Shooting a couple on the beach at night? Anyone tried it?

[BigFuzzy]

Originally Posted by Sweetlifephoto

I would say look for areas where there is more ambient light, like a pier or restaurant/bar on the beach and use that to your advantage. A very good tip for night photos is that the light behind your subjects are as important as the light you shoot in front.

There is more light at night than you think, I would try a long exposure up to 30 seconds and manually fire your flash during the exposure to light them up.

Hope these ideas help spark your imagination.

Originally Posted by scootermcq

Exactly.... I have done this technique before, but with rear curtain sync. Have them stand relatively still, but the flash will freeze minimal movement. Camera on a tripod & 30 second exposure (or there abouts) the 30 seconds will allow ambient into the pic & the flashes will light them. Might want a warming gell on the flashes.

Exactly what I was thinking. Long exposure with rear-curtain (or bulb) to hit them with flash at the end of the exposure. Just ensure that the flash is bright enough to make them stand out from the background (and from their own slight body movements (ie ghosting) that might show up from the long exposure.


Good luck..

[graciousness]

Originally Posted by BigFuzzy

Exactly what I was thinking. Long exposure with rear-curtain (or bulb) to hit them with flash at the end of the exposure. Just ensure that the flash is bright enough to make them stand out from the background (and from their own slight body movements (ie ghosting) that might show up from the long exposure.


Good luck..

Right! Now I get it.

[Woody]

Originally Posted by graciousness

Right! Now I get it.

So do I

Cheers,

John W

[ajax_andy]

Thanks for the replies everyone... I need to check out the location and see if there are any other light sources on a night time.

I think my level of experience and equipment may make this a step too far and I'd be better off focussing getting good shots in a well lit location and playing it a little on the safe side. It's very important day for the couple and so I'm not sure I'm brave enough to try it just yet.

I'll check out the beach at night though and see if it's going to be workable

[sk66]

Front curtain sync for long exposures.
With a long enough exposure they can get up and walk out of the scene during the ambient exposure...

If they are going to stay in the scene the entire exposure time, then rear curtain.

[BigFuzzy]

Originally Posted by sk66

Front curtain sync for long exposures.
With a long enough exposure they can get up and walk out of the scene during the ambient exposure...

If they are going to stay in the scene the entire exposure time, then rear curtain.

haha glad I read this before I commented because your original comment (which I got email notification of) before editing didn't have that last line which I was going to suggest needed to be there..

[Sweetlifephoto]

Originally Posted by graciousness

Wouldn't long exposure introduce a lot of motion blur with people? Like how can you get people to hold their stand/pose for 30 seconds or do you just try and hope for the best? I'm sort of understanding what you're saying about the flash freezing some movements, but I' still imagining a blurry photo in my head from such long exposure. Perhaps a photo sample would be good so that we can understand what you mean.

This one is not in complete darkness but the sun was well below the horizon. To the naked eye the sky was dark, but the long exposure pulls in the ambient light and makes it look brighter than it is and brings out just enough detail in the trees to make it interesting.

night on golf course shot.jpg

[Niresangwa]

Originally Posted by ajax_andy

I think my level of experience and equipment may make this a step too far and I'd be better off focussing getting good shots in a well lit location and playing it a little on the safe side. It's very important day for the couple and so I'm not sure I'm brave enough to try it just yet.

This!

I'm pleased you reached this conclusion, as what you're thinking of is definitely not an easy thing to pull off well. That's not to say you can't, nor that it's not a great thing to be thinking in adventurous terms.

The obvious choice of technique has been brought up already, but if you try to go that route, a couple of points:

1) you'll be surprised at how much ambient can be gathered quickly at a decent ISO.

2) that ambient will have to be balanced temperature-wise with the flash - generally the light of the ambient exposure is going to be warmer, much warmer than the flash... you can see the difference in the example Sweetlifephoto posted.

Another option you may wish to look into is light painting. side from anything else, it's a fun skill to learn.

Finally, there are still stunning shots you can create without worrying about geting perfect exposures on your models, such as using your flash a rimlight against a well exposed landscape.. the models are in silhouette, dynamic rimlighting and a well-exposed nightscape can be an easy but dramatic shot to produce...

[Frank Schmidt]

You asked for a sample photo back in Feb of '11 and that stopped the conversation !

Funny how that works. Lots of speculation but few pictures to prove the ideas. This is just the thumbnail (14Kb) but I can tell you how I did it.

Dark of night, no moon. Light in distance is very faint. Set camera on tripod, Bulb ("B") setting. Use shutter remote: ISO 800. f/4

Now, set up a slave flash on another tripod near portrait subject. Make sure they are wearing reflective clothing or stand away from backlight (if you don't the backlight will burn through and give a 'ghost' effect.)

Smile big, trigger shutter and flash; on-camera and off.

Step out of the frame and let the exposure run another 30 seconds or so; whatever it takes to record background. If you want to light the beach then do so after subjects have left the scene so they don't blur and use a flashlight or spotlight to do your light....

See more at my Flickr site: UncleSparkles