I don’t often quote the parameters for my images but I will in this case: ISO6400, 0.5s@f11, handheld. That’s probably about the limit of what I can reasonably achieve wiht the 5DmkII. Nevertheless the image was very noisey and won’t reproduce at much over 12″x8″
So, what was I thinking when I set this shot up?Well, I wanted to make a street portrait depicting nightlife. We were fortunate that we had a group of yoofs hanging around (thankfully harmless enough) in the background and I wanted to include them as a creative element for the shot.
Problem 1: Streetlamps
The streetlamps were an issue for a couple of reasons. Firstly we had a mixture of orange sodium vapour and white high pressure sodium vapour lamps so balancing the colours would be virtually impossible. Solution remove the colour completely. This also fitted in with the image I’d visualised and added to the drama and mood of the image.
Problem 2: Streetlamps
I wanted to shoot from a low-ish vantage point. Dilsa was sitting on the bench and I wanted to shoot from below her eye line. This meant the streetlamps were going to be in the shot. I tried a couple of shots at a wider aperture but they were just distracting white blobs in the frame. Stopping down to f11 caused them to render as a starburst. The streetlamp is still a ditraction in the shot but (to me anyway) is less displeasing than before.
Problem 3: Shutter speed
Stopping down to f11 introduced another issue: I needed a very slow shutter speed to let the background burn in on the sensor. In the end I settled on 1/2 second at ISO6400. Believe it nor not that didn’t pose an problem for the foreground. Dilsa was sitting on a bench underneath a broken streetlamp where there was very little light indeed. This really helped. She was lit by a 580exII and shoot through brolly. The flash lasted a mere fraction of a milisecond and effectively became the shutter speed for the foreground, thereby freezing her in place. Provided I could hold the camera moderately still I could get away with such a long shutter speed as 1/2 second whilst the sensor captured the ambient. One way to think of it is two separate exposures, one for the foreground and one for the background.
Problem 4: Focussing
I was using the EF24-105f4L lens for this shot and the 5DmkII absolutely wouldn’t focus. I overcame this with the aid of a maglite torch to use as a makeshift AF assist beam. Worked a treat 🙂
Improvements
Personally I’m not too keen on the framing on this shot. The model is far too central in the frame for my liking and I’d have preferred her slightly further to the right.
The shot is also about attitude and that doesn’t really come across with Dilsa’s expression. Next time I set this shot up I’ll work on refining the pose to give me a much stronger image.
