anny chen photography

When photographing aurora borealis (northern lights), shoot with a high ISO and large aperture with the shortest exposure possible to “catch” the dancing lights. It’s best to be away from any ambient light (far from towns and cities). Also, take several photos in succession using the same settings to get a sequence of the lights dancing. Then, if you’re feeling up to it, make them into a quick slideshow or an animated .gif!

Aurora

ISO 3200 18mm f3.5 8 sec

A wide angle lens is best to capture both a foreground and the sky. An interesting, in-focus foreground helps to ground and frame the lights. Make sure your foreground is in focus, though it may be difficult to manage in the pitch black. Sometimes, it’s also interesting to paint the foreground with light (using an LED or regular flashlight).

Aurora

ISO 3200 18mm f3.5 12 sec

Shooting Aurora Borealis

August 4 2010

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#photography notes#aurora borealis#landscape

ISO 200 135mm f5.6 1/2000
To have crisper landscapes, remember to set a smaller aperture for a greater depth of field. Shooting wide open is fine and dandy for macro and object subjects but it’s frustrating to look at a landscape that is seemingly out of focus.
Each camera and lens combination will have its sweet spot, a balance between sharpness and depth of field. An ideal aperture will usually lie somewhere between f8-16. You’ll also need a greater depth of field when trying to capture subjects both in the foreground and background of the same landscape, so the recommended range has plenty of exceptions.

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Posted July 3, 2010 · 11:10am

ISO 200 135mm f5.6 1/2000

To have crisper landscapes, remember to set a smaller aperture for a greater depth of field. Shooting wide open is fine and dandy for macro and object subjects but it’s frustrating to look at a landscape that is seemingly out of focus.

Each camera and lens combination will have its sweet spot, a balance between sharpness and depth of field. An ideal aperture will usually lie somewhere between f8-16. You’ll also need a greater depth of field when trying to capture subjects both in the foreground and background of the same landscape, so the recommended range has plenty of exceptions.

I recently went on a photography road trip with Paul Concepcion and Nic Lawrenz. It was a great weekend for stormy cloudscapes, peppered with moments of the iconic wide, open expanses of blue sky and green prairie.

This is my first successful attempt at High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. I processed the photo using Mac freeware, HDRtist, keeping the effect to about 75%, and then I tweaked the photo in Lightroom.

HDR photography is the use of multiple exposures of the same composition to create a single photo, allowing a greater range of light intensity to be portrayed. The human eye can read light extremely well, adjusting to a dimly lit room or direct sunlight on a summer day, but a camera has difficulty capturing all of that information.

Typically, you take at least three exposures. The first will be exposed “correctly” according to your camera’s meter (0), so choose your settings accordingly. The second and third exposures should be at +2 and -2, which you change either through automatic bracketing or quickly by manually adjusting the exposure compensation. Don’t change your ISO, shutter speed, or aperture settings. Your camera needs to be completely stationary, so on a tripod or flat surface. The photos themselves should look correctly exposed and then under and overexposed.

HDR-under