Night Photography - Part 1

Waiting for a bite at night

 

Getting Creative in the Dark

Most people put their cameras away when out fishing once the sun goes down unless taking happy snaps of a significant catch. I too was mostly guilty of this in the past. I had made a few attempts once or twice at getting an interesting shot at night, and have had varied success. On an overnight trip to the bottom of South Australia's Yorke Peninsula last weekend, I carried a tripod in to shoot some wide angle landscapes. When I opened my camera bag, to my horror I discovered that in my haste I had not swapped the len which was on my 7D over for the wide angle zoom. Instead of having a 17-40mm and 70-200mm with me, I had no focal length shorter than the Sigma 50mm f1.4 which was on the camera body. The 50mm focal length is considered a "normal" lens on 35mm film and full frame digital. As the 7D has a cropped frame sensor, the lens angle of view gives a short telephoto perspective, and was therefore useless for the types of images I had in mind. I did shoot a few frames of the cliffs that you can see in the image above as the sun was setting, however my efforts were a little rushed and half hearted as I did not have the lens I had planned to use.

 

Since I had carried the tripod in, I figured I had better get more than a few minutes use from it, so after the sun set, the sky darkened, and the cloud cover mostly disappeared to reveal the stars; out came the camera again. Using the tripod, a slow shutter speed, and the fast aperture of the 50mm f1.4 lens, I did my best to roughly compose through the viewfinder (no preview image was available on the cameras LCD screen in liveview mode as it was much too dark). I then turned on liveview and used the electronic level to try and get the horizon relatively straight. I made a number of images using this and similar techniques. I am the first to admit they could be improved, but for me this was a whole new idea. In Part 2 I will go through how I went about experimenting that night, and will share a few more images that were created as a result. 

Fishing Wild

Journal of fishing travel

There are many fishing magazines available here in Australia, with only a fairly small number of them being dedicated to fly fishing. Many publications have the occasional article on, or at least mention fly fishing, but not enough to get the hardcore fly fisher excited. Fishing Wild is somewhere in between. Almost every article has at least a small amount of fly fishing content, with it being a strong feature in most others. However this is not the only attraction of what the creator of Fishing Wild, Col Roberts, has called the journal of fishing travel. An apt description, as the majority of the articles are about both unusual and/or beautiful  and often exotic places. The photography is also of a very high standard which means the focus of this great publication has a lot in common with the journey that I am planning. I certainly hope to make my photographs different from the majority that you will see in Fishing Wild as I have my own style, but I do find it inspiring - the journeys, the places, the images.

A great feature found at the end of most of the articles are the fact files. They give a range of information on the destination which can include: getting there, accommodation, what fishing tackle you need, activities available for the non fishing partner, and a big variety of other essential information for those who may wish to go there.

Apart from the great articles, there is a department in each issue called Photo Clinic which gives some good tips to help readers learn how to take better photos. Another department that appeared in older issues, Travel Doc was an interesting read regarding health issues such as diseases and medications relating to travel, all of which I will be re-reading during my planning. I am not sure if it is temporarily gone or if it will be missing from all future editions. I personally hope it is only temporary. The department I personally enjoy the most is Horror Travel Stories, it can be a real eye opener!

The pages of Fishing Wild are section sewn instead of being glued as in the earlier issues. Being the kind of magazine that many will collect, this is great news. In fact, calling it a magazine is almost an insult to Fishing Wild. It is a great read and I highly reccommend it to all adventurous anglers.

Fishing Wild is published  twice annually, in April and October. The current cover price is A$12.95. If you want to subscribe you can do so directly from their website. 

www.fishingwild.com.au

A couple of older issues from my collection