More months past, and we come to the end of 2017. Still only bringing out the camera to special events. This time we took a trip down to Callaway Gardens for their Christmas lights show.
1/60 Sec - F5 - 42mm - ISO 1250
A silly picture of my younger siblings in the back seat as we started our trip. It wasn’t too far to get there from outside of Atlanta where I currently live. A few hours drive I think.
Not a bad experience, lots to spend money on that’s for sure. I remember throwing caution to the wind and getting at least one or two alcoholic drinks. And then eating whatever I felt like, which was really pricey for the food being just okay. But we wondered through the gift shop, and found a giant nutcracker.
Just a quick shot from my phone
They look so thrilled.
But on to the main event, the sun was going down and they started playing the story of Christmas with a little light display.
1/15 Sec - F3.5 - 18mm - ISO 3200
It was interesting, from a technical standpoint I would have liked to see the behind the scenes for this. All the different lights they had set up for the different parts of the story.
But on to the main event, we got loaded onto the trolley and started the miles of lights. Which I think got hyped up a little bit too much from my girlfriend who hadn’t been since being a child. I imagine it looked a lot cooler before. And maybe part of that was my own expectations. I think I was expecting every second of the ride to be lights. There was a lot of dead space between the stuff they had up. Also people ruin everything. There were people talking the entire time so you couldn’t hear the music and the voice recording to go along with the ride. Several people decided to try and record or take pictures with their phone, which meant the flash was constantly going off.
Which brings me to my own shooting experience. Not knowing what to expect I put my camera into an auto mode. Which typically worked out for me at the time because I didn’t know what I was doing. But if you’re going to try and shoot barely lit objects, or light itself. From a moving trolley. You get something like this.
0.6 Sec - F5.6 - 55mm - ISO 3200
Not really what I had in mind when I thought about how the images would turn out. Now thankfully I did review these shots during one of the many blank times between displays. And started trying to learn how to correct this on the fly. I knew I needed a faster shutter to cut down on the motion blur, but too fast and there wouldn’t be any light at all.
1/ 15 Sec - F5.6 - 47mm - ISO 3200
Getting there. Still too much motion blur, but you could tell what this one was. I won’t go through all the shots I did before I got it down, but it was a fair amount of playing around.
1/25 Sec - F5.6 - 55mm - ISO 6400
1/50 Sec - F5.6 - 55mm - ISO 5000
Besides these being grainy messes with the ISO having to be cranked up so high, I think I was getting the hang of it. I probably missed half the shots because I kept checking the screen to see if I was getting it right.
1/200 Sec - F5.6 - 20mm - ISO 6400
1/100 Sec - F5.6 - 82mm - ISO 3200
This swan was really cool, it was out on a lake as well. If I had thought about it, should have got a shot of it and the reflection for a cool mirror effect. I do also notice the lens swap here to the telephoto. Since this was taken at a range far beyond my kit lens of 18-55mm.
1/100 Sec - F5.6 - 101mm - ISO 6400
Very important lessons learned here. About shooting events where you can’t bring certain things with you. Couldn’t really bring a tripod onto the trolley. Being prepared for what you’re going to see, if you know about it ahead of time like I did. And just general camera knowledge I would gain later on. I’m sure given the same equipment now I would have been able to shoot at the very least, more photos. I’d like to think better ones from a technical standpoint. Or maybe just better composed ones.
But overall, a lesson in manual exposure on the fly was learned. I still think back to this when I’m out shooting in low light situations.