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FollowThe Portland Head Light on a very, very cold winter night.
The Portland Head Light on a very, very cold winter night.
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deannefortnam
October 25, 2016
Fabulous shot! So how on earth did you get in there to take pictures at night. They kicked me out at sunset!
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken at the Portland Headlight in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.Time
This photo was taken somewhere around 4 AM. It was extremely cold this evening with a temperature of about 18 degrees. The wind coming off the water was blowing at around 20 mph. It was hard to stay outside too long and we had to go back to the car to warm up several time. It was worth it though!Lighting
My goal was to photograph this landmark with the milky way behind it. Unfortunately, mother nature did not co-operate enough to see much of the night sky. The clouds did clear just enough though to get some beautiful colors in the sky with a mix of stars up above.Equipment
This photo was taken with a Nikon D800 and a Tamron 15-30 mm f/2.8 lens. A tripod was needed due to the long exposure times. It was extremely dark that evening as the moon had not yet risen. The exposure time was set at 15 seconds at ISO 3200.Inspiration
The coast line of Maine is one of the most beautiful parts of the United States. It is littered with pretty lighthouses and exceptional dark skies. It is the perfect ingredient for those who love landscape photography. The Portland Headlight is the most photographed lighthouse in the world. However, you rarely see photographs of the Headlight at night. My main motivation was simply to capture this lighthouse in a way that isn't done very often, at night.Editing
This photo was processed mainly in Adobe Lightroom. The new dehaze feature in Lightroom helped to bring some clarity to the stars. It is a great feature for those doing night time photography. I then briefly processed in the image in Photoshop where I applied noise reduction and sharpening. For noise reduction I used Topez Denoise 6 and I sharpened the image using Nik's Output Sharpener. However, the photo you see is very close to the original right from the camera.In my camera bag
I generally have an idea of what image I want to capture before I go out to a location. Since I like to travel light, I change out equipment in my bag based on what my goals are. For landscape photography I generally go out with my Nikon D800, the Tamron 15-30 and the Tamron 24-70. I use the Mindshift rotation backpack which allows me access to my camera without even taking the pack off my back!Feedback
Doing landscape photography at night requires a good deal of pre-planning. It is very important to visit the area you are going to shoot from during the daytime to get a feel for what the area and terrain is like. You can also plan what your shot is going to look like during the daytime. Using apps like Photo Pills on your smart phone can also help you plan what time you should arrive for your night shoot. I use the Night Augmented Reality feature in Photo Pills to see where the stars and moon will be over the course of the evening and I base my arrival time around that. As for equipment, use what you have to start, however, a tripod is a must. Good luck, have fun, and be safe!