I recently attended a carnival in town over Memorial Weekend. One night we drove past it and I saw the colored lights of the ferris wheel and knew I had to go there with my camera, before they left town. On the last night, I dragged my husband there (I had to bribe him first with a drink at the local bar). I waited until right after sunset to take the pictures. I posted them on Facebook the next day and got so many comments that I thought I would give the exposure information. It is really easy to do. All you need is a tripod and a digital SLR camera.
I noticed that the lights were changing as the ferris wheel rotated so I wanted to be able to record the color changes. I set my camera to aperture priority at a small aperture – f/20. Then the shutter speed automatically was set to 25 sec. Next I set my camera to bracket the exposures so the camera could record 3 consecutive shots; one at normal exposure and one at 1/3 stop over and one at 1/3 stop under. The small differences in exposure did not really affect the final outcomes. The ISO was set to 100, so there wouldn’t be any noise. I did not set the camera to NR for long exposures because I forgot, but it probably would have been a good idea. I used a tripod of course. The photos are below. Try this next time a carnival comes to your town.
For more information on DSLR photography check out the online course.
To view my portrait photography site visit Lightscapes Portrait Studio.
To view my fine art photography site visit Mary Buck Photography
