Un Canadien à Paris
by Volker Weber
De magnifiques photos de la Tour Eiffel prises par Alan Lepofsky
[Merci, Claude :-)]
Comments
I chatted with Alan this morning about technique ... he didn't even have a tripod for these pictures!!!! Having tried to photograph the same subject with almost the same camera a few nights earlier, I can testify that these are VERY skilled photos!
Stunning photos - best I've seen ever from the Eiffel tower at night ! Congratulations Alan !!!
Ed, Alan just has a bigger one. :-)
Vowe, thank you for posting. I spent yesturday and today touring, so once I narrow down the 500 or so photos to the 20ish that I think others will want to see, I'll get them up on Flickr. Wolfgang thank you. I am learning more each day. I find the best way is to just keep shooting and seeing what comes out well, and what does not. I always learn from the pictures Vowe posts, often spending time looking at the other photos in the photographer's collections. I'm also very patient, and don't mind waiting a long time for the right shot, or for those other tourists to get out of the way!
BTW: I travel with my Canadian passport :-)
Alan, duly corrected.
I think you have a very steady hand. I looked at the image details and found that you were shooting with 1/8 and 1/15. That is very, very good. At ISO 1600 there is considerable noise at higher resolutions, but without a faster lens, that cannot be avoided.
I have to wonder however, why the camera was in sports mode. :-)
>you were shooting with 1/8 and 1/15
Image Stabilizing lens, maybe?
Nope. Standard 18-70mm kit lens. Which by the way is very good.
When I'm without a tripod, I try and prop myself or the camera against some type of natural object. A poll, a fence, a tree, a bench, etc. Then when shooting, I use a technique I learned that apparently snippers also use. I try and slow my breathing by taking a few deep slow breaths, then I exhale as I "pull the trigger" and try and not take a breath until the lens has closed. If you want to take it a step further, you can even try and "feel" your heart rate, and shoot between beats. Do these things really work? I'm not sure but I like the results I am getting so far.
Taking pictures with 1/15 at 18mm is actually not a big problem, if you concentrate and use some good technique as Alan describes. At 35mm film there was a rule of thumb that you can carefully take pictures with shutter speeds of 1/2 of the focal length. For Nikon's DX sensors you should multiply the shutter speed with 1.5.
18 / 2 = 9 * 1.5 = 13.5 min shutter speed for 18 mm.
