I gotta tell you, if you're interested in this type of stuff, digital is the way to go for learning. It would have taken me months to learn some of what I learned tonight. With long exposures of course, there are noise issues, and I think for extremely long exposures film is still the way to go, BUT for learning purposes you really can't beat digital.
Okay off the digital soapbox. One other thing I learned is that the Canon 420ex is MUCH too powerful for this... it melted a nice little area into the gels! I ended up using the inexpensive slave strobe I got for $40.
Okay, let's see some images. My first stop was a city park in a higher-income area of town. This allowed me to play without having to worry about riff-raff in the park.
With this one, I flashed once with a blue gel on the seahorse, and a red gel on um... whatever that thing is in the background. The ground was a happy little accident when I didn't have the flash facing the right way. Silly me, heh.
The second one I shot one flash towards the jungle gym as a whole, then shot with a red gel inside the slide 6 times. I was standing to the right side, next to the steps, holding the flash into the slide, facing towards the end.
After the park, I decided to drive out to the Sutter Buttes and try a few there. There was a nice glow behind the distant hill coming off a house, which looked neat to me. I shot a 30-second exposure (leaving star trails) and flashed the streetsign once.
Just after this next frame, the boys in blue arrived. They wanted to know why someone was out there, at 2am, with no lights on, just... standing there. I told them who I was, and explained that I was shooting pictures. They asked repeatedly, "But... WHAT are you taking pictures of?" So I'd explain, and they'd ask again. It just wasn't "clicking" so finally I said look, let me show you the back of the camera.
Both cops were intrigued by it. One asked, "What sort of photography do you do?" and I explained that I was a family photographer, but I also get a kick out of night stuff. Then I gave him my card, and he asked of he could keep it. Wouldn't it be funny if my next client was this cop's family?
This is basically the same as the last shot except that I flashed the streetsign with a red gel.
That's it for now. I hope you enjoyed my little adventure. NEXT time, I want to try and get more DOF... yes, I was shooting at like F4.0, the problem is that the 10D loves to add noise with longer exposures, and of course with higher ISO's. All of these were shot at 100 ISO. Now that the weather is getting nicer, I'll be out there at night more often.
Thanks for checking it out.
