Tag Archives: night

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Textures, Photographs: Urban/Street

Moonlit Stairway, Wall, and Window

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Moonlit Stairway, Wall, and Window
Moonlit Stairway, Wall, and Window

Moonlit Stairway, Wall, and Window. Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California. February 27, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Night photography of a moonlit stairway, wall, and window at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.

Compared to most of my night photography, especially the work from Mare Island, this photograph has, I think, more of a noir quality. This photograph was made in extremely dark conditions at the bottom of a dark stairway next to a dark building in a dark corner of the historic Mare Island Naval Shipyard using only moonlight. Oh, did I mention that it was very dark? :-)

Making this a bit more of a technical challenge, in order to get the composition I had in mind (more or less, since it was impossible to really see the scene fully) I needed to shoot from a position very close to the bottom of the stairway and close to the window at lower right. Since I didn’t want to lose sharpness on the far section of the wall that is lit by moonlight I had to use a small aperture of f/16. But in order to maintain image quality I didn’t want to raise the ISO too far.Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! So the exposure ended up being very close to eleven minutes long, and even this was barely long enough. (And, using the camera’s long-exposure noise reduction, this meant waiting around for well over 20 minutes to expose the shot and then do the follow-up dark frame exposure. For obvious reasons, I only made one shot of this subject!)

This is going to be a challenging photograph to print! I think that it really needs to go all the way to black in portions of the lower left, but I’ll need to keep at least a small amount of near-black detail – and I’ll have to do a bit of work to figure out how to best print to get the right color/detail in the shadow at the upper right.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
ISO 200, f/16, 645 seconds (that’s not a typo!)

keywords: moon, light, moonlit, night, photography, nocturnes, minsy, mare, island, naval, shipyard, historic, vallejo, california, usa, north america, architecture, structure, noir, railing, door, panel, stairs, stairway, steps, pole, shadow, glow, urban, industrial, window, door, reflection, stock

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Textures, Photographs: Urban/Street

Powerplant, Railroad Avenue – Mare Island Naval Shipyard

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Powerplant, Railroad Avenue - Mare Island Naval Shipyard
Powerplant, Railroad Avenue - Mare Island Naval Shipyard

Powerplant, Railroad Avenue – Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Mare Island, Vallejo, California. February 27, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Night panoramic photograph of the powerplant building and other structures along Railroad Avenue at the historic Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.

This is a bit of a first for me – a night photography stitched panorama. This image is composed of two separate exposures which were aligned and “stitched” into a single image in post. (As such, it could be a very large print!) Shooting from an elevated position, I shot almost directly north (as you can tell from the star trails in the larger version). The view looks up Railroad Avenue past the iconic power plant building with its smokestack that is visible from all over Mare Island.

I’m usually a bit casual about exposure time with long exposure night photographs. It isn’t that I don’t care – it is just that one has a ton of leeway when it comes to the very long exposures I typically use. For example, on a 3 minute exposure you would have to be off by three minutes to overexpose by one stop! So rather than use a stopwatch or an automatic timer I just count to myself. I’m usually will within a 10% error, and that is good enough. However, when stitching “good enough” often isn’t. The separate component frames really need to be quite similar, so in this case I resorted to using my watch to get relatively accurate 90 second exposures.

Another interesting factor in night photography is illustrated in this photo, namely the wildly varied colors of the light sources we deal with. There are three dominant sources in this image. The overall illumination comes from the full moon, which is quite similar to day light in terms of white balance. On the near wall of the brick power plant there is very “hot” and saturated yellow/red tinted light, probably from sodium vapor lamps. Near the left end of the image is an old wooden building that is illuminated by very green light, which I believe comes from mercury vapor lamps. I often chuckle a bit when people speak of “white balancing” the color in a scene like this. If you pick one source for your white balance you’ll throw the others even more out of line. My philosophy is usually to just go with what looks right!

