I ended up taking a picture of Whirlwind, which looks interesting in the dark.

Would love to see pictures of your hostas taken at dusk.

Well. get down on one knee, brace one elbow on your knee and squeeze off a shot as if it was target practice, brace it with a chair / bench, lay on your stomach; brace the camera on the ground for belly shots or....get a tripod.

I'm going to try some more tomorrow (I have a tripod) as it is supposed to be mostly sunny (thunderstorms and showers tonight). For 'Golden' light you need to go out 1/2 hour before sunrise or 1/2 hour after sunset when the sunlight refracts the reds and oranges of the atmosphere around the curvature of the earth.

In Ottawa Canada you are looking at 4:43-5:13 AM to get Golden Morning light or 8:53-9:23 PM for 'Golden Evening' light. Some photographers prefer morning, but I understand it may alarm the neighbors. Me, hey, they should be used to me by now.

I don't even remember how I got the tripod, and have never used it, so it is long past time I did.

Jon

Hi irawon,

I almost always take pictures around 8pm because that it when the blue pops and I want to capture it.

With respect to shaking, does your camera allow you to take several pictures at a time without too much delay between them? Taking several pics in a row of the same scene will allow you to choose the pic with the best focus. Those of us that grew up having to develop paper pics have a tendency to try take only a single pic because we got used to doing it that way - it would have been too expensive otherwise...but this is not an effective approach with digital photography in situations where you are shaking.

Below is a pic taken with my iphone using an HDR app that I was playing with a couple of nights ago when it was a little too dark. HDR takes several pics in a row at different exposures and then merges them together. The effect is interesting but not really what the eye sees... having said that, the blue on this Andrew leaf is a good representation of what my eye saw.

boy ira.. you did make them pop ... but i thi9nk you were just a bit late.. they are rather dark ...

note in that first pic.. the hosta is super blue.. but the fence is blue.. the wall stone is blue ... etc ... the blue sky was reflecting off of every things ...

i also used to take 3 to 5 of each plant... bring them to the computer.. and throw 4 away ... some nights 6 ... lol ... and i would go back out the next day to try again ... digital is great in that its free..

as to the shaking.. just practice ...

so try a little earlier ... but also.. watch for slightly cloudy evenings.. when the clouds might turn red/pink.. just as the sun hits the horizon ...

i am glad you guys are playing around with this ...

ken

Connie May,

HDR adjusts the photo by increasing the exposure progressively (right?) The out-of focus would get progressively worse with greater exposure.

I can see where it will get the colors brighter by incrementally increasing exposure, but it will not help being out of focus because of long exposures (???)

I have a Nikon D80 which is sort of old, but it does have a focusing feature that displays exactly which point or points the camera is focusing on, dependent on where you are aiming it to get certain things in or out of focus as desired. This can help to get the right exposure and focus on what you choose as the 'focus' of the photo you want and also set the exposure which will increase the darker the subject. I don't know if the IPhone has this feature. The Nikon can also adjust the 'film speed' electronically so a 'slower' or 'faster' 'film' can be used, which may help me. Since it has a very fast shutter speed I set the 'film speed' high (800 equivalent, as I remember). I don't know if this feature is on the IPhone, but if it did this may help.

PS- What is an app?

Jon

Hi Jon - you're correct, HDR isn't a solution for shaking - pics would be even more blurry because more than one pic is taken then merged together. It does seem to help in lower light situations where part of the pic would otherwise be very dark.

The app that I bought is Pro HDR. I also purchased "Manual - Custom Exposure camera" & "ProCamera 8 + HDR" to try. So far I'm still not happy with the iPhone pics but to be fair I really need to play around a bit more. My normal camera is a Canon Rebel DSLR which I love.

Jon, an app is a program for a phone.

Thanks Kathy!

