Light #9 - What time of day to shoot?

[RichardTaylor]

Light 9a.

What time of day to shoot?. (1)

Depending on the weather this can make a huge difference to the appearance of your subjects, especially landscapes. Around the start and end of the day (including before sunrise and shortly after sunset) can be great.

You may find The Photographer's Ephemeris of assistance.It will tell you the time for sun/moon rise or set, and the direction for any location. That and with weather reports and tide charts will help in planning shoots.

The Photographer's Ephemeris | Plan your shoot

I sometimes do early morning shoots with a Flickr group and they use the above tools to plan shoots. There may be similar groups in your area.

They can be found here:
Flickr: Newcastle Sundance

For sunrises they will be on site ready to shoot about an hour before sunrise.
They means a tripod, remote release and torch will be needed, and possibly a ND grad filter.
They will normally finish shooting about 1/2 hour after sunrise unless the weather conditions are exceptional, and that means "atmosphere".

Here is an example of an early morning shoot at a town on a coastal lake. We are looking east and there are some town street lights behind us. It was shot in mid winter, in a temperate climate in the southern hemisphere..
Sunrise was around 7am (the exif clock data is about 10 minutes fast for pics up until sunrise.)

This illustrates how much changing light and atmosphere can change a photograph. All these pics were taken on a full frame camera.

(1) One hour and 10 minutes before sunrise. Mostly lighting from the marina behind me. Availale light only..
Stars can be seen on the larger flickr pics.



Exposure: 25 seconds @ f/5.6 & ISO 200. F=24mm

(2) About 15 minutes latter. The light on the boat is from the town lights and the first hint of dawn can be seen on the horizon.



Exposure: 25 seconds @ f/5.6 & ISO 200. F=35mm

(3) About 35 minutes latter. A lot more light in the sky but signs of a fog rolling in.



Exposure: 0.6 @ f/8.0 & ISO 100. F =24mm

(4) Just a couple of minutes latter but looking north, notice how the colours have changed, with the fast approaching sunrise off to my right. The fog was moving in rapidly.



Exposure: 2 seconds @ f/8.0 & ISO 100. F=70mm

You may find this DPS tutorial of interest as it covers a similar topic, especially the planning process.
http://www.digital-photography-schoo...michael-riffle

More to come

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Larger versions of the pics are on my Flickr stream
Thanks for looking, and feel free to ask questions or comment.

Richard

[Chip]

Well done and useful series, Richard. Thanks!

[RichardTaylor]

Thanks very much, Chip.

[RichardTaylor]

Time of day. (2)

Continuing on with an early morning shoot at a town on a coastal lake. Sunrise was around 7am (the exif clock data is about 10 minutes fast). This illustrates how much changing light and atmosphere can change a photograph.

(1) Just on sunrise looking north east. The sun is just starting to appear on the horizon off to my right but the fog is still rolling in.



Exposure: 1/13 @ f13 & ISO 50. F=24mm

(2) About 10 minutes latter. The fog was still rolling in.



Exposure: 1/15 @ f/13 & ISO 50. F=28mm

(3) About 10 minutes latter. I was now shooting hand held.



Exposure: 1/400 @ f/7.1 & ISO 20. F =70mm

(4) Just a couple of minutes latter. The fog had completely closed in.



Exposure: 1/50 @ f/7.1 & ISO 200. F=105mm

This was next to last keeper from the morning and it was time for breakfast with the roup.

More to come

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Larger versions of the pics are on my Flickr stream
Thanks for looking, and feel free to ask questions or comment.

Richard

[RichardTaylor]

Time of day. (3)

For a similar example to the above, but a sunset see this post on DPS where the same tools as post #1 were used when planning.

One evening at Newcastle (Australia)

This series illustrates how much changing light a change a photograph of the same subject.

(1) Around sunrise looking east.



Exposure: 8 seconds @ f8 & ISO 100

(2) Around mid day, on a different day, still looking east.



Exposure: 1/00 @ f/14 & ISO 100

(3) Around dusk. Notice how a lot of the sky is "blue" and contrasts nicely with the warmth of the lights and light reflection. This is known as the "blue hour", a good time to shoot cityscapes.



Exposure: 3.2 seconds @ f/8 & ISO 200

Another example of the "blue hour"

(4) Just around dusk, but after sunset, and we still have a bit of blue sky and the warmth of artificial light. A little latter the sky turned boring black.



Exposure: 1/15 @ f/4.5 & ISO 1600

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#1 Introduction
Light #1 - Introduction.

Part 2 of this series (Light #2 - How much? Enough #1. ) can be found here:

Light #2 - How much? Enough #1.

Part 3 - Indoors (1)
Light #3 - Indoors (1)

Part #4 - Low light outdoors (1)

Light #4 - Low light outdoors #1

Part #5 - High contrast light.
Light #5 - High contrast

#6 Too much light.
Light #6 - Too much light.

#7 Light direction.
Lifgt #7 - Directiuon


#8 Weather
Light #8 - Weather

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Larger versions of the pics are on my Flickr stream
Thanks for looking, and feel free to ask questions or comment.

Richard

[Vincent_G]

Impressive Richard ..thanks

[RichardTaylor]

Thank you.

[ccting]

Wow.... that is what i called "professional"... Going to copycat ur skillset into my brain.....

Anyway to modify the light during midday to gain the same result?

Any post production for those pics?

Any tutorial for Photographer's Ephemeris?

Can I use Photographer's Ephemeris everywhere in all countries in this world?

Last time i worked on this kind of project before, but i didn't use android, but i am using CAVE. In the CAVE, the avatar is exactly same scale with real one where you can interact with them. But the tech is too expensive where Singapore has only 2 units..my country has only 1 unit. I think VR CAVE is great for learning lighting.. I did not use the tech for learning lighting at that time .



Even with landscape, you can create your own sun ;D. The CAVE above is less advanced that what I used before. It has only 3 walls.

https://market.android.com/details?i...XBhbnkuc2xyIl0.

[RichardTaylor]

@ccting

(1)
"Anyway to modify the light during midday to gain the same result?"

You really can't modify the sunlight for shooting landscapes to get the same result.
For smaller subjects can modify it by diffusing it or shooting smaller subjects in the shade by using fill in light for the shaddows.

You can change the appearance colour of the light adjusting your white balance either when shooting or in post processing. You can also change the appearance, sometimes, using a polarising filter when shooting.

If your post processing skills are up to it you can change the appearance of almost anything.

(2) All my pics have some post processing from the original RAW files.
They are usually exposure, and colour adjustments, along with cropping and sharpening.
I do not add in skies etc.

(3) Yes - see the links on the home page..
http://photoephemeris.com/
(4) Yes, as far as I am aware of. Try it. It is free.

[ccting]

Originally Posted by RichardTaylor

(4) Yes, as far as I am aware of. Try it. It is free.

;( it is not free!!!