I had hoped that my trip to London on Friday would allow me to get out and about with my camera for an hour after the Joe McNally lighting seminar, but my flight home was just early enough to preclude that and in the end I found myself going straight from the seminar in Islington to Liverpool Street Station to catch the next train to Stansted Airport. So not much time for photography in London then, though a break in the middle of the afternoon did allow time for a little experiment.
The photograph above was prompted by a discussion myself and Paul, a fellow DCC member and my travel partner on Friday, had over lunch about a particular shot he has had in mind for some time to convey movement. There was an art fair on in the same venue as the seminar and we had a good view of it from a walkway above the exhibition hall, so during the afternoon break we explored its potential as a subject for a movement-inspired image. My attempts weren’t too successful, partially because even at f/22 I was still only getting shutter speeds of at most 1/2 a second.
For a good movement shot you need most of the people in the frame blurred by their own motion, with just a handful pin sharp due to them standing still during the exposure. You’re more likely to get that with a 1 or 2 second exposure. At 1/2 a second, I was getting quite the opposite effect – most people were relatively still, with just a handful in motion. Switching from the wider end to the longer end of my 24-70mm lens to isolate specific areas of the room below didn’t help much.
f/22 @ 1/3s, ISO 200, 24-70mm lens at 70mm, Nikon D700
Paul tried twice more – once as we left the venue (trying to capture some of the 500 others leaving through the main door) and again at Liverpool Street Station, but he was still finding that 1 or 2 second shutter speed elusive due to the ambient light levels being too high. As he pointed out, a neutral density filter, which you can place in front of the lens to reduce the amount of light hitting the sensor, would have helped. For instance a 3 stop ND filter would have allowed the shutter speed go from 1/2 a second to 4 seconds, and increased the amount of motion blur, making for a more successful image. The lesson learned was that for this type of shot, when it comes to light at least, less is more.
Despite carting the D700 and 24-70mm around with me all day, I probably had more success getting usable shots with my iPhone than with the camera. More on that tomorrow.
I think you needed longer shutterspeed to have teh motion blur more prominent. As you have already mentioned, ND filters would have definitely helped. Or you could boost your ISO to 100 (I don’t know if you camera allows you). A 10-15 seconds shot (with tripod obviously) would have been nice in terms of motion blur.
Thanks for the comment Biswajit. I agree a 10-15 second shot could work really well. I didn’t have a tripod though, even if that had been an option with the amount of light in the room. I should have mentioned that I didn’t go to ISO 100 because on my camera ISO 200 is effectively the lowest it goes – you can do ISO 100 by going to what it calls Lo 1.0, but I believe it’s not optimized for that ISO and so I tend to steer clear. Perhaps in this case it would have been worth exploring to get that extra stop of shutter speed, and so of movement.
I definitely would have dropped the ISO to 100 – it’s still a very good ISO setting (equivalent to ISO 400 in quality) on most cameras that are optimized for ISO 200. Also, if you have a circular polarizer that will eat a stop of light. Together these would have taken you from 1/2 second to 2 seconds!
It also helps if you don’t try this technique with a subject that consists mostly of people sitting in chairs. People who are sitting won’t move about very much, even in a 2 second exposure. Much better to try this technique on people who are standing (better), or walking (best).
The flip side of this is that people who are sitting can be shot at FAR lower shutter speeds than you might normally use. This can be very helpful to take available light photos of people in a dark room (church, auditorium) watching a wedding or art performance (concert, play, etc.). As long as you can steady your camera for a 1/2 second shot, you can often get very usable photos of people who are sitting rapt, watching the event.