Meeting up with Gubbs (IMGs)

luben

Hi All,

Last night I had the great pleasure of meeting for the first time (& shooting with) Jon (aka Gubbs).

The meeting almost never happened, because of the only an hour or two before we were due to meet, it was still raining lightly. Still the heavens did relent & I met Jon at a empty car park. To passers by we might as well have looked like a couple of criminals :-)

Jon said, that since we are shooting night photography, I should choose the subject. While I appreciated this vote of confidence in my low-light-photography, it also posed me with a dilemma - I'd never really researched locations in Reading. Still I did manage to remember one good location, which I saw driving by one evening. It was the relatively new headquarters of Thames Water - UK's biggest Water Utility company:



The photo above was 152 seconds @ f16 using my 20D and 17-40 f4L at the 17mm end. The slow shutter speed completely smoothed out the already relatively still river Thames. I turned the WB temperature right down to about 2000-2500 K to get the cool look to the surroundings. All I did in PS was to sharpen it for web output. Considering the length of exposure, the image is amazingly smooth!!!



The image below shows the building with a little more context. I used a slightly higher WB value to make it look more natural. The white blur in the foreground are two swans hoping for some food. I'm very impressed that they appeared in the photo at all, considering the 1 minute exposure.

Finally, here is a shot of a house situated on an island in the river. I tried to use the "foreground interest, background interest" & "rule of thirds" methods to make something out of what would have otherwise been a dull image:



The more eagle eyed of you will see the swans again & a slight trail in the river. This trail is a whole truckload of Canadian Geese making their way up the river. Unfortunately they were really motoring & thus they didn't leave much of an imprint on the 215 second exposure.

Overall the evening was a learning experience in using my less than a week old 20D. As Jon will attest, I had problems putting the camera in BULB (what an idiot), then my battery ran out (Jon was kind enough to lend me one of his) and then for some unexplained reason the remote control stopped firing for about 5 minutes.

Also we didn't get that much time to chat with Jon & we deffinitely didn't get around going for some food (as Mr Williams commands :-)

I did have a great time though & am already looking forward to our next photographic excursion with Jon. Hopefully the weather will be kinder to us next time.

All the best

Luben

gubbs

Wow Luben, I've a lot to learn, beautifu!!l

Andy

rain in england? what a shocker
luben,

great post! this is the reason i was hoping that you would become a member of our community here - you present fine photography, a cool story, and you share your expertise freely as well. a lovely set of shots, gee what a surprise on the long exposures eh? from reading the panic at another forum elsewhere, one might think that the 20d, if placed on bulb for 3 minutes, one would get flying pink monkeys every other pixel! no matter - photographers like you know that the equipment is only part of the equation - you composed so very well, made the best of the scene, and then in post, you produced a fine finished result.

i give you and gubbsy two demerits for not even having a "small smackerel" of something (as the u.k.'s most famous bear would say) in the form of late night sustenance. looks like i'm going to have to come across the pond again soon and teach you and gubbs the importance of food for the photographer. :whip

thanks for sharing,

Nir

Beautiful shots Luben! and I enjoyed the narrative!

mgound

Posts such as these are the reason I love this forum. Quite inspiring. Thanks

wxwax

Beautiful! Do you think it would have made any difference if you'd changed the color temp of the RAW file in Photoshop instead?

photocat

wxwax wrote:

Beautiful! Do you think it would have made any difference if you'd changed the color temp of the RAW file in Photoshop instead?

Good question... I am a firm believer though in no post or at least not mre then hugely required. I would like to believe that it never can be done in PS like it is done in the real...
Great shots Gubbs and Luben. Wished I could team up with photographers like you guys... Sigh, great, great shots

gubbs

wxwax wrote:

Beautiful! Do you think it would have made any difference if you'd changed the color temp of the RAW file in Photoshop instead?

Sid,
I saw this one on his LCD, I might be wrong but I think he did change the wb in post. The sky had an orangey glow from Reading Centre. I'm sure Luben will confirm....

luben

andy wrote:

i give you and gubbsy two demerits for not even having a "small smackerel" of something (as the u.k.'s most famous bear would say) in the form of late night sustenance. looks like i'm going to have to come across the pond again soon and teach you and gubbs the importance of food for the photographer. :whip

thanks for sharing,

Jon and I would love you to get yourself over the pond & give us the spanking that we deserve. The group photo outing will be worth the pain :-)

l8r m8

Luben

luben

Thanks a lot Nir (nt)

Nir wrote:

Beautiful shots Luben! and I enjoyed the narrative!

Thanks a lot Nir (nt)

luben

wxwax wrote:

Beautiful! Do you think it would have made any difference if you'd changed the color temp of the RAW file in Photoshop instead?

Hi Sid,

I did shoot in RAW & then changed the WB from 3500K to about 2250K. This turned the orange sky (ugly IMHO) to a nicer tint.

