Hi everybody welcome to another episode
of Exploring Photography right here on
AdoramaTV I'm Mark Wallace,
I'm hanging out here on the rooftop terrace
of my hotel in downtown Phnom Penh Cambodia.
It's just a really wonderful location.
From this location I can see
the Tonlé Sap River
and where it meets the Mekong River
I can see downtown Phnom Penh
and up the river here.
It's really wonderful
but in today's video what we're going to be
talking about is not the correct
aperture and ISO,
and shutter speed to get.
We know that's important to do.
I'm going to be talking about location
because we have a great location.
We're going to be talking about timing
that decisive moment that everybody talks about
because right now even though I've got a
great location, I've got all my camera
settings correct. I've taken some
pictures here and when I do this
and I look at these pictures of downtown
and around, it just, well they're just drab
the timing isn't right.
We need to make
sure that we do one critical thing
that so many photographers forget to do
and that is to wait,
just wait until things change.
Now last year I was in Africa
and I was on the Zambezi River,
I had this wonderful hotel that was right up
against the river
and I was taking some
pictures in the middle of the day
and as you can see the photo was just nasty.
It wasn't good at all
what I needed to do was wait,
but it's more than just waiting.
I waited a few hours
and I was able to see the Sun
go behind the mountains
and the sky turn gold
and I was able to get this photo
which I think you can agree is much
better, but it's just not good enough
because decisive moment is more than
just waiting for golden hour,
in the right light,
at the right location,
it's waiting for that one thing to happen
that brings everything together
and what that was on the Zambezi
was a boat going across my frame
and then I was able to get the final shot
which I think you'll
agree is so much better
than that first bland shot
that I took. Being patient
and waiting for the right moment
is a skill that every photographer
needs to develop.
Now right now we are still, oh it's 3 o'clock,
so I know I've got about three
hours until golden hour hits,
so when the Sun gets low on the horizon
and we get that nice golden and purple sky
so that's really what I want to shoot
but there are some things I can do
until that hour arrives
and that is to figure out exactly
where I'm going to be looking?
What I'm going to be shooting at?
What my strategy is and so I'm not
fumbling around in the dark
and so there are a couple things
I want to do,
so the river behind me is going to
look really wonderful.
The Sun is going to be setting over there
but we'll still maybe get some really nice
light back here
and so I want to shoot with a really slow shutter speed.
It's similar to what I did in Prague.
We've linked to that video in the description
of this video so you can see
what I did in Prague.
We're going to sort of do that
and so I have my trusty little quantum
tripod here, that, our Coleman tripod
sorry and then I'll be using this on my
camera to get really nice steady shots.
I also want to shoot this city after dark
and so after the Sun goes down,
so that tripod is going to be critical.
So I'm going to figure out all of that stuff
now, then I'm going to go back into the
air conditioning. I'm going to sort of
avoid the rain that I think is about to hit.
Then I'll come back out here in
about two-and-a-half or three hours
and then we'll shoot the images
and I'll show you the before and after shots.
Well now you can see behind me that the
light is definitely beginning to change.
I've moved my camera position here and
I'm going to start shooting as the Sun
is going down
and I think we're going to
get some really amazing backlit scenes
and then as the Sun goes behind the
buildings back there,
then we'll start to
see the lights of the city come alive
and that is everything to do with just
waiting for the right time of day.
I just looked on my GPS here and it
looks like we have about 13 minutes
before the Sun goes over the horizon
and I think that's when it's going to start
to get really nice and interesting.
Right now we just have too many clouds
and things in the way to get a beautiful
sunset. I did get some silhouetted buildings
that I think are going to look really good
but I think the choice shots, I think I'm not
sure, but I think it's going to be after
the Sun is just over the horizon
and we still have a little bit of wisp of light
in the sky. We also have all those lights
on the buildings to light up,
so we have a real sort of a slow shutter speed
and get some light streaks going on
from the cars and people moving around
but still get this really amazing shot,
so I've got to wait here another 15-20 minutes
for that to happen.
So once again its just
waiting for the right time.
Well technically sunset has happened,
it happened one minute ago,
but you can still still see that there's
a lot of light in the sky,
so I just have to be a
little bit more patient,
probably another 10-15 minutes
or so I might stay up here
for another hour
but that's what it
takes to get a shot
and I'm really looking for just one shot
and I want a series of shots
that would be great
but I'm just expecting to get one that works
and so I'm just going to keep looking,
keep seeing how the clouds change in form,
looking for little light isolates, things
like that and I'm just going to hang out
here until I get the shot
and if I don't well I'll have to come back
tomorrow at sunrise try again.
Well everything is really kicking into
place right now, now the light is exactly
where I want it to be, the Sun is over
the horizon but we still get a little
bit of light from the Sun to illuminate
the bottoms of the clouds. We have all
the lights in the city coming on and so
that's going to look really, really
fantastic. I'm using every trick up my
sleeve to make this work,
so I have an electronic viewfinder attached
to my Leica here, so I can use the electronic
level to make sure that I don't have any
crooked photos. I'm using my histogram
and my built-in meter to make sure my
exposure is all set
and I have everything set to manual mode
because I know exactly what I want to do here,
so I have my ISO at the base ISO,
the lowest it will go that's ISO 200.
I'm shooting at f/8 for really sharp pictures
and I'm manually focusing at hyperfocal
so I have as much depth of field as possible
and I'm using a little tripod,
so that I don't have any camera shake
and to make sure that
I don't do anything with my hands,
I have a cable release here,
so I'm going to click that
and then let this go for 8 seconds
and then I'll show you the results.
Well that's the shoot for the night
and I think you'll agree that it is worth
the wait. We compare the shots that he
took today in the middle of the
afternoon and compared to what we shot
right here which is about a quarter past
six, it was absolutely worth waiting
those three hours
to get the exact shot that I wanted.
It’s much, much more interesting,
so it's important to know
your aperture, your ISO, your shutter
speed, all those technical things
and it's important to have a great location
but it's just as important
to make sure you choose the right moment
to take your photo.
Thanks again for joining me.
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Thanks again
and I will see you again next time.