Starry Starry Night

[Colin Southern]

Born this evening. 30s @ f/16.0 @ ISO800 @ 85.0mm (Click for full size view).

[FrankMi]

Now that is a very unique way to shoot an airport! Great vision and execution, Colin!

[Colin Southern]

Now that is a very unique way to shoot an airport! Great vision and execution, Colin!

Thanks Frank

[Donald]

They're always an education.

30s @ f16. 30s @ f16. 30s @ f16. Must remember. Must remember.

Good stuff.

[Colin Southern]

They're always an education.

30s @ f16. 30s @ f16. 30s @ f16. Must remember. Must remember.

Good stuff.

Hi Donald,

Basically the rule is "minimum aperture for maximum star effect" and then whatever shutter speed is needed at 100 ISO to correctly expose the shot. In this case though, I didn't have my TC80-N3 release mounted (plus I needed to be somewhere else), so I just used max shutter speed on camera (30 seconds), and upped the ISO to compensate.

The lack of DR / inc noise in a high contrast / high DR scene like this isn't a big issue because a high black clipping point generally takes care of it (with a little help from noise reduction).

[arith]

I bet ATC know you really well by now Colin; switching on all those lights and stuff. You certainly know everything about night shots, but I couldn't ever do anything like that because wide open spaces in the dark on my own gives me the willies.

[Kdfrank]

Nicely done Coiln. I really like the aperture stars in this one. Very effective!

[jprzybyla]

Superb as usual...

[enaiman]

Superb pic.

Out of curiosity, were the blue lights actually green? Because the green traffic lights have the same colour on my night shots and I did ask about this in a thread several days ago.

[Colin Southern]

I bet ATC know you really well by now Colin; switching on all those lights and stuff. You certainly know everything about night shots, but I couldn't ever do anything like that because wide open spaces in the dark on my own gives me the willies.

Hi Steve,

Some might remember me from my flying days, but for the most part I was only ever a voice on the radio. I was thinking of giving them a call (I still remember the tower phone number) to ask them to change the lights from runway 20 to 02 so I could get the lead-in lights in a shot, but that shot got canned when atmospheric conditions changed anyway, so I aborted that idea. They probably would have, subject to requirements of any traffic due in (aircraft take priority over photography, unfortunately). So what you see is just what was on anyway.

I walk around the airfield alone in the dark almost every night ... very peaceful and relaxing

[Colin Southern]

Nicely done Coiln. I really like the aperture stars in this one. Very effective!

Superb as usual...

Thanks Kerry & Joe

[Colin Southern]

Superb pic.

Out of curiosity, were the blue lights actually green? Because the green traffic lights have the same colour on my night shots and I did ask about this in a thread several days ago.

Thanks Eugen,

As far as I know they're blue, but to be honest, I've seen them so many times I can't remember. In my Light Work shot I've white balanced the shot to the white fuselage and they've still come up blue, and I just quickly white balanced another shot to the white "piano keys" at the end of the runway, and they still came up blue.

I'll pay more attention next time I walk by!

EDIT: Had a look tonight as promised; they are actually green, but it's a shade of green that's biased a bit towards a blue hue in my opinion. Probably just a white balance issue.

[Sahil]

An awesome shot, Colin. Love it.

[Colin Southern]

An awesome shot, Colin. Love it.

Thanks Sahil.