Yes - I purchased additional software applications for the iPhone. So far I haven't figured out how to adjust white balance so I find the colours a little too strong.

my point was... if you are using software.. you are cheating ... lol

digitally speaking.. just keep taking pix.. they are free ..

btw.. one way i figured this out ... was my glasses darken in sun .. and if they darken ... pix can wash out from too much light ... put it this way.. if you have to squint to look at it.. your visual receptors are straining ...

by the time dusk is rolling in ... my glasses are clear.. and my eyeballs .. and hence the camera lens ... dont have to squint.. to capture the light.. aka the color ...

with all this fancy lingo ... its not a far leap to think i dont know technical terms.. lol..

ken

Kathy, I was attempting some self-deprecating humor. You were awfully quick to accept my playing dumb was real. :- (((

My Samsung android doesn't have HDR, some do (better ones). My Nikon cannot do this automatically, but it can be easily manipulated to increase exposures quickly in the manual mode. Trying to learn, manipulate and master the tens of thousands of differentiations you can accomplish in the manual mode will surely give me a headache.

I think that (listening to the advice of professional photographers) you need a clear night and the best light will be up to 1/2 hour before the actual sunrise and up to 1/2 hour after actual sunset. Remember that we 'see' the sun before sunrise and after sunset, but this is an image of the sun refracted through the atmosphere and the goal is catch the reflected light off the atmosphere to catch those orange and red tones just before sunrise or just after sunset.

I think expecting to enhance blues will not work as blues show up better in direct sunlight. Blue and red make violet, blue and orange might give enhanced shadows of greyish brown tones, green and red make brown, green and orange make brown. Obviously the reflected light will be very strong so the reflected color may just give darker tones as it is not as if you are mixing equal amounts of paint.

If it is clear and I am lucky enough to get a nice orange, red sunrise (think Orange Marmalade) I will try to get some photos.......Before sunrise. If not, and there is a nice sunset I will try at night....after sunset.

I will bring a tripod and my belly, so I hope for some interesting shots. Sooner or later we will get smarter on this subject as it relates to hosta. I love these little mysteries. Wish me luck.

Jon

Ken - digital so can't get away from software. I would like to be able to turn off automatic settings... I was hoping the manual app would let me do this...I want my pics to look authentic but if I use the built-in software that the phone comes with the colours are often not true...so I always reach for the canon & use manual settings / combination manual and auto...

Have you tried a different camera? I found out that I wasn't as bad at taking low light picks as I thought turns out half the blame was due to my camera. Just a thought

It rained most of the day, so I posted the above blurry pictures, because I like the way the blues turned out. But better clarity would have made me happier.

Jon, you had me laughing at your morning exploits. I will try your elbow on the knee steadying of the camera technique. I don't ave a tripod but could borrow one from my daughter if the former method doesn't work.

ConnieMay, what I gleaned fom your post is that I should take several pictures until I get it right...don't have an iPhone ---wishing I had bought one instead of the Blackberry. We've had an expensive Nikkon in the past, way above our heads, and didn't use all the features. i now have 2 very basic cameras, which I use. Love the picture of Andrew.

Ken, so my DH was right. I should have started taking pictures earlier. I haven't told him he was right.

I will try to improve my picture taking skills, I promise. Thanks for taking the time to educate me.

If you'd like to take photographs at dusk without any lighting equipment, then a tripod is probably the way to go. After sunset, the light diminishes very quickly.

As an example, here is a photo taken at 7:23pm on May 2nd - exactly 1 hour before sunset. ISO 100, 35mm, F1.4, 1/1250 of a second shutter speed. Basically I had a ton of light to work with - evidence is the ISO number and pretty fast shutter speed. You can get that "sunset" kind of look even though it is still one hour away.

Another at 8:19pm - 2 minutes before sunset, fairly overcast. ISO 250, 85mm, F1.6, 1/250 of a second shutter speed. The ISO difference here is negligible, but the shutter speed is now slower & at the bottom range that is acceptable for motion blur. Still well within taking photos in natural light without any issue, but I knew I didn't have much time before I needed to start using flash.

Now, at 8:38pm - 17 minutes after sunset. ISO 4000, 35mm, F1.4, 1/200 of a second shutter speed. This was one of the last images I could take before using flash for the rest of the night. Notice how the ISO drastically changed. I maintained 1/200 of a second because anything lower than that will result in motion blur (either by the subject or by my own hand shake.) The color temperature in the image is a bit mixed because of the different artificial light sources such as lights & candles.

