Nocturne
Night scene of Oia at Santorini island from Perivolas Village with traditional mills and the Agios Georgios church in the backround....
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Night scene of Oia at Santorini island from Perivolas Village with traditional mills and the Agios Georgios church in the backround.
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Aug, 2013Views
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Superb Composition
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Absolute Masterpiece
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Exceptional Contrast
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Jaw Dropping
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QualityImagesByJuliet
August 29, 2013
This shot is beautiful. It couldn't have been captured any better than this, in my opinion. Good balance. Good color saturation. The picture glows. I can imagine myself taking a stroll here in this place. Well done.
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken outside of the iconic traditional village of Oia in Santorini island.Time
About a couple of hours after sunset. It was taken on September 4, 2012 at 8:57:20 pm.Lighting
At night the lights of the traditional houses produce wonderful lighting in the Caldera contracting with the dark stone and lava. However some lights have quite different temperature so setting the white balance automatically while shooting in RAW format will come in handy.Equipment
I used NIKON D5100 with Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens. Because of the lack of tripod I had to place the camera on a flat surface for great stability due to the long-exposure shot.Inspiration
I remember I was taking a walk along with a friend until we decided to make a stop for resting. When I saw the spectacular view of Oia rounded by the chapel of Saint George on the left and the old windmill on the right immediately caught my eye and my strong desire to frame it came in place. Besides it was an excellent opportunity for my first night long-exposure experiments. I have to say that due to my autumn holidays in Santorini at 2012 stated the reason I started to take photography seriously.Editing
Due of the entry-level of equipment, shooting in RAW format was essential in order to extend the dynamic range of the image in post-processing. By dynamic range I simply refer to the ratio between lightest and darkest regions (the contrast ratio) of the image. First I opened the RAW file in Adobe Lightroom, recovered the highlights and shadows and modified a little bit the WB to my taste. I then applied a HDR filter tool for strong edges and finished in Adobe Photoshop by removing any unnecessary noise at the sky that HDR filter produced. If I had my current knowledges I would have done a quite different editing using the method of luminosity masks.In my camera bag
After taking photography seriously I managed to update my equipment a little bit. Today I pack a Nikon D800 body along with the AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G lens. I was surprised about the quality of this prime lens and how easily fits in almost every photography situation such as portrait, landscape and street photography. I really love the bokeh that produces as well. A Hoya Circular Polarizer Pro1 and a Hoya ND400 filters are complete my current kit.Feedback
Night photography is really magic. But controlling light premises magic ability as well. I mean the ability to realise how the light works and then how should be controlled and of course to how use imagination. The good news is that the current technology do the process easy enough so any camera that supports long exposure times is suitable for the job. Even a compact camera can do it with a little more help. Tripod is the most essential part of the process. In case of the lack of tripod search around the area for a stable surface to place your camera and if necessary use a flat object under the lens to give a desirable tilt. Shooting night scenes with many light sources is a big challenge because of the strong contrasts. Shooting in RAW format is the best choise because of high details and information recorded. If shooting in JPEG format a good idea and optional is bracketing by taking photos with different exposure times and blending them in post-processing. One slightly brighter and another slightly darker image. About other in-camera settings it depends on the subject. At your first tries you might want to set the aperture priority so can camera automatically set the best shutter speed for you according to the amount of ambient light coming through the lens. Choosing a small aperture between f/11-f/32 is ideal to have all the elements to be sharp while a wide aperture between f/1.2-f/3.5 is recommended in case of star trails. Experimentation is the key to figure out the best compination that works for you. Good luck!
