Project 54 - outdoors at night

For this project about low-level lighting, I used my new Tokina 10 - 16mm wide-angle lens which I had bought for me for Christmas.It was (obviously) necessary to use a tripod (with shutter-release cable) because of the long exposure times needed and I shot in RAW (as always), in manual mode at f/16 throughout with ISO 100 and with mirror lock-up.


The photographs show various scenes along the sea-front in Brighton and in the city centre.



Shutter speed 10 seconds at 16mm. I adjusted the white balance to 3750K in post production.

This hotel front, with car tail-light trails in the foreground, had an exposure time of 15 secs at 16mm and adjusted white balance of 5150K.

Another photograph where I captured car tail-light trails was this one looking along the road which runs along the promenade. Exposure time of 4 secs @16mm with white balance of 5450K.

This 20 second exposure, at 16mm, has a number of interesting lighting effects from traffic travelling in both directions. Adjusted white balance of 4350K.

The shot of Brighton pier needed an exposure of 30 seconds at 15mm. Adjusted white balance of 5000K on the left but I have included, below, the same photograph with a white balance of 24ooK which,although much cooler, gives some very interesting colour variations particularly in the sky and the reflections of the pier lights in the water.

I couldn't resist the illumination of the Queens Hotel. Exposure time 4 seconds at 16mm and white balance of 5450K.

Despite there being little evidence of Christmas elsewhere (as the sales were by now in full swing), this shop-front shows the traditional Christmas scene with full sized models. Exposure time was relatively fast at 0.7 seconds, presumably because of the closeness of the subject, and it was taken at 16mm with adjusted white balance of 5100K. One of the differences when using a wide-angle lens is that one has to get used to vertical lines at the edges of the shot not being parallel.

This brightly-lit scene was taken outside the Theatre Royal, with an exposure time of 20 seconds (hence the blurred figures on the left-hand side and the car head-light trail on the right) at 16mm with an adjusted white balance of 4900K.

Unfortunately, this shot showing part of the Brighton Pavillion is not as sharp as it should be but I like the illumination of the minarets, in particular. Exposure time was 30 seconds with the lens at its widest possible setting of 16mm. White balance of 5450K.