[Canon EOS 5D Mark II / Canon 24-105mm f/4 L IS ~ f/8, 25sec, ISO 250, –1 stop exposure]
Dusk Fog Photography can be quite the challenge but as long as you know a couple of key things this challenge can be overcome with complete ease!
Of course the first thing to a good dusk fog photo shoot is to find a location that doesn’t have to much light as when shooting with a LONG exposure as we don’t want to have uneven lighting through our picture.
For me it was quite easy to just head outside, into the country, to a place that only had the moon as the main source of light.
Once I have found the perfect location there are a couple of KEY things we will need to have and remember before shooting…
[f/8, 13sec, ISO 250, –1 stop exposure]
First we will need to have a tri-pod or some means of setting our camera onto a solid stationary device that will allow for long exposures without any camera shake. Because as every good photographer knows that we should NEVER sacrifice clarity for ANYTHING! Your object always needs to be in sharp focus (this can be argued for motion photography…but as a whole make sure to ALWAYS have a SHARP picture).
[Manfrotto 190xprob Legs / Manfrotto 322rc2 Head]
The Second VERY important key to remember is that if we have IS (Image Stabilizer) on our camera or lens we need to make sure that it is turned off. I have heard back from many students that have struggled with blurry pictures when they photographed things while the camera was on a tri-pod…and 9/10 they had forgotten to turn OFF their IS.
[Canon 24-105mm f/4 L IS with the IS turned OFF]
The final critical key to remember about dusk/night photography is that it is imperative that we keep our ISO down (i.e. ISO 100, ISO 250). Why?…because high ISO (i.e. ISO 800, ISO 1000) creates noise (pixilation) which is VERY noticeable against a black background. Thus it is important to keep your ISO down and open our aperture up as much as we can to allow in light (or a tri-pod will allow for a sharp long exposure).
I hope these Dusk Fog Photography tips help you on your next Dusk/Night/Fog photography adventures!
[f/8, 25sec, ISO 160, –1 stop exposure]
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