of “urban” or street photography, as such settings I find, for the most part, aesthetically unpleasing. But they’re more appealing at night, when much is shrouded in darkness and sometimes the lights can be kind of attractive.
I was shooting handheld at speeds between one-third and two-thirds a second. At those speeds, not only is there a concern for camera shake, but anything that moves is going to be nothing but a blur, as the following two images, one of a horse drawn carriage, the other of a car, demonstrate.


Also note the bad flare in the first image. Lights can be visually attractive, but they can also overwhelm a lens, as we see again in the following image:

That’s flare combined with coma. Night photography can be hard on a lens, easily exposing some of its less obvious flaws.
Here’s more images from that night:













I was shooting handheld at speeds between one-third and two-thirds a second. At those speeds, not only is there a concern for camera shake, but anything that moves is going to be nothing but a blur, as the following two images, one of a horse drawn carriage, the other of a car, demonstrate.


Also note the bad flare in the first image. Lights can be visually attractive, but they can also overwhelm a lens, as we see again in the following image:

That’s flare combined with coma. Night photography can be hard on a lens, easily exposing some of its less obvious flaws.
Here’s more images from that night:













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