1208 - Night Falls

It’s Wednesday morning, surprisingly you find me on the train back to Carinthia. Our computer there has failed yesterday, and while I only use it for image processing and gaming, other work done on it pays the bills, thus I travel down to fix the damn thing.

From what I’ve heard, it seems like the system disk has crashed, and if that is the case and the operating system is gone anyway, I will use the opportunity to upgrade from 32 bit XP to 64 bit Windows 7. But of course I’ll need to re-install all software. This should keep me busy for the next two days 🙂

The image is from yesterday evening. You’ve seen that street a few times, but I really love the curved line of the street lights. As to the technical data, I have really done what I wrote in the last post, I have set the limit for when auto ISO sets in down to 1/4s. This is f4 at 40mm, ISO 360 and 1/4s. And it’s sharp.

Conventional wisdom says that for a sharp image you need one over the effective focal length, and that would be 1/60s. That are four stops! Sure, although this was sharp at the first attempt, it is not always so. I am clearly on or even over the limit, but nevertheless it is possible. Let’s have a look: One stop would be ISO 720, two stops are ISO 1440, with three stops and at ISO 2880 we already scratch at the limit of what this camera can possibly do in color, and with four stops, with ISO 5760 we are clearly in a range where only black and white is feasible.

The net effect of image stabilization being ISO 360 vs ISO 3200+, I don’t know how you see it, but for me that is a clear indication that stabilization is useful even in those focal ranges where so many people deny its usefulness.

The Song of the Day is “Night Falls” from the late Willy DeVille’s 2003 album “Live in Berlin”. Hear it on YouTube. I’m not sure if it is really the version from this very album, but I believe so. Beautiful!


There are 4 comments

Flo   (2010-02-04)

This street does have a couple of funny wiggles in it. I like it because it gives the street character as well as gives character to your images of it. I like the time of day - a little hard to tell from the clock face - 5:40? - but the sky is blue, light enough to register in the camera, but not light enough to turn off the lights - and it looks like a cloud bank in the distance. When you shoot at 1/4 second, surely you are standing perfectly still, with arms braced against your body or the camera braced against a pole or wall, aren't you? In other words, you are shooting with more care than when you shoot at 1/100 second, aren't you?

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andreas   (2010-02-04)

I try to stand still, arms braced against my body, yes. No wall, no pole. With that I wouldn't need stabilization, but otoh were not free to choose the POV. Btw, 1/8s is really the more realistic limit. At 1/4s I get sharp images as well, but I often need some attempts. Sometimes it's worth it though.

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Marti Jeffers   (2010-02-04)

Love the perspective and the colors in this image, Andreas. It definitely draws me in and I stay with it.

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Barry Armer   (2010-02-04)

Beautiful shot Andreas! I like the way the lights rhyme the curve of the road and the repeating verticle elements of the windows on the right. Great colors also! Cheers! Barry

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