Uncategorized | Ben Coffman Photography

Night photography 101: Focusing in the dark

*A quick note before we begin: I teach these techniques as well as many, many others in my night-sky photography workshops. For more information, check ’em out here: http://www.bencoffmanphotography.com/star-photography-workshops-and-lessons/*

Without fail, the first problem that most photographers encounter when trying their hand at low-light or night photography is an inability to focus. After all, they’re used to autofocus, and their gear has likely been doing much of the focus work for the photographer up till now. As a general rule for night photography, I completely forget that my camera and lens can autofocus. I flip the switch to manual, and I don’t look back. There’s something about the endless whirring of a lens’s autofocus hunting that drives me crazy—it’s like a tiny voice from your camera whispering, “Psssst! Hey! This photo’s going to suck!”

So, step 1: I turn off autofocus.

For step 2, I’m going to assume you’re shooting on a DSLR with live view. For those of you on a DSLR without live view, I feel your pain. I did a fair amount of night photography on a first-generation digital Rebel, and it was very, very difficult. But times have changed and cameras have evolved, so I’m guessing that you probably have live view on your camera. If so, turn it on. The LCD on the back of your camera is probably still black, albeit with a few glowing symbols around the display’s periphery.

Next, I’m going to assume you’re using a tripod. After all, it’s only about 100% necessary when shooting at night. (Unless you’re engaging in a form of light painting called “camera painting,” in which you move your camera while shooting stationary lights during a long exposure.) While your camera is securely mounted on its tripod, find an object in the foreground that you think should be in focus. Illuminate this object with your flashlight. Can you now see this object on your LCD? If not, you may need to illuminate it with something brighter (one of the best night photography investments I ever made was in a brutally powerful, pocket-sized flashlight—I’ve actually driven down rural gravel roads, waving it out the window like a spotlight while looking for interesting scenes to photograph).

If you’re using a bright flashlight on the object and you still can’t see anything on your LCD, this is when I do one of two things: first, I check to make sure I took off my lens cap. If the lens cap is off, I check to make sure that my 10-stop neutral density filter is not currently on that lens. (Both of these scenarios occur with surprising frequency. And they’re both kind of embarrassing.) If you still can’t see anything on your LCD, and you’ve turned on live view, have no filters on your lens, your lens cap is off, and you’re using a powerful flashlight on an object in the foreground, then there’s a strong possibility that there’s something wrong with your camera. Please see my earlier condolences for those photographers who are shooting on a digital camera without live view. Now extend those condolences to yourself, on my behalf.

Step 5? 11?: Zoom in on the object that you’re illuminating in your foreground. On a Canon camera, this is accomplished by using buttons with magnifying glasses and + or – symbols on them. Zoom in as far as you can. Holding your flashlight in one hand, use your other hand to manually focus your lens on the object. Get your focus super sharp, then zoom out, and, if you want, turn off live view. You’ve found your focus for that particular photograph.

However, sometimes there is no object in the foreground. Or, at least, anything with any real detail is too far away to light with your flashlight while focusing your camera. In this case, what I like to do is create an object in my foreground by putting my own flashlight there, and pointing it back at the camera. In some cases, if your flashlight is too bright and rendering your live view display into a giant amorphous blob of light, you can place the flashlight at about a 45-degree angle so that it’s not pointing directly at your camera.

Other options include taking off your ball cap and placing it in the foreground, going back to your camera, and then shining your flashlight on your ball cap to find the focus. (Note: A baseball cap is a handy night photography accessory that can shield the side of your lens from undesirable lighting that causes lens flare, temporarily cover the front of your lens should something unexpected happen in the middle of your long exposure, or cover the eyepiece of your camera if you’re worried about light leaking into the eyehole. In short, a dark ball cap is just about standard night photography gear, and you should really think about owning one.)

Other objects that you can focus on at night using live view include the moon, stars or other celestial objects, streetlights, the edges of a backlit object obscuring a light source—in short, any light source you can find can help you out.

Some photographers don’t bother with focusing in the dark at all. In the warmth and well-lit comfort of their home, before they even leave, they find their focus and then tape the focus ring in place with gaffer’s tape. Personally, this seems like a desperate move to me, as throwing sticky tape on any part of my camera or lens gives me the creeps. But if you absolutely cannot find your focus in the dark (maybe you don’t have live view), than it’s probably not a bad way to go. It’s certainly better than taking a bunch of blurry photos.

Airglow at the Oregon coast

I’m going to try out a slightly different format (image first, short blurbs afterward) for my photography blog. So here goes: For those interested, the details are below the photos.

