christopherrbeveridge

Romance

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

settings

Aperture f/1.2 ISO 1250 Shutter 1/40 Focal Length 50/1

upload_date

Mar, 2016

Views

134

Likes

Awards

Member Selection Award

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Absolute Masterpiece

Superb Composition

Top Choice

Outstanding Creativity

Peer Award

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Behind The Lens

Location

This capture was taken on North Island, San Diego, CA along the beach next to Centennial Park looking towards downtown San Diego. I was in San Diego for Comic Con and found myself wondering around the city and area after a day of enjoying the festivities of Comic Con.

Time

Still to date this is easily one of my favorite night time photos I've ever taken since getting into photography eight years ago. I found myself walking around North Island looking for a place to take a night time cityscape of downtown San Diego and street shots. I was on my way back to my hotel when I came across this and just had to capture it. This image was taken on Saturday, 14 July 2012, at 9:28pm.

Lighting

At the time of taking this I was just walking around with my camera and a single lens working on naturally lit street photography and taking low light hand held captures. The lighting consists of a street light behind me and then what light was available from the candles, San Diego buildings, and other buildings around.

Equipment

This shot was captured using the Canon EOS 5D Mark II with the EF 50mm f/1.2L. The image was captured hand held by sitting on the ground keeping everything tight to my body to help stabilize it. No external or on-camera lighting was used. The ISO was set to 1250 with a shutter speed of 1/40 sec.

Inspiration

When I came across this scene I was on my way back to my hotel and thought this was interesting to have a candle lit dinner along the water with a great view of downtown San Diego. What I later found out was this was set up by a group of friends for their friend to propose his long time girlfriend. When I heard the story and the work they put into setting everything up it seemed like one of those moments you would want to capture. The story about it being a proposal helped guide my titling the image Romance.

Editing

I do not typically do a lot of post-processing outside correcting white balance, shadows, and highlights. I'll add a little contrast and clarity just to keep some of the softer lines defined. I also did a little noise reduction processing since I was captured with an ISO of 1250 to remove some of the digital grain effect. Other than that no other post-processing was used. I utilized Adobe Lightroom for my post-processing work.

In my camera bag

This really depends on what I am going out to capture. If I am shooting a sports event I'll always pack my 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II and 300mm f/2.8L IS and maybe take a ultra-wide angle or my 50mm f/1.2L. If I am traveling on vacation I'll leave the 300mm at home and usually take an ultra-wide like the 17-40mm, a medium prime like my 50mm and my 70-200mm. Usually I like to have an ultra-wide, medium, and telephoto with me so I can cover anything I happen to come across. Lighting wise I like to take at least one flash like the Canon 580EX II with a set of radio triggers. The nice thing about the Canon flashes is they come with a table mount so you can use them remotely by placing them on a flat surface or have someone hold it for you. I've also invested more into tripods and monopods. For ports the super-telephotos will always be on a monopod. When traveling I have either a heavy duty aluminum tripod that can handle 20 lbs with a ball head and also a lighter weight smaller one with a ball head that can handle 10 lbs. My method of travel, car vs flying, will dictate which tripod I take.

Feedback

With cityscape or street photography you never know what you're going to come across when wondering around. The biggest thing I would say is just always keep an open mind. When you set out on a mission to capture something specific don't get trapped an super focused on that one thing because you could miss something special like this. I also recommend spending the time going out at night without a tripod taking slow shutter speed handhelds as it will really force you to concentrate on proper camera holding techniques for the most stable shots. The biggest thing though is to just keep taking pictures. Even if you take a thousand pictures and only get a hand full you keep, those hand full of captures had an adventure associated with it. As you progress and get better the number of keepers will start increasing.

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christopherrbeveridge

christopherrbeveridge

Romance

Behind The Lens

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