There are many techniques involved in nighttime photography.  Star trail photographs are a traditional approach dating back to the film days.  If you think about it, that makes sense.  With the ISOs commercially available to most of us photographers, shooting the nighttime sky was not an option.  We simply didn’t have fast enough film.

With the advent of digital photography we can now push ISOs into the thousands and the noise levels are constantly improving.  And we can modify our cameras’ sensors to sensitize them to infrared light, something that the serious and most accomplished nighttime photographers do.  This provides us the opportunity to photograph both star trails and the night sky.

In previous articles I’ve discussed techniques for both types of nighttime photography.  In the most recent one I describe a technique that can provide both star trails and night sky photographs from a single session.  Here’s the link.

Exciting Nighttime Photography in 10 Easy Steps

One aspect I haven’t covered in detail yet is exposure.

Earlier this week there was a beautiful conjunction of the crescent moon and Venus in the early evening sky.  So I grabbed my camera, got permission from my neighbor and used their front yard to photograph the moon and Venus over the Los Angeles basin here in Southern California.

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I read a great series of articles by George Barr on taking the next step in photography.  They were passed along to me by a good friend – Brian Graham.  I have some early thoughts on what Barr proposes.

In his articles he defines six or seven steps for both technical and aesthetic growth in photography.  His articles define each step, discuss ways you can determine what step you’re in and gives ideas on how to advance to the next step.

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The post I wrote on Expose to the Right about a year ago is one of the most popular on this blog.  I wrote it after a workshop when I suggested this technique and one of the participants complained the photographs looked horrible.  I still use this technique but my workflow in Lightroom continues to evolve.

Recall that Expose to the Right means to overexpose your image so that the histogram shifts toward the right edge.  It is important not to overexpose so much that you introduce highlight clipping.  I like to have a histogram that is positioned a little to the right of center as seen here.  When you expose to the right you can end up with an image that is overexposed by anywhere from 1/3 to a stop or two, depending on the situation.

In the first post I suggested that you can ‘normalize’ the exposure in Lightroom with the Exposure adjustment.  If you overexposed by a stop you can start by decreasing Exposure adjustment in Lightroom by one stop.  This will have the effect of moving the histogram back toward the center or even to the left of center.  This gives you an exposure closer to what the camera’s light meter selected.

From there you can continue with your regular workflow.  Here’s an example of some additional adjustments: Blacks to set a black point, Contrast to add interest (contrast is always more interesting than flat) and Brightness to liven it up a little.  There are many adjustments you might perform but these few simple ones serve to illustrate the point.

But another technique would be to take the opposite approach.  Instead of normalizing the exposure, start by setting the black point with the Blacks adjustment.  This has a different effect on the histogram.  Instead of the entire histogram sliding towards the left, the shadow tail is extended without much change in the mid-tones or highlights.  This technique expands the dynamic range of the photograph.

You can further expand the dynamic range by adding contrast.  With both shadow and highlight areas to work on the Contrast adjustment both brightens and further darkens the image.

In practice you can try both techniques.  Just create two virtual images from the original file and apply one technique to one and the other technique to the other.  Often the first few adjustments you make on an image have an influence on the finished photograph.  So compare the two and decide which one you want to continue with.

This is not about whether one technique is better than the other but rather to give you more options when working with the photographs that you have exposed to the right.

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Last night I ran across an example of why we shoot in RAW (not in the RAW – puhleeeze).

Digital SLR cameras and a few point and shoot camera support the RAW file format for our images.  RAW is essentially what the sensor captured – unprocessed, uncompressed, unadulterated.  It takes a bit to get used to but once you do you’ll not go back to JPEG, the other file format.

One of the benefits of RAW is it gives you a lot more flexibility including recovering from poorly exposed images, especially over exposed.  Now, if you’ve read any of my histogram posts (search this blog for Histograms to find them), you know that the single most important thing to avoid as far as exposure is concerned is highlight clipping.  But with RAW you have a chance to recover an overexposed image and turn it into something very acceptable.  It doesn’t always work but sometimes it does.

OK, so I was scanning images in Lightroom last night and ran across this one.  It’s washed out except for the foreground and there is a tremendous amount of highlight clipping in the upper right hand corner.  (I wouldn’t blame you if you stopped reading hear and said, “There’s no way he can do anything with that image.  It’s a mess.”  Which it is.  But humor me and read on.)

By the way, you can click on the images to see them in a larger format.

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In this series of articles we’ve been exploring the histogram.  In the first two articles we discussed what it is.  Now we’re looking at different types of histograms and exploring how to work with them both in the field and during the post processing.  If you want to review or catch up, here are the links to the preceding three posts.

Mastering Exposure – Histograms Part 1: Introduction

Mastering Exposure – Histograms Part 2:  A Closer Look

Mastering Exposure – Histograms Part 3: The Rocky Mountain Histogram

In this article I want to discuss my favorite histogram, the Mole Hill histogram.  I like this one because so much can be done with it in the post processing.  Subtle colors and tonalities can be revealed in soft radiant light.  It lends itself to some of the most creative and expressive images.

Read on and we’ll look at what it is, the conditions in which it occurs, how to photograph it and how to work with it in the post processing to reveal the scene in all of its hidden glory.

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I talked to a lot of people at the Joshua Tree Art Festival this past weekend, sharing with them a little tip about getting better photographs from their point and shoot cameras.

In fact, this tip can apply to any digital camera for those times when you don’t want to have to pay close attention to the camera settings.  You may just want to shoot and have the confidence you’ll get decent photographs.

So this tip is very handy in that it will result in pictures with better colors and greater, more interesting contrast.  And it can be achieved in three simple steps.