Getting There

The wreck of the Peter Iredale is located in Ft Stevens State Park, along the northern Oregon coast. From the south entrance, drive by the park’s main building (on the right) to a 4-way stop. Continue straight on Peter Iredale Road. After the road curves to the right, take a left and drive several hundred feet to a parking lot by the beach. The wreck’s just out there, and it’s like catnip for photographers. What’s nice about shooting at night is that nobody’s around–that’s pretty hard to accomplish almost any other time of day. I’ve actually shown up there at dawn to shoot and encountered 20-somethings slacklining right in the middle of the thing.

Getting the Shot

These are high ISO images shot on my new Canon 6d with the aperture either completely wide open (f/2.8) or stopped down slightly (f/4). Both are 42-second exposures. And I used my Rokinon 14mm lens for both shots.

It wasn’t until I got home that I noticed that there was some airglow (or nightglow) in many of my photos (particularly the ones facing north). It manifested as mostly greenish areas or even some greenish streaks near the horizon (not to be confused with the orangish or yellow light pollution from nearby towns or fishing vessels). For more reading on airglow, here’s wikipedia‘s take on it.

Getting There

After Ft Stevens, we drove south to Ecola State Park, where we went to Indian Beach. Just follow the twisty, turny road all the way from the park’s entrance and you can’t miss it.

Getting the Shot

Indian Beach was super dark that night after the moon went down, which is a great time for star photography. I’ve been shooting with the Canon 6d for a while now, and I love its relatively low noise in high ISO situations (such as star photography), so I really cranked the ISO for a few shots on the pitch-black beach. The noise handling was incredible. The shot above was shot at 14mm, f/4, 30 seconds at 10,000 ISO!

Cannon Beach part 2 (now with the Milky Way!)

If you follow my blog or facebook postings with any regularity, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been a on a water kick for a while now. Zoomed out a bit, it’s really a water/rock/stars kick, with a tree or two thrown in here or there for good measure. Last week, on a day that had started very cloudy but cleared quickly just before sunset, I allowed the winds of caprice to push me all the way to Cannon Beach, Oregon for some star photos of the iconic Haystack Rock, something I had been wanting to do for quite a while. It was a new moon (meaning: no moon) and it was clear and cold.

As usual, my first stop was Ecola State Park, which I had almost all to myself.* Most of the sky was deliciously cloud-free, except for a few stubborn ones lying low on the western horizon. The Milky Way was beautiful and arched overhead from west to east.

* This isn’t exactly true. While taking some long exposures at the overlook, I could see a few people with flashlights down on Indian Beach, which kind of freaked me out when I later went to Indian Beach. Did I mention just how dark it was out there?

I shot a handful of photos at the overlook before heading to Indian Beach, which was especially creepy in the dark. I took a few more photos as the surf crashed, and then I hiked back up to my car.

Some clouds had rolled in, and after warming myself for several minutes in my car, I very nearly headed back home (it was, after all, about 8:30 pm at this point, which is nearing my bed time). Instead I decided to make the short drive to Cannon Beach to check out the lay of the land.

I was glad I did. By the time I parked, the clouds had cleared entirely, and I had Cannon Beach to myself on a 38-degree night. Eventually, some clouds rolled in low on the horizon again, and I saw a dozen or more shooting stars (but somehow managed to not catch any on camera). I did, however, manage to take an unintentionally super-creepy self-portrait (see the last image below)

Cannon Beach and Haystack Rock

Clear, starry winter nights in Oregon are about as rare as legitimate Bigfoot sightings. Earlier this week the weather forecast seemed to indicate a parting of the clouds, and so, one evening, I took a chance and headed to Ecola State Park and Cannon Beach in the hope of a little seascape/star photography. I encountered a couple of stars (see the first photo below)…and a whole lotta clouds.

The tide was incredibly low, which exposed a number of tidepools and rocks that are normally hidden by water. In fact, walking to Haystack Rock would’ve been easy, but because of its status as a protected area for nesting birds (and the fact that it was rather dark) I stayed away.

The slowest draw at Pistol River State Park

Welcome, photo friends. We’re going to try something different–I’m actually going to post something here. The inaugural entry details Pistol River State Park in southern Oregon.

One reason I enjoy night photography is the long, sometimes super-long, exposures. In particular, I enjoy the way movement is portrayed. Lights, clouds, and water all serve to add interest to these types of photos, which makes the Oregon coast a kind of wonderland for long-exposure photography. Churning water turns into something resembling cotton candy. Stars rocket toward the horizon. Clouds smear overhead. The effect is surreal, but the process of making these images is a lot of fun, even if it requires a lot of standing around while the camera does its thing.

Thanks for checking out my very first post, and enjoy the images below.

-Ben