Outdoors at Night

I have done a little of this type of photography before, and really enjoy photographing vibrant cities at night time. For this exercise I visited Birmingham, but couldn't start taking night photos until late due to the time of the year. I have a good quality Manfrotto tripod that I used, so was able to take long exposures at a low ISO setting.

 

29mm, f/22, 15s, ISO 100

The attractive combination  of complimentary colours red/green in this scene was immediately appealing, casting their reflection on the water. I positioned the staircase in such a way as to enclose the lights and reflections, and also to create a leading line through the scene. Although it was late evening, the sky was still fairly bright, and a 15s exposure is the longest I could do without overexposing the scene (another good reason to buy that ND filter I've been meaning to!). A longer exposure would have smoothed the water more, but I'm happy with the lighting aspect overall. There's actually a wide variety of lighting types in this image, including fluorescents in the upper-left of the image, and what appears to be vapour discharge (sodium) lamps on the centre-right.

 

38mm, f/29, 30s, ISO 100

In this scene I was again draw to the reflections on the water; this time a beautiful golden hue. Although there is a wide variety of lighting in this image, they are all of a similar hue range, ranging from the white of the Gas Street Social sign, to the orange of the interior of Pennyblacks. The BBC Birmingham offices are interesting, as the (presumably) fluorescent lights are indeed showing as a pale yellow colour, as stated in the course materials.

 

24mm, f/8, 2s, ISO 100

At first glance, the fluorescent lights illuminating this bridge appear white, but on closer inspection they are indeed yellowish; confirmed when using the white-balance eyedropper tool in Lightroom. Using this tool to use the lights as a white reference results in the whole image taking on an intense blue cast.

 

24mm, f/7.1, 2s, ISO 100

I used a 2s exposure in this image to turn the throng of people into 'ghosts'. The interior of Bar Epernay looks extremely inviting and cosy as night fast approaches; a no doubt intended effect, which would not be possible with fluorescent lighting.

 

65mm, f/8, 10s, ISO 100

This empty, narrow alleyway caught my eye, as it was brightly lit with these modern-looking street lamps. They don't have the orange of the usual vapour discharge street lamps, and do have a yellowish tinge suggesting fluorescent lamps. I didn't even know that fluorescent street lamps existed, but a quick search on google shows that they do.

 

85mm, f/22, 30s, ISO 100

Another golden-shimmer image. The stairs are interesting here, as I remember at the scene that the left-hand set of stairs were lit in pretty much the colour you see here, however the right-hand set of stairs were much cooler and more silver-like. They have a slight yellow cast in this image, which suggests that my eyes were automatically adjusting for this; the stairs at the time appeared to have a much more distinct gold/silver relationship.

 

72mm, f/16, 30s, ISO 100

This is another image showing different types of lighting in varying degrees. Over the top of the narrowboat from left to right the colour of the lighting transitions from deep orange, to white, to yellowish, to green.

 

85mm, f/11, 13s, ISO 100

By this time of the evening the sky had turned to a beautiful blue/purple which contrasted nicely with the warm yellow/orange of the presumably incandescent lights of the restaurant at the top-centre of the image.

52mm, f/18, 30s, ISO 100

The plethora of colours illuminating the water are the attraction here, with the long exposure smoothing the water out but leaving enough of a 'texture' to, in my mind, give a 'paint on canvass' effect. The twilit sky again provides an asthetically pleasing backdrop, which also colours the water where the artificial lights aren't doing so.

 

56mm, f/13, 10s, ISO 100

As the night grew darker, the yellow/orange lighting had an increasing feeling of warmth, something no doubt capitalised on the world over by restaurants, cafes, bars, shops etc. I decided to use this sculpture to frame the entrance to this brightly-lit store front.

 

52mm, f/4.2, 1s, ISO 100

Looking carefully at this scene you can see the small LED lights which are scattered through the trees. These always seem to be a pure white light unless the bulb itself has a coloured coating. What I find odd about this image is the two floodlights on the middle right of the image; the one nearest the camera has photographed with a yellow tinge, but the one further back is showing green. Could this be due to relative brightness differences because of the varying distance to the camera? Or maybe something to do with the angle of the camera in relation to the position of the light?

 

42mm, f/20, 30s, ISO 100

The lights in this image were set flush into the floor and lighting up the water spouting out above them. I couldn't decide what colour these lights were showing, but using the eyedroper tool in lightroom they appear to be white at the centre, with the edges having a yellow tinge. I think this yellowness is probably reflections from the yellow/orange lights on the building in the background, and the floor lights are probably LED.

Conclusion

I have a little experience with taking nighttime photos as I find artificial lighting in cityscapes exciting to photograph, especially around christmas time. What was different in this exercise though was the process of actually trying to decide the type of lighting I was photographing, and being more aware of how this would translate to the final image. Fluorescent lights especially are quite different to the camera than they are to the eye. Also interesting was seeing the relationship between the rapidly changing natural light and the ever present artificial ones.