Project 54

I have been looking forward to this project as night photography has long interested me, although I admit that I have done very little, guess I never had the patience.  I have tried a few shots in the past, this is from 3 years ago overlooking the Singapore financial district and taken from my hotel window.  I specifically asked for a high room in the hotel looking in this direction.

Canon EOS 40D, 17mm, f/5.6, 1/5s, ISO 800

Canon EOS 40D, 17mm, f/2.8, 1/13s, ISO 800

Canon EOS 40D, 17mm, f/2.8, 1/6s, ISO 400

These images were particularly challenging as I did not have a tripod with me, so required a steady hand , wide aperture, high ISO, and the benefit of an image stabilized lens.

However, for this exercise I have set out to capture a variety of images from Munich's city center.  I have already posted a number of early evening and night shots for my 3rd assignment and so will not repeat these images in this blog.  My first sequence were taken from the Nockherberg a small hill overlooking the city.  My hope was to get some long range shots of the city, however, the elevation was not high enough and trees obscured most of the view, compounded with the fact that falling snow had greatly reduced the visibility.  Instead, I determined to create a few long exposures of moving traffic from the vantage point of a bridge.  A particular challenge at night is setting the correct exposure, many different exposures can work for the same scene depending upon the effect desired.  A higher exposure can provide details of the buildings, but tends to reduce the impact of the lights, especially with the strong lights from traffic.  In each of the following images the background becomes progressively darker:

Canon EOS 5D2, 105mm, f/4, 4s, ISO 100

Canon EOS 5D2, 105mm, f/11, 15s, ISO 100

Canon EOS 5D2, 105mm, f/11, 10s, ISO 100

Each image has merit, but I find the darker final image more visually interesting due to the contrast (these images are all as taken, (no editing).  I moved on from this location to a slightly busier junction overlooking the Munich technical museum (the illuminated building in the background).

Canon EOS 5D2, 105mm, f/22, 6s, ISO 100

Canon EOS 5D2, 28mm, f/22, 8s, ISO 100

My next subject matter consists of a few of the spotlit historical buildings in the city center.  These were all taken around dusk to maintain a blue sky in the background.  The first 3 images are of the Rathaus, the town hall of the city in the central square of Marienplatz.

Canon EOS 5D2, 24mm, f/11, 1s, ISO 800

(In this image I have chosen a narrow aperture to maintain DOF, but then selected a high ISO as I wanted to capture the people in the image to some extent.  A longer exposure at ISO 100 would have produced a better quality image but lost the people completely)

Canon EOS 5D2, 24mm, f/5.6, 1/2s, ISO 800

Canon EOS 5D2, 24mm, f/22, 8s, ISO 400

(This image used a very narrow aperture to try and keep the foreground and background in focus to provide a more dramatic perspective.  The  WB is some way off, however and the sky has a purple caste)

The next two images are of a large church on Odeons Platz to the north of Marienplatz.  These were taken on a different day in which the cloud cover was broken creating a much more interesting background to the images.

Canon EOS 5D2, 24mm, f/8, 6s, ISO 100

Canon EOS 5D2, 65mm, f/8, 3.2s, ISO 100

The next few images are pictures of everyday life taken at night in the shopping district and of a local cinema.  The first image is a telephoto image of the crowds walking along the main shopping street, very experimental for me at least - the focus is not good, but I like the fact that all the people in the shot are oblivious of the camera.

Canon EOS 5D2, 200mm, f/2.8, 30s, ISO 1600

The next image is one of our local supermarkets.  I have set the WB to the light inside the store, leaving the outside very blue.  Setting WB to the outside light made the interior glow a fierce orange.  I feel that the blue exterior emphasizes the cold and snow on the ground.

Canon EOS 5D2, 17mm, f/16, 3s, ISO 100

Canon EOS 5D2, 24mm, f/16, 4s, ISO 100

My final two nighttime images are attempts at capturing the weather, in this case heavy snow, using either street lighting or car headlights as the illumination of the scene.  As I was using a long telephoto for the images and wanted to capture the streaks of the falling wno, I had to use an exceptionally high ISO of 3200, however, the latest generation of digital SLR's can handle this with fairly acceptable results.

Canon EOS 5D2, 420mm, f/5.6, 1/10s, ISO 3200

Canon EOS 5D2, 65mm, f/5.6, 31/180s, ISO 100