The city nightshot

This photo has been shot in May 2014 and it was more or less a lucky shot, I guess. I had the camera turned on programme automatic mode which would give me the chance to control ISO values, but not much more. I didn’t have enough experience to set everything manually, so I trusted the camera. Sometimes, this is the best strategy you could possibly use: understanding how the camera reacts to certain light situations can easily be learned by trying things in semi-automatic modes. I promise, there will be one special shot that will lead to an intense „I would love to understand why this happened“-session by yourself and your camera. This picture is the one which maybe told me most about the connection of ISO-values, shutter speed, image stabilization and forgetting a tripod. But it also told me that sometimes, understanding the terms and functions of a camera is less important than just trying new things. And by „sometimes“ I mean „every time“.

But we’ll start with the settings: I used the same lens as for the last photo, this time at 17 mm focal length – I just wanted as much on my picture as I could have. The ISO was set to 800 which was a fair value somewhere in between the little-risk-100 and the high-risk-1,600. I had learned enough through the past year of photography with my EOS 70D to know that ISO 1,600 would have been critical and only hard to correct in software. Didn’t want to take this risk. Shutter speed has been set automatically and it surprisingly turned out that I had a good hand for lower shutter speed like, in this case, 1/30 seconds. Give it a try! As you can see above there are no problems with sharpness at all. I can still remember why I shot this photo and it’s a lesson I will keep in mind for the future as well: I had a feeling that I would like to keep a memory for this scene, create a memory for this scene to share with others and – maybe most importantly – copy all this great street and night photography art out there. After my return home this photo should wait for three more years before being developed and finalised in Lightroom. So the key is: if you feel like this very moment, this very building or this very landscape scene should be shot, just do it!

What did I learn?

There are some aspects of this photo which I really liked when I had a look at it years later and started to edit it in Lightroom. And this is where we start our little one-page-journey through my personal lessons this photo told me:

My first impression of the photograph was the sky: it was so blue and this perfectly aligned with the buildings, artificial lighting and the many colours you simply get in a city night scene. Later, I should find out that this time is called „blue hour“ because this atmosphere and colour is exactly what many photographers want to achieve. The second thought was about sharpness: the whole looks of the photo is very clean, sharp and technical, although it’s been shot having people around. A lower shutter speed would have caused visible movements and in consequence also motion blur. Today, I would choose this very shutter speed manually, but back in 2014 I did not have any thoughts about this. Same story: the aperture. Usually, the rule is: the more depth of field you want, the more you need to close the aperture. I definitely had in mind that this photo needed to be sharp through the whole depth, but the programme automatic mode chose f/4. Lucky me: the open aperture helped to shoot the people in the front, because otherwise their movement would’ve been visible. And the background of the picture (people around Piccadilly Circus fountain) was well illuminated which caused a high sharpness in combination with the high shutter speed and open aperture.

Again, I did not know all these things. But it was important to rethink the composition of the photograph later; back in 2014 I was not ready for that. But still, this is a nice shot and it transports the night life atmosphere of London. So, as you know that this shot was random: why don’t you try your next random shot?
-Koloury-

Do your random shot!