Tutorial - Low Light, Needed Depth, Low Noise

TUTORIAL

Low Light, Needed Depth, Low Noise

(excerpt from the book Stephen Johnson on Digital Photography unreleased revised electronic version)

On a field trip to the Richard Remsen's Foundry and Gallery in Rockport Maine two weeks ago, I remember working my way into serious work that seemed like a process that might be worth flushing out a little bit.

The class was visiting a place I had never been, and as such I wanted to assess the situation before I started hauling equipment in. Naturally I was there to help my students, so initially I just set my equipment down outside and wandered the site. It was clear we were being made very welcome and so the class started to explore. The light was often dim, the detail intriguing, with dust, metal, wood and tools everywhere.

It was one of those situations where space was tight, light was low and interesting collections of objects and form could be seen from almost everywhere.

At first I wandered and simply cranked up the ISO to be able to handle the low light. It soon became abundantly clear that only a serious approach with tripod and long exposure would have any chance of rendering the complexities of the scene and depth.

In other words, it was an opportunity, that done casually would be useless, and done right might be quite nice. So I did what I knew I should do, grabbed the tripod, the remote release, locked the mirror up, lowered the ISO and went for the long exposures at whatever aperture was needed for the depth of the scene. Of course, rather than guess, I tried to calculate the necessary depth, and use no smaller aperture than required.

The exposures were in the 30 second range, the aperture often f16 or f22, but I kept checking with every shot what I actually needed with near/far, rack the focus method of determining the ideal focusing point, guessing at the needed depth, then checking with the depth of field preview button and capture inspection.

It was another Maine Media Workshops outing with wonder and great curiosity.

Richardson Foundry. Camden ME. 2012

• Tripod
• Mirror lock up with Remote Release
• Low ISO to drive exposure long rather than noise up (long exposure noise reduction on)
• near/far, rack the focus method of determining the ideal focusing point
• Needed Aperture estimate
• Depth of Field Preview to check on depth
• Image inspection by Zooming in on the Camera LCD