I took a trip out to Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver this evening, and headed to the Juniper Point viewpoint, which I haven't previously visited.
This is the view looking south from Juniper Point. The foreground cliffs are often used by rock climbers (including some who appeared about two feet in front of me after I'd been there for a few minutes, which gave me quite a surprise!). In the distance can be seen the University Endowment Lands where UBC is located, at the western tip of the peninsula.
This is a three minute exposure taken quite a while after sunset. I was hoping for more colour in the sky, but there was quite a lot of cloud cover, especially to the west. I expect I will revisit this location when a more promising sunset is forecast.
I'm a British software developer and photographer living in Vancouver, BC. I mainly photograph landscapes, cityscapes, night scenes, and water.
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Magnificent photo, love the intensity of the colour. (Just imagining the best ever photo bomb...a surprised climber poping his blurry head in from the bottom of your photo!)
Alexis what a treat to get such fine images from the Vancouver area. I was fortunate to spend 10 years in Vancouver......... a supernatural part of the world for sure..........look forward to checking out past and future photographs! Fav!
@cameronknowlton Thanks! No ND filter on this shot, this was my final shot of the day. I'd started with a 10-stop filter about an hour earlier. This shot did use a circular polariser to make the splashing waves appear more clearly against the rest of the water, so that added 1 and 2/3rds of a stop to the exposure time.
This is very beautiful. When you take these long exposure shots, how do you know how long a shutter speed to use (today 3 mins/tomorrow's shot 10) Is it trial and error mixed with a lot of experience, do you use aperture priority and let the camera work it out, or is there something more scientific? Hope you don't mind me asking.
@jantan It's a little bit of everything, really! I usually arrive before sunset at a location, so my shutter speeds are in the region of a couple of seconds at most (unless I add additional filtration). As the sun sets and it gets darker, you slowly increase the shutter speed -- from 2 seconds to 4 seconds to 8 seconds to 15 seconds to 30 seconds, and before you know it you're taking a very long exposure! With each shot I'll check the histogram and 'blinkies' on the camera to make sure I'm exposing as desired, and adjust slightly if not.
An alternative approach I take when I don't get there early, and want to find the appropriate exposure quickly, is to take a shot at a very high ISO. For example, this 3 minute shot at ISO 100 is equivalent to a 1.5 second exposure at ISO 12,800. Obviously the ISO 12,800 shot is far too noisy to use, but you can quickly dial in the right exposure by using the histogram at this high ISO setting, and the calculate the equivalent exposure at your preferred ISO setting (either by using one of the many smartphone apps, or in your head).
I'll usually keep shooting until I don't feel things are getting any better. For this shot, the three minute exposure had brought out all the detail I wanted, had the right balance between sky and land, and was long enough to make the water appear misty. For 'tomorrow's' shot of 10 minutes, I wanted to emphasise the reflections of the lights of the ship and the distance shore on the wet foreground rocks, so I needed to wait until it was dark enough for them to play a significant role, hence using a longer exposure.
Hope that makes sense, let me know if you have any questions!
@judis Not the long exposure specifically, but the balancing of the light in the sky. Before and shortly after sunset, the sky is typically too bright compared to the land, so you either get a very dark landscape with rich sky colours, or a correctly-exposed landscape with an overexposed sky. This overexposure will push the colour in the sky away from the natural light towards appearing white, and hence less colourful.
You can also achieve similar effects either by using HDR, or by using a graduated ND filter, which is a filter that you position to darken only the sky in your shot, balancing it with the land. Unfortunately the company I ordered my graduated filter from sent me the wrong one, so I'm currently without one.
At a time sufficiently past sunset, you will reach a point where the sky still has colour, but is not so bright that it overwhelms the landscape. This allows you to take shots like this without needing HDR or graduated filters. As for both this shot and tomorrow's shot, I also wanted a long exposure to make the water smooth and misty, I chose to wait rather than creating an HDR photograph.
Wow wow wow, I love this shot Alexis!!! Shows all the places I need to go to now. I have been to Lighthouse park before but I definitely think I need to go back soon! Great image, love the colors.
@abirkill Thanks for the explanation. My hubby and I "collect" sunsets that is we hunt out the best places to take them locally and then walk or drive there at the appropriate time. Now I understand why some of our photos are successful and some are not. I'll have to look into getting a graduated ND filter.
An alternative approach I take when I don't get there early, and want to find the appropriate exposure quickly, is to take a shot at a very high ISO. For example, this 3 minute shot at ISO 100 is equivalent to a 1.5 second exposure at ISO 12,800. Obviously the ISO 12,800 shot is far too noisy to use, but you can quickly dial in the right exposure by using the histogram at this high ISO setting, and the calculate the equivalent exposure at your preferred ISO setting (either by using one of the many smartphone apps, or in your head).
I'll usually keep shooting until I don't feel things are getting any better. For this shot, the three minute exposure had brought out all the detail I wanted, had the right balance between sky and land, and was long enough to make the water appear misty. For 'tomorrow's' shot of 10 minutes, I wanted to emphasise the reflections of the lights of the ship and the distance shore on the wet foreground rocks, so I needed to wait until it was dark enough for them to play a significant role, hence using a longer exposure.
Hope that makes sense, let me know if you have any questions!
@judis Not the long exposure specifically, but the balancing of the light in the sky. Before and shortly after sunset, the sky is typically too bright compared to the land, so you either get a very dark landscape with rich sky colours, or a correctly-exposed landscape with an overexposed sky. This overexposure will push the colour in the sky away from the natural light towards appearing white, and hence less colourful.
You can also achieve similar effects either by using HDR, or by using a graduated ND filter, which is a filter that you position to darken only the sky in your shot, balancing it with the land. Unfortunately the company I ordered my graduated filter from sent me the wrong one, so I'm currently without one.
At a time sufficiently past sunset, you will reach a point where the sky still has colour, but is not so bright that it overwhelms the landscape. This allows you to take shots like this without needing HDR or graduated filters. As for both this shot and tomorrow's shot, I also wanted a long exposure to make the water smooth and misty, I chose to wait rather than creating an HDR photograph.