Some trips are memorable and some trips are unforgettable. I have been to the New York city quite a few times and each time with a different purpose. Sometimes I go there to visit my friends, sometimes just for the restaurant hopping, sometimes for a work related activities and sometimes I go there just for the shooting. But the last trip was a combination of all and probably the last one of its kind in many ways. It was a fun trip with an emotionally drenched ending. If you skim through my photo gallery, you would quickly notice that I love to take night cityscapes and have been to NYC few times just for those night cityscapes. Usually, I would like to take such trips alone so that I could get out and go for the shoot wherever I want and whenever I want. But occasionally, I would get a company and trips would bring different dimensions of me as a photographer and as a person in general. Having an extra pair of eyes and creative mind is always helpful. When I do these night cityscapes, I always go through my checklist of things to do for the long exposure shots and works most of the time. Here is the shot from the trip.
Read MoreDigital Photography
Few Tips And Tricks For Panning Photography
Panning is the technique which shows the motion of the subject, if done correctly. It involves the movement of the camera along with the moving subject either in horizontal or vertical direction. When we think of horizontal panning, we can think of situations like traffic on the road, racing games, sprinters or cyclists, whereas panning to capture the motion of a diver is an example of vertical panning. Theoretically, panning is a simple technique which requires you to use the slower shutter speed, maintain the focus on the subject, continuously pan with the subject and then take the shot. But getting a perfect panning shot is not as simple as it sounds. It needs precise focusing on the subject, good timing on releasing the shutter, balancing your distance with the subject and keep practicing with the different shutter speed until you get the balanced result.
Panning is an interesting concept where the motion is shown by freezing the movement of the subject while making the background blurry at the same time. We all know that freezing the moving subject requires faster shutter speed, but to make the part of the image blurry, we need to shoot with the slower shutter speed. If that is the case, you can possibly argue that how can we achieve the desired shot without combining multiple images, right? And that is the secret of this technique. You don’t have to edit the picture or combine shots in order to get the motion effect in a single picture. You would get it by properly applying the techniques, and timing the shot from the proper distance so that you could include the background in the frame, which is very important to get the motion effect. Now let’s get into the details of these techniques and see how can we master the panning shots.
Read MoreLong Exposure Shot To Create Silky Water Effect
When I saw the first image with silky water effect, I thought it was some skillful task accomplished using Photoshop rather than something produced on the camera itself. I was just getting into photography and didn't have much knowledge about various types of photography. After I got my first DSLR, Nikon D60, I started learning the basics of photography; Shutter Speed, ISO, Aperture and was enjoying whatever I could shoot. Actually for the first few months, my expensive DSLR was just a point and shoot camera in Auto Mode. It was only after I learned about various shooting modes and how it works in different light condition, I got interested to dial into them and experiment with the subjects and (objects).
Soon after, I upgraded my DSLR after realizing the limitations and the features that my camera offered. When I bought Nikon D90, I started using external flash units, configured them into remote flash units into group using built-in commander mode and learned other advanced camera settings. Everything was working great but knowing more about different DSLRs and what could it offer enticed me to upgrade myself to my first full frame DSLR, Nikon D700. It was probably one of the best camera I ever owned. It never failed me and always exceeded my expectations. I learned so much about long exposure shots, variety of landscape shots using combination of full frame sensor and wide angle lens and many more other small but very useful photographic techniques. I also learned that the very first silky water image I saw was not any tricks done using Photoshop but the long exposure shot done very carefully by using the combination of camera, wide angle lens, filters and tripod.
After learning about the technique, I went to the nearby falls in Washington DC Metro area to test my knowledge. It was a fail! I learned a very important lesson and that is reading about the technique and actually doing it in practice are two different things. There are so many variables that could contribute to the final image. Our gears and it's setup is what we can control but the ambient, finding good vantage point and getting the right composition is equally important. After many attempts in nearby small water streams, I gained my confidence and went to the Great falls park in Potomac, Maryland last year only to find out that the bridge that I had to cross to get to the fall was closed due to the construction. As soon as the construction was completed and the bridge was opened, I went to the park last Monday (on the Presidents day) and got the shot below. Let me explain in details about how I got this shot.
Long Exposure Effect on Water Falls (click the image to view full size)
When I went there, I tried composing and taking shots on my phone from different angle. Once I found my angle, I setup my camera on the tripod and took one shot. I was shooting in Aperture priority (A) mode at f/11 and since it was a bright daylight time, camera automatically bumped the shutter speed up to compensate the light and froze the water motion. I wanted smooth running (silky water) effect and the only way to get that effect at that time was by using the filter. I attached ND 3 filter (which is 10 stops filter letting in only 1/1000th of the light and requiring 1000 times longer shutter speed to get the same exposure as without the filter) and then the shutter speed got reduced to 6 seconds with an Aperture being fixed of course. After I got home, I exported it to the Lightroom and adjusted the exposure and the color tones little bit. This is one of the main reason I started shooting in RAW mode which gives you an option to adjust settings later on the computer that you missed on site. I hope you like my post and if you have any questions or suggestions, please comment them below.
Happy Shooting!
