June 26, 2009
One more post about night photography and then we’ll move on. Check out this website for an ongoing light painting project conducted by the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. The photos are fantastic. They use really long exposure times (like 45 seconds) and several hundred people holding external flash units. If you look really closely you can see my friend Melissa (or at least the light source she’s holding) in the 2003 shot. Cool, huh?
–lisa
June 23, 2009
For Carrie (and anyone else who cares):
Night photography is not something I’ve done much of and I definitely don’t consider myself an authority, so what I’m about to tell is not necessarily “the rules.” It’s just what I do when I want to take pictures in the dark.
1) Never, never use a flash.
2) Choose a high ISO. For the shots I took in Chicago, I used an ISO of 1000. (Note: High ISOs make your pictures more grainy, so make sure to switch back to 400 when you’re done with the nighttime stuff)
3) Use a slow shutter speed. This means that the camera will stay open longer and let more light in. I start somewhere around 30 (1/30 of a second) and experiment from there. Any fast movement will still be blurry, while things not moving will be sharper (this is why some of the people in my picture are more blurry than others.
4) You’ll need to use a tripod because when your shutter speed is longer than about 60, you can’t hold it still enough in your hands to avoid making the whole picture blurry.
Really, I’m very lazy. I wasn’t toting a tripod with me through the streets of Chicago, so I rested my camera on a trashcan or against a wall to take these photos. If you really want good nighttime shots, get a good tripod and a wireless remote shutter release.
I hope that helps.
June 23, 2009
Here’s a nice essay by Jim Wallis on Father’s Day.
June 22, 2009
June 21, 2009
Friday night we enjoyed an evening with Lisa’s aunt and uncle and cousins near Wakarusa. Here’re Mafra and Laura hanging out with Ben.
Saturday morning we went to EcoFest, where we hung out with lots of granola, Scottish cattle, and kayaks.
Today we went on a long hike at a nature preserve we just found a couple miles from our house. To get there we walked by some corn fields. We took a pit stop part way through to eat some berries.
And Ben enjoying a cracker
