Into the night
Camping trip in mid-January...so cold. -6 with windchill and couldn't sleep much, so I just goofed around with the camera at the camp site experimenting wi...
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Camping trip in mid-January...so cold. -6 with windchill and couldn't sleep much, so I just goofed around with the camera at the camp site experimenting with exposures. I was pleasantly surprised when this one came out as it did.
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Feb, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I was in the mountains in Pennsylvania on a solo camping trip in mid-January 2016.Time
It was late at night. If memory serves it was somewhere between midnight and two AM.Lighting
The lighting was 100 percent natural. Just what was coming from the sky.Equipment
This was a Canon Rebel XS, with a fairly inexpensive Rokinon fish-eye lens. There was no flash, only a 30-second exposure to gather light. This was set up on a tripod by my campsite and simply aimed skyward.Inspiration
Heh, well honestly what inspired me to take this photo is that the temperature had gotten down to -6 with the windchill, and I was slightly ill prepared for it to get quite so cold that night. I was on a training hike for a few days testing out gear for a Mountaineering trip to Mt. Washington in New Hampshire that would be coming up in a month or so afterward. Sort of a gear shakedown hike to prepare for the temperature extremes on that mountain. I couldn't sleep more than 20 minutes or so before I got chilled and had to move around my camp site to stay warm, so I spent most of the night eating and shooting pictures. This was my favorite of those results.Editing
While I generally do some post-processing on photos, this particular one wasn't touched at all. In fact, at the time I was still shooting a combination of RAW + JPG, so this came out of the camera as is.In my camera bag
I carry the Canon Rebel XS. I always have my 8mm Ultra Wide Angle f/3.5 Fisheye Lens, a 50mm fixed lens, and my go to lens is a 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6. There is always a tripod strapped to my backpack and my lenses are carried in a dry bag considering the amount of time I spend near -- or in -- the water.Feedback
Experiment, experiment, experiment! Take as many shots as you can, with as many different settings ideas as possible. I am a relative newbie to photography; at least where better equipment is concerned, and I am always experimenting with ideas. I carry my camera with me even on simple car trips to and fro and constantly look at my surroundings for something that jumps out at me. Then I pull over and attempt to get in the lens what I just saw with my eyes. If you don't get the shot you were hoping for, you've lost nothing, and probably still gained some insight into at least what didn't work. But if you do...you gained something really great. For this particular shot, I recommend a very dark place with little to no man-made light. I believe this worked so well because the moon was so prominent that night, so you might start there. Or perhaps experiment with your f-stops or ISO until you can gather enough light for the final image. In particular, I think what really worked for this shot is the placement of the two most prominent trees. Just catching that angle of them both coming into the picture from above and below, and being that they were each right about on those 'rule of thirds' lines that draw the eye so well.