Also, note that in these images I was "wide open" at F1.4 or F1.6 - the lower the F stop number, the more light is let into the lens (but less is in focus as well - which, for us, is a good thing). I was also shooting on a Canon 5D mark III, which also preforms well in low light conditions. Point and shoot cameras tend to default to settings that do well in super bright light/middle of the day conditions. Sometimes they are incapable of a high ISO number or low aperture, so in order to take a photograph, the camera slows the shutter speed down to obtain more light... which results in hand shake/motion blur.

So basically, my point is: that at 17 minutes after sunset (in an area with trees & buildings - and no clearly visible horizon), with my professional camera and lenses, without using flash, I would have had to use a tripod too!

ira....don't get discouraged. Keep shooting away and you will figure out the right time and sun position. I don't think you have to get technical or a better camera. The blue really does pop at sunset/twilight but you need a little more light than what you have. I just use my iphone and click away and delete many that don't look good...... but the right conditions can bring out intense blue.

You can see it here with Touch of class

In this one check out the blue in the Jack Frost Brunnera to the right of GE

Keep clicking and posting!

Lol, Jon, I remember asking my 23 year old secretary that question when I switched from Blackberry to iPhone. She couldn't answer it, kinda like a fish can't understand water. Apps were just something that made your phone do stuff. And she was pretty handy with a computer. Of course that was half a decade ago.

Kathy

Anna, thank you for the professional explanation.

Nice pics mbug.

Kathy, half a decade is a drop in bucket to me. ;-]

I just want to add that the idea would be to capture the blue that you see, rather than create pictures where the hostas look blue...if that makes sense. If the hosta doesn't look blue to you around sunset then I wouldn't expect it to look blue in the pic...but maybe that goes without saying...

Get a tripod and learn how to use the manual settings on the cameras and you can get better shots...with the low light that preserves the detail you want....camera phones aren't going to do the best job. However, mbug_gw has a good point, try it with just a little more light and it'll be better.

I just googled iphone photography and it looks like some iphone photography awards were announced yesterday...looks like in the UK. Some of the pics are pretty amazing.

ISO 100, 35mm, F1.4, 1/1250 of a second shutter speed.

==>>> and that is where i lost consciousness back in the day .. lol ...

and learned to just take an adult beverage out there... set my lawn chair.. and snap a pic every 5 mins.. or 2 sips ... lol ... and then deleted all the losers ... [the downside is starting at 6am.. with the adult beverages.. and finishing at dusk..lol.. and not being able to find the camera the next day ... lol]

and the bigger fact.. unlike the wedding.. the hosta are there all summer ... lots of time to do a do-over ...

but i do thank anna ... never had such a simple explanation.. with pix showing the impact and the numbers related ..

ken

Jo but the day are 20 hours long n Ontario aren't they?

Don't hit me.

Jon

Smack! LOL ... just keep them lovely hosta pics coming, Jon!

Maybe there is something to it after all.

Typical photo stat
f 5.6

Exposure .5 sec

ISO 400

Focal length 55 mm

Max aperture 5

Taken from the first pictures stats. Some of the pictures took 1 1/2 to 2 seconds and some came out blurred because I was balancing one foot of the tripod.

I think golden light has it's big advantage with adding sunset accents to people's faces and skin and obviously landscape sunsets, sunrises.

Jon

Thanks everyone for the lovely night photography.

Mbug and Josephine, those are amazing photos taken with apple technology. Just wondering, Josephine, which blue hosta that is?

Jon, great pictures. I boned up a little on cameras and settings last winter before buying a new one but unfortunately, I've forgotten what I learned already. I ended up buying a Canon Powershot (because of its size) but used my old camera (an Olympus) for the shots above because I like the ease of use of the zoom feature better.

I'm off for the day for some mother/daughter time but will attempt some more photography at dusk when I have time. My daughter told me I used incorrect automatic settings for the pics above.

Thanks for the encouragement, mbug. I'll keep trying until I get things right.

Irawon, unless you want to make a living out of it or an intense hobby a basic knowledge and a very smart camera are the best bet. I had a small Nikon Coolpix that I traveled all over the world with and I miss it. Canon makes great cameras as well.

Jon