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I shot this scene on the way home from the ice storm chase in nw Missouri. The power plant south of Council Bluff sparked my interest when I looked back and saw the sliver crescent moon right next to its steam plumes. It looked very cool but there was nowhere to shoot it from. Lucky me I'd drive right by the Omaha power plant and find a location there. The above one here is as close to how it looked as I can get it. It was just about that bright, and there was certainly a tinge of orange around, thanks to all the city lights giving off that color. This is a good demonstration of white balance and city lights at night. |
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Not that there are any rules to photography anyway, but even if there were, they'd go out the window at night. The night sky can be really fun to brighten up with longer exposures. These wider ones were shot with my F1.8 50mm canon prime. This(above) is pretty much exactly what they looked like on the lcd on my camera right after taking them.
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This is what they look like after "correcting" the white balance in post-processing. One could set the white balance on the camera if they wanted to, and get the same result. It's horribly easy after the fact though and auto on the camera mostly does a good job. I always figure let it go and if it's off later, make the quick change in raw conversion. Anyway, what is the correct look is up to you. There's really only two ways to look at this. "Correcting" this white balance makes a white building look white in the image. I assumed the plant was mostly white or grey. So you can see in this image it's not that orange cast. But is this the real truth of what you see? No, not really. If you shine a red light on the side of a white building what color does that spot look? Red. Sure doesn't look white then does it? Well when you have a million halogen lights it the area making things orange, then that IS the color you see on things. So, it's really up to the shooter what they want. I have no problem with either, though I tend to side with the colors seen.....not the color an object should be if it didn't have colored light shining on it. Someone would say the above version is the more truthful one. I'd agree only if you got someone to go around and change all the street lights, lol. Until then, I side with the cast they are giving off and the colors they are giving to things. It's not much different than a sunset. The clouds that were white during the day sure aren't so at sunset are they. A person doesn't go and make those white do they? I'm probably just missing the point, it wouldn't be the first time.
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Thank you street lights! Many folks find you make their photos ugly, I do not.
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I think I've now switched to my 100-400L. Each bit I'd zoom in(as the moon closed in) I'd have to shorten the shutter. If I didn't, the crescent moon would blur all the more, as it moved "quickly" across the frame. That would then make things not as bright, so I'd simply have to change the ISO up a bit as I did it. Pretty simple, lose 1 stop of shutter.....up the ISO 1 stop....shorter shutter, same brightness. The plant clouds would still blur as well as before, since I was zoomed in more now. The cirrus made things even more moody, until they'd block the moon out completely I guess.
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Moon was temporarily blocked out by the cirrus, so I shot this angle till it came back. When the moving moon wasn't in the shot I could let the shutter go fairly long. There wasn't much wind at all, so to get them to look like the above here, I'd have to leave it open for probably a minute. With the 50mm I could leave it open a while too, since it wasn't that zoomed in. Maybe 20 seconds on those. Once I was in the 400mm range, then 6 seconds was getting to be the max and still have an acceptable moon.
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If any local, or Omaha person sees this and wonder where I took it from, it's just south of the interstate right into Iowa. There's an exit for some country road(I forget what the sign called it...country or gravel or something). You then parallel the interstate for maybe a mile, probably just under...going east. Then past a house, on the south side of the road, there's a building of sorts there and a parking lot. I parked there and shot this just behind the house to the west.
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I was shocked the moon even showed up in this. I really could not see it through the lens now, since cirrus was again blocking it out. The ISO'd up 6 second(or so) shutter brought it out. I may have to try this again next sliver moon, on a night with no cirrus. I think it'd be neat to get it under the steam plumes. I don't think I could this time, as there were trees in the way....I think. Plus it would have to be done from the road, and there's really quite a bit of traffic on that road for some reason. I shot all the wider ones from it, further west. I had to keep driving backwards, as the moon would sink into the plumes....since the camera was mounted to my driver's side window. I finally figured I couldn't keep doing that before someone called the cops on the strange car, so I flipped around and drove to that parking lot.
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