Minus 3 photography

We had a nice clear night last night so we headed up to a wee car park at the top of Livingston to try and get some night shots of my friend's car. I had wanted to go for a series of 30s exposures over the course of an hour so I could stack them into not only a cool picture but also a time lapse movie. Unfortunately we didn't quite have enough time (or body warmth) to last that long and we were having so much fun trying out light painting that we decided to treat this as a test.

I can see the final shot I want in my head and I now know it's possible. I think it's even worth losing a finger or two to frostbite!

So here's a couple of pics. The first was around the 2 and a half minutes exposure mark at f5.6 ISO200. I was using the 10-20 lens. The second was about the 4 and a half minute mark because I'd stopped down to about f8 to get the 'star' effect on the flashes. I just obviously walked around the car with the flash on a light stand (to keep the height similar). I was taking two big steps each flash to try and get the spacing even.

The light in the sky isn't sunset, it's the distant lights of either Livingston or Edinburgh. You could see the faint yellow glow with the naked eye and it just burned in nicely during the exposure. It was enough to add interest but not too much to flare out the stars. Also, for the first picture we used a shoot through brolly and basically popped it about 5 times around the car during the exposure. The brolly gives it a softer look as does 'layering' it by using multiple lower power 'pops'. I think we used 1/4 power on the SB600.

We're quite pleased with how these turned out and will be going back to try the full shoot very soon :) Have to say thanks to Paul for braving the cold and the late night :)

See these bigger on my flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32978793@N05/

or smugmug
http://imonk.smugmug.com/gallery/1489634_LaqVq#P-3-20

Cheers
Ian