Taking the Shot: Calangute Church

This blog is in response to several enquiries on how I took the shot of St. Alex’s Church in Calangute (below). Below is a step by step tutorial on what I did. I do hope it helps. Also, if any of you have suggestions on a better way please do share, I would love to know.

 

In theory…

If the camera is kept stable on a tripod, even with a slow shutter speed, the stationary objects will still come out sharp. 

In this case, the portions of the images that I wanted to keep sharp were the church, street lights and fence on the extreme left. 

The vehicles, on the other hand are moving. With a slow shutter speed the bright tail lights will appear as trails. Their darker bodies will be blurred, and, if the shutter speed is slow enough, the cars and bikes will barely be seen at all. 

Requirements…

Tripod. 

A tripod is an absolute requirement. The sturdier the better, as a moderate wind, or even air turbulence created by a passing vehicle, is enough to cause a slight shake and blur the shot.

I was using a carbon fibre travel tripod that I carry for the sheer convenience of it being light and small. Much as I love this little fellow it is not designed to carry a heavy lens and the EF 70-200 f2.8L I was using was really pushing its limits. To compensate, I took several images. (Of the 29 images taken; 19 were blurred.)

 Manual Mode. 

Since you will need to take control of the settings it would be ideal if your camera has a ‘Manual Mode’.

Lens.

A wide angle lens would be nice but not a pre-requisite. This image was taken using a 70-200mm lens at 123mm.

Post processing software.

It is possible to get a decent image straight out of the camera. However for best results post-processing is necessary. It would be better to shoot in RAW and edit the in a program like Lightroom or Photoshop. 

Taking the shot…

Step 1. Plan the image and select a location. In this case the main features were the church, street lights and the car trails. I need the traffic coming from behind me so that I would get their tail lights rather than the headlight that would have been blinding and potentially ruined the image.

I had taken the above image a few days earlier and carried the camera with me especially to catch a shot of the sun behind the church. This would have been a great image were it not for the ugly network of electric wires that criss cross across the entire stretch of the road. I figured that in the dark these would not be very noticeable.

Step 2. Place the camera on a tripod and frame the shot.

Step 3 Adjust camera settings.

1. Set camera in Manual Mode
2. Use the lowest ISO possible (ISO 100 in this case). 
3. Choose the relatively high f-Stop (small aperture) (f/14 in this case).

(The low ISO and high f-stop allows for a slower shutter speed to catch longer car trails. The high f-stop additionally allows for a greater depth of field.)

d. Using the camera’s camera exposure meter adjust the shutter speed till you get proper exposure. (3.2 seconds in this case)

e. Your camera may try to accommodate for the dark areas and tend to overexpose the image. A negative exposure compensation will help to rectify this. (I did not need to do this in this image)

• A shutter release cable would be great as each time you press the shutter button you will potentially shake the camera resulting in a blurred image. In this case I set the camera shutter release to a 2 second delay to give the camera vibrations time to settle down before the camera exposes the image. If this does not work try a 10 second delay. (N.B. Camera shake can also happen on a windy day or even when a car passes close by. Take several images and choose from the ones that are sharp.) 
• Once you are setup. Wait for a bunch of vehicles to approach from behind and time your shutter release so that you catch their trails in front. This is pure trial and error.

Summary

• Plan the shot and choose your location keeping in mind the key elements
• Place camera on tripod
• Frame the image
• Camera settings:

ISO 100

Aperture f/14 or thereabouts

Use camera’s exposure meter to adjust shutter speed

Negative exposure compensation (optional)

• Shutter release delay of 2 seconds or 10 seconds (or a remote shutter release device)
• Time you shot to include vehicles moving away from the camera
• Take several images, the more the merrier!

ENJOY! I do hope this helps some of you. If you do go out and take similar images please do share, I would love to see them.