Camera Mode

Our cameras all have different shooting modes.  Many people I talk to use Auto pretty much all the time.  This is the mode where the camera takes care of everything.  In other words, it makes all the decisions. 

The first simple change is to switch from whatever mode you’re using to P (for Program mode) as illustrated here.  This returns control of some key functions back to you, the photographer.    The camera will still set the aperture and shutter speed based on the light conditions.  But you gain access to some key corrections that will result in better pictures.

Exposure Compensation

The second change is exposure compensation.  This is the technique of either increasing or decreasing the exposure that the camera determined without resorting to setting the exposure manually.  In other words, you can still let the camera determine the exposure (as it does in P mode) but then tell it to decrease the exposure a certain amount.

Not all cameras have this capability but if your camera is one that does there will be a button or dial with this symbol somewhere on the camera.  Or there will be an exposure compensation menu option.  It indicates that you can refine the exposure by increasing or decreasing it.  In other words, it allows you to slightly over expose (or lighten) the image or underexpose (or darken) the image.  Here’s how it works.

The camera determines the exposure using its built in light meter.  It generally does a pretty good job but it has certain limitations.  The exposures it determines may overexpose the image ever so slightly, resulting in pale colors.  So if we slightly underexpose our  photographs they will gain a richness of color that is very pleasing.

I recommend we use –1/2 to –2/3 stop exposure compensation.  That is to say, we tell the camera to decrease the exposure by 1/2 or 2/3’s of a stop.  Your camera will display a scale similar to this one that will show the amount of exposure compensation.  On the minus side, 1 means decreasing the exposure or darkening the image by one stop.  Two means the exposure is decreased and the image is darkened by two stops.  The positive side increases or brightens the image by one and two stops respectively.

If your camera is set up to adjust exposure by half stop increments there will be one dot between the numbers as in this illustration.  If it is set up to adjust exposure by one third stop increments there will be two dots.  I prefer to set my camera to adjust exposure by 1/3 stop increments.  And then I set my exposure compensation to –2/3 stops.

You may need to check your camera’s manual to determine exactly how to set your camera’s exposure increments and how to do exposure compensation.

Auto ISO

The third change is to set your ISO setting on Automatic.  ISO refers to the sensitivity of the camera’s sensor which in turn affects the amount of light required to produce a correct exposure.  The greater the sensitivity, the less light is required.  Increasing the ISO increases the sensor’s sensitivity.  So an ISO of 100 has low sensitivity and requires more light for a correct exposure.  An ISO of 400 has much higher sensitivity and therefore requires much less light for a correct exposure.

Cameras produce the highest quality images at low ISOs.  And when the ISO is set on Auto the camera will automatically select the lowest possible setting to give you the highest quality image in the prevailing light conditions.

As with exposure compensation, you may need to consult your camera’s manual to determine exactly how to do this.

I use these settings myself on my Canon point and shoot (G11), the camera I take with me everywhere I go.  When I’m doing casual shooting or even scouting for ‘serious’ photograph locations I’ll use the G11 configured in this way.  In times like these I don’t want to be focusing on exposure settings, ISO and all the other things I think about when shooting my big Canon.  I want to focus on the image and the compositional possibilities.  And these settings allow me to do that and still capture high quality images.

So, try them for yourself and see if you like them.  Set up your camera in this way and shoot some photographs.  I think you’ll be pleased with the results. 

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This is the third post in a continuing series on the oft misunderstood but oh so important histogram.  In the first two posts we discussed the histogram in general.  If you missed them, click on these links.

Mastering Exposure – Histograms Part 1

Mastering Exposure – Histograms Part 2

Recap

To recap, the histogram displays a graph of the tonal values in the scene you are about to photograph.  It shows how the dynamic range of the scene matches and fits into the dynamic range of your camera’s sensor.  There are two critical pieces of information a histogram tells you:

1. If your exposure is correct
2. If you have problems capturing the dynamic range of the scene

To recap, the exposure is displayed by the position of the histogram curve within the boundaries of the graph area.  As you increase the exposure the histogram moves to the right.  As you decrease the exposure it moves to the left.  If the exposure is increased so that the histogram moves all the way up against the right side of the graph area you will have highlight clipping. Likewise, if it moves all the way to the left side you will have shadow clipping.

The dynamic range of the scene is displayed as the breadth of the histogram,  The wider the histogram the greater the dynamic range of the scene.  The narrower the histogram the lower the dynamic range.  When the histogram is so wide that it extends from one end of the graph area to the other you are facing a situation where your camera’s sensor will have a difficult time capturing the full dynamic range of the scene.  The worst case is you will have both highlight and shadow clipping.

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A few weeks ago I published the first of a series of articles on histograms, “Mastering Exposure – Histograms Part 1.”  I eventually want to talk about different types of histograms and how to work with them in the field and during the post processing.  But before getting into that I want to take a deeper dive into the histogram itself.

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Alas, the histogram is misunderstood…, or not understood at all.  I often run into students on photography workshops who say they’ve noticed the histogram but never knew what it was nor paid much attention to it.  But the histogram is one of our most effective tools we have for getting the correct exposure.  And a correct exposure is essential to a compelling photograph.  So, what is a histogram?  Read on as we explore the ins and outs of this powerful tool.

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With the advent of digital cameras people don’t understand exposure so well any more.  It’s not like in the early SLR days where the cameras didn’t have built in light meters.  You had to use a hand held light meter or, lacking that, just guess.  There was no way you could get along without knowing ISO (ASA at the time), shutter speeds and f/stops.  But that’s all changed now and probably not for the better, at least if you want to take photographs that make an impact.

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