Photographing scenes with multiple light sources in the frame requires a careful balance between the different sources in terms of exposure and colour temperature. Often these technical issues can limit the artistic control you can have over the final image things like shutter speed and aperture need to be set to determine the correct exposure rather than to achieve specific effects.
Sometimes however you can have the best of both worlds. For the photograph above, taken in Berlin, the obvious look to aim for with the shot was to slow down the shutter speed with the result of blurring the lights of the spinning carousel. A total cliché for sure, but that’s what makes it the obvious look to aim for.
Had I taken the photograph a couple of hours earlier I could have balanced the lights from the carousel, the building behind and the sky – as it happened when I was taking the photograph (the carousel is near the Berlin wall if I recall correctly) the sky was dark, and so I just had to worry about the carousel and the building.
My first concern was to set a shutter speed slow enough to achieve the motion blur on the carousel – I settled on 1/3s which was slow enough for blur, but fast enough (just) to allow me handhold the camera (using the continuous fire mode to boost my chances of a sharp shot).
To properly expose for the carousel would, according to the meter in the camera, have required an aperture of f/16, but checking the LCD screen I could see that the lights in the building behind were a bit too faint. Letting artistic concerns take precedence over technical ones, I deliberately over-exposed the carousel by about a stop to let those lights register more clearly.
The end result is a nice mix of the flourescent lights in the office block and the warm tungsten lights of the carousel, with some of the light silhouetting the visitors to the carousel.
You’ll notice that the office block lights appear green while the carousel lights appear orange – this is due to the colour temperature of the two light sources, and the fact that the camera can’t compensate for both of them (making them white) at the same time. Here though it creates a nice contrast between the two parts of the scene so I let the camera do its best on automatic white balance.
Recent Comments