IOTW: Bad light, good photo at bioneural.net

One situation universal to all photographers (except maybe the mobile phone snappers) is a questioning glance at the sky asking "Is there enough light?" Even in bad or failing light it may worth pushing the trigger. I recall being fairly sure this lake shot on a cloudy and damp evening wasn't going to come out (Lake MacKenzie on the Routeburn). Since I shoot raw there was enough detail there to do some highlight recovery by processing the raw image twice (at different exposure settings, then blending the images). This resulted in an image that I feel captures the stillness yet moodiness of the scene. If in doubt, click. You never know—you might be pleasantly surprised!

Click thumbnail to enlarge image

Lake MacKenzie in failing light, NZ

Want to see more from IOTW? Click here for an archive view.

Last modified March 7th, 2008.

Actions Send this article link by e-mail Print this article without other content Follow responses to this article (comments feed) View on map (geotagged at lat -44.76794, lng 168.17167) Create a waypoint in RouteBuddy Translate this page: DE | ES | FR Follow tag feeds: geotag, iotw, New Zealand, Photography.

2 responses to IOTW: Bad light, good photo

1 Phil Renaud
Oct 14th, 2006 at 2:59 am Quote

ooooh
that is a *very* nice shot, especially considering the lowlight. What kind of camera are you using?
2 Bruce
Oct 14th, 2006 at 7:02 am Quote

Thanks Phil. It's a Nikon D70 with the 18-70mm kit lens. Last week in Hong Kong I managed to find the AF-S DX VR Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED, which seems impossible to obtain in Europe (or from B&H Photo in New York). The VR = vibration reduction and, according to Nikon:

...enables significantly sharper handheld images at slower shutter speeds and in a wider range of lighting conditions than previous models. Equipped with the new lens, users can take pictures at shutter speeds up to four times slower than is possible with a non-VR lens.

I've yet to put this to the test, but my hope is that it will lengthen the window of usable available light, so that shots like the above work by design rather than accident!

Something to say?

Comments may be moderated (e.g. no commercial promotion), are subject to spam filtering, and should be relevant to this post—otherwise make contact.

bioneural.net

bioneural.net site preferences

Accessibility

Styling

Link behaviour