All the best

Luben

gubbs

luben wrote:

Jon and I would love you to get yourself over the pond & give us the spanking that we deserve. The group photo outing will be worth the pain :-)

l8r m8

Luben

Be careful what you ask for! I hear he has a paddle

gubbs

Luben, I meant to ask, how were you calculating out your exposure times in bulb?

pathfinder

luben wrote:

Hi All,

Last night I had the great pleasure of meeting for the first time (& shooting with) Jon (aka Gubbs).

Jon said, that since we are shooting night photography, I should choose the subject. While I appreciated this vote of confidence in my low-light-photography, it also posed me with a dilemma - I'd never really researched locations in Reading. Still I did manage to remember one good location, which I saw driving by one evening. It was the relatively new headquarters of Thames Water - UK's biggest Water Utility company:



The photo above was 152 seconds @ f16 using my 20D and 17-40 f4L at the 17mm end. The slow shutter speed completely smoothed out the already relatively still river Thames. I turned the WB temperature right down to about 2000-2500 K to get the cool look to the surroundings. All I did in PS was to sharpen it for web output. Considering the length of exposure, the image is amazingly smooth!!!



The image below shows the building with a little more context. I used a slightly higher WB value to make it look more natural. The white blur in the foreground are two swans hoping for some food. I'm very impressed that they appeared in the photo at all, considering the 1 minute exposure.

Finally, here is a shot of a house situated on an island in the river. I tried to use the "foreground interest, background interest" & "rule of thirds" methods to make something out of what would have otherwise been a dull image:



The more eagle eyed of you will see the swans again & a slight trail in the river. This trail is a whole truckload of Canadian Geese making their way up the river. Unfortunately they were really motoring & thus they didn't leave much of an imprint on the 215 second exposure.

Overall the evening was a learning experience in using my less than a week old 20D. As Jon will attest, I had problems putting the camera in BULB (what an idiot), then my battery ran out (Jon was kind enough to lend me one of his) and then for some unexplained reason the remote control stopped firing for about 5 minutes.

Also we didn't get that much time to chat with Jon & we deffinitely didn't get around going for some food (as Mr Williams commands :-)

I did have a great time though & am already looking forward to our next photographic excursion with Jon. Hopefully the weather will be kinder to us next time.

All the best

Luben

Luben - Very lovely night shots - I have two questions about your technique that evening. What ISO were you using? - you did not state that information. And I have to say that I am impressed by the absense of color noise in your images with exposures lasting well over one or two minutes.
You did not mention the use of Noise Ninja or any software to process for noise ts I am assuming you did not use noise software proscessing.
I have had significant noise in my images after exposure of 30 seconds or longer particularly in the shadows, and am curious to what to attribute the difference. I would be interested in your discussion in this regard. Thank you.

ian408

Wow! All three are very nice looking though I am attached to number
3--I see what looks like a swan ghosted. Very subtle.

Ian

luben

pathfinder wrote:

Luben - Very lovely night shots - I have two questions about your technique that evening. What ISO were you using? - you did not state that information. And I have to say that I am impressed by the absense of color noise in your images with exposures lasting well over one or two minutes.
You did not mention the use of Noise Ninja or any software to process for noise ts I am assuming you did not use noise software proscessing.
I have had significant noise in my images after exposure of 30 seconds or longer particularly in the shadows, and am curious to what to attribute the difference. I would be interested in your discussion in this regard. Thank you.

Hi Pathfinder,

The shots were taken at ISO 100 & none of them were noise reduced in software. I didn't even use the available in-camera dark frame subtraction NR feature. The reason for the low noise is simple - I was shooting with a Canon EOS-20D. The Canon CMOS technology is renouned as being the smoothest of all current sensors on the market. I need to get some 100% crops posted. That will really blow you away!!!

Have a good day

Luben

Steve Cavigliano

Outstanding Luben


I've got to try some of night shots with this new camera. I was a little disappointed that there were no pink monkeys in any of your shots Now that would definitely be Kodak POTD material

Very fine work and as Andy wrote, it sure is nice having you and your expertise here


Steve

davev

Great pics Luben, and thanks for the in depth review of how you got them.

I guess I'm going to have to try shooting in raw sometime.

Michiel de Brieder

Hey Luben!

luben wrote:

Luben, in all honesty, that photo will not do! Seriously I can't quite figure out how you 'saw' that shot before making it The composition is awesome and the colour is
Good to see you here my friend!

wxwax

luben wrote:

Hi Sid,

I did shoot in RAW & then changed the WB from 3500K to about 2250K. This turned the orange sky (ugly IMHO) to a nicer tint.

All the best

Luben

Thanks Luben. Funny how things come together - this week I saw an article in a magazine talking about playing with white balance for effect. It's fun fiddling with shots.

gtc

lovely work-thanks
luben
what can i say but thank you for sharing your methods in taking these lovely images.you have me salivating for a 20D so that I can try some bulb exposures at night.

greg