Finally, the idea of making the stitched panorama came from the recently started Panocturnists web site, begun by people connected with The Nocturnes, the San Francisco Bay Area night photography group. I was intrigued by the idea of creating panoramic night photography, and I’ve done a few images along these lines on my two most recent visits to Mare Island.

(More of my Mare Island photographs)

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
ISO 200, f/8, 90 seconds

keywords: powerplant, building, structure, railroad, avenue, street, track, asphalt, sky, dark, night, photography, star, trail, color, light, yellow, red, blue, smoke, stack, cyclone, fence, brick, glow, panorama, panocturnes, minsy, san francisco bay area, window, antenna, vallejo, california, usa, north america, mare, island, naval, shipyard, stock

Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Towers and Brick Building, Full Moon Light

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Towers and Brick Building, Full Moon Light
Towers and Brick Building, Full Moon Light

Towers and Brick Building, Full Moon Light. Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California. February 27, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Industrial towers and brick building under the light of the full moon at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, California.

On February 27, for the second time this month, I visited Mare Island Naval Shipyard to do night photography with The Nocturnes, the San Francisco Bay Area night photography group. (Anyone looking for great resources on night photography should visit their web site. They also offer classes and workshops on night photography.) This was a “Mare Islands Alumni” event, attended by quite a few folks who have done night photography at Mare Island. One of the highlights came before the actual photography began as we met in the museum building and had a chance to view work by participating photographers – the work gets better every time and there was some wonderful night photography on display.

One attraction on this night was the full moon, which appears just above and to the right of the frame in this photograph made near the intersection of 8th and Nimitz Streets, in the heart of the old ship construction area. The was the first subject I photographed – it was something of a “do over,” since I had overlooked some obvious composition problems with the shot earlier this month and wanted to get it right this time. When I originally mentioned that, Tim Baskerville pointed out that I might have a hard time getting the same reflective puddles in the scene, but as luck would have it a good sized storm was just departing and it left great puddles everywhere!

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 35mm f/2.0
ISO 100, f/11, 353 seconds

keywords: 8th, avenue, street, nimitz, asphalt, puddle, reflection, water, twig, manhole, cover, steel, tower, rivets, bolt, brick, shop, building, window, arch, industrial, stop, sign, full, moon, light, sky, star, trail, cloud, minsy, the, nocturnes, mare, island, naval, shipyard, historic, vallejo, california, usa, north america, curb, sidewalk, night, photography

Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects, Photographs: Urban/Street

Garage Doors, Virgil Street

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Garage Doors, Virgil Street
Garage Doors, Virgil Street

Garage Doors, Virgil Street. San Francisco, California. February 20, 2010. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Old and dilapidated garage doors and “no parking” sign in afternoon light on Virgil Street, San Francisco, California.

This seems like a photograph that most people would not identify with San Francisco. If anything, it first appears to be some sort of rural image, perhaps a rustic old barn on a ranch or similar. However, this shot was made along a narrow alley in the Mission District of San Francisco. (Again, as in the “yellow building” photo I posted recently, I suppose I could be accused of attempting to make the Mission not look like the Mission!)

The light was changeable and from time to time beautiful on this afternoon. While it was a cloudy day and mostly somewhat gray, the clouds were thin and broken enough that occasionally soft and diffused light would break through. Here that light brings a bit of relief to the complex and rich textures of this very old and very run-down garage wall and door – and that little bit of green at the lower left softens the whole thing just a bit.

This photograph is not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Twitter | Friendfeed | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Email

Technical Data:
Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Canon EF 35mm f/2.0
ISO 200, f/8, 1/60 second

keywords: virgil, street, alley, mission, san francisco, california, usa, north america, no parking, day, night, driveway, opposite, garage, sign, urban, street, wood, wall, door, window, hinge, rust, distressed, green, plant, afternoon, light, winter, structure, downtown, latch, lock, sidewalk, peeling, paint, panel, stock