But that's just winter time for you.
However, I have been having fun with the dark times thanks to a bit of kit I was lucky enough to get during the festive season. An intervalometer.
This is really just a fancy title for what actually amounts to a timer. With some other buttons on it.
What it really does it control the camera from a distance helping to reduce any shaking that touching the camera causes but also can be set to trigger the camera automatically. You can set it to open the shutter for a specific length of time and to fire the shutter at specific intervals.
This has given me the chance to try out some photographic techniques that I have had trouble with. Namely extremely long shots and time lapse.
Now, I’m still finding my way with some of this as it, like everything else in this game, is harder than it looks.
I have been fooling around for a while trying different settings out to see what happens, I’ve always found that the best way to learn and sometimes it produces some of the most unexpected shots, like this very first attempt that I took in my back garden over 5 minutes. The street lights give an sickly orange glow that blocks everything, but a little adjustment can bring out the details.
With long exposure photos its easy to get it wrong, if the ISO is too high or the time just a little to long you can blow out the image but you do get some interesting effects.
This was taken about 9:30 at night in a forest near where I am living. With the ISO up to 1000 and a 4 minute exposure there is almost enough light to make it look like day.
I’m lucky enough to have a large forest very close to where I am presently living. This has the advantage of providing some great places to shoot for my other blog, Danger UXB but also some great landscapes. I haven't tapped its full potential by a long way but I thought I should get a little in at least some of the shots I was taking. I like the contrast between the distances of the tree and the stars.
The forest is also quite closed in from the town near by, hopefully being dark. Not always true with the shear amount of light pollution there is these days. When the clouds rolled in and ruined the nights shooting, there was so much reflected light that I could see clearly without a torch. Being as I work in daylight (as most of us do) you never notice how much light there is. That is until you want it to go away.
The last shot I could get that night, after the clouds stole most of the sky was looking into the distance towards the Cat & Fiddle pub, one of the highest in England. There is a wonderful road that leads up to it that is great to drive, if you are carful. It only took 30 seconds to get a shot that showed the darkness of the fields but the huge amount of light generated by the pub, the cars and the town of Buxton in the distance.
As I said, this is just the start. I can spend many more sleepless nights, alone, in the dark forest at night. Astro-photography is basically a whole new discipline for me with new rules and methods. Something I am looking forward to spending my nights exploring.
Its not often that you find a bit of photographic kit that opens up so much to you for a reasonable price, I think the Intervalometer is a must have, it does so much and doubles as a remote release. Canon do have one of their own for a ridiculous amount of money, but if you want to try it out you can find the one I got on Amazon here. It even comes with batteries!
Mikestockerphoto.com
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