We explore how you can make unique images at night without the use of a tripod.
Anyone who knows me at all, will know I am not a big fan of tripods! I'm all about keeping my photography flowing, and minimising the amount of kit I carry to save my back. However, I have to admit that night photography is one of those things that you can't do without a tripod.... or is it?
A couple of months ago I led an evening photo walk with Mark Evans from Camversation. I was in London, over in the city for just a few days with only hand luggage, so no luxury of having a tripod with me. Regardless, I knew that I would be able to explore low light photography, and share some gems with those attending the walk. I let everyone else make their own choice of whether to bring a tripod, and a number of the group did - everything from something that would withstand gale force winds to a tiny little Gorilla pod that could be wrapped around the railings for support.
However, I was out to explore possibilities that did not require a tripod.
Your first option is not actually a creative one. Its all about knowing your possibilities and boundaries and limitations.
Know what shutter speed you need for hand holding an image, what depth of field is acceptable and how the quality of your image is affected by an increase in ISO.
This image here was made at 1/200, F4.5 and ISO4000 hand held. I chose this shutter speed to ensure that the image was sharp. I then made the decision to expose for the highlights, letting adequate light into the exposure via a reduction in depth of field and increase in ISO above that I would normally feel comfortable with. As you can see, it is not immediately obvious that this image was worth keeping - but keep I did, and when I got it home, I saw what was hidden away
Now believe it or not - the photo below is exactly the same image. Fully edited in Lightroom. I've included the panel here to show you the changes I made. I also corrected the horizon and verticals. Having done all this I felt that with the higher ISO, there was some noise, so I then ran it through the de-noise setting as well.
Now given this is a creative blog post, you might wonder why I am showing you this? I thought it was valuable to show you what can be hidden inside a very dark image, and how using a higher ISO can help you get the shot rather than missing it. So give it a go next time, and don't delete anything off the back of the camera while you are out. If you want to see really quickly what is hidden in your image when you import it, tap on the auto edit tab, and you will see very quickly if it is worth editing further. All this in dark conditions without a tripod.
Intentional Camera Movement - you actually 'need' to move the camera
I do a lot of Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) and the beauty of this technique is that you need longer shutter speeds and you deliberately need to move the camera...so absolutely no need for a tripod!
With this amazing skyline in front of me, I took the moment to ask myself what was important about what I saw. For me it was all the lights of different colours and the silhouettes of the buildings against the night sky. Knowing this, I knew that I wanted to explore what I could do creatively with the lights.
With architecture, I tend to move my camera in a movement or shape that mimics what I am looking at. So I decided to draw a tiny square with my camera. The image below was created during a 2 second shutter speed. ISO 160 and F7.1. I love how it accentuates the colour of the lights, and seems to add shape to the skyline. With the slightly longer shutter speed, and shallow depth of field I was able to make this image when the light in the sky was minimal, but still hold a low ISO to maximise the end quality of the image.
After exploring drawing the square shape with my camera, I then tried something very different - a zoom out with my camera lens. At 2 seconds, this movement was quite slow. I started zoomed into one of the buildings and during the 2 seconds I moved from 200mm - 24mm on my zoom lens to create this effect. It gives a very different feel compared to the previous image. This one has a lot of energy, and you almost feel the sound of the city coming to meet you which blurs the vision.
It is not just the bigger picture - Don't forget the details
Although I felt compelled to capture the city skyline, I also love reflections, and the light from the buildings reflecting onto the water of the river in front of where we were standing was super. I noticed the way different areas of the water were coloured by multiple lights or just one or two colours. I explored different movements to see what sort of gentle abstract images I could create.
1/4 SEC - F6.3 - ISO800. For this image I moved the camera in a vertical direction to follow the way the light was falling towards me across the river. It was a very small movement. I chose 1/4 second so that I could add a little movement with the ICM technique, but not loose the detail completely because I also had the movement of the water to take account of. I love the gentle softness of this image and the way the colours seem to merge into each other.
As the evening continued, the light in the sky dropped and the colour on the water became more intense. So I created the following two images. I loved the rich red against the warm gold and silver in the first, and the way the red merged through purple into blue in the second. These were made at the same 1/4 second shutter speed, but the ISO was increased to 2500. With an image like this, I find an increased ISO is not that detrimental to the image quality. With these two images I moved the camera across the waterto try and spread the colour out, which I think worked.
Why stick with just one image - exploring multiple exposures in camera
With one scene to explore for half an hour, I started to look for other possible ways to explore it with my camera. From single ICM images, I moved onto multiple exposure in camera.
I stuck to using ICM movements to allow longer to capture light into the camera, but changed my camera into multiple exposure mode. To start with I played with layering 2 images over each other. This 1st image is two ICM images overlayed in camera using average blend mode. I have completely lost the outline of the skyline, and it could be anywhere! However, I love the abstract style image I have created. I have shown you below the two images that i combined. In one I moved the camera vertically, and in the other horizontally. Bother were made at 2 second shutter speeds.
Always keen to explore other possibilities, I decided to try a blend of 9 images in camera! This is actually something I do a lot of in the woods and with architecture, but not something I had ever tried with lights. And wow - the result was a lovely surprise! I loved how the whole image became full of light. Little sparkles, light trails, colours, textures and lines of all sorts of detail. Again, you would have no idea you were looking at the London skyline... but sometimes interpreting the scene in front of you in a unique way can be refreshing. I know for sure no one on the photowalk got the same image as me!
I hope this little blog post has given you ideas and possible options to use next time you are out with your camera after sunset and you don't have a tripod with you. As you can see, by knowing the limitations of your camera and being aware of how fast you need to hold for a sharp image, and also how fast your quality drops off with increasing ISO levels, you can also push boundaries even before you start waving your camera about!
Last year I presented to the Camversation webinar platform on night time ICM - 'When the sun goes down '. you can still access the webinar 'on demand' at this link https://www.camversation.co.uk/product-page/when-the-sun-goes-down-with-charlotte-bellamy
You might also be interested in another blog post I wrote about creating my very own 'Starry Night' image in a nod to Van Gogh's masterpiece.
