Better Available Light Digital Photography : How to Make the Most of Your Night and Low-light Shots

(Frankie) #1

110 Better Available Light Digital Photography


The NFL’s Denver Broncos were a client of Barry’s for many
years. It was necessary to always bring several different ISO
fi lms because a beautiful sunny Colorado day can turn to dark,
cloudy, and stormy in a heartbeat. At one late-season game, the
temperature at kickoff was 60 degrees under bright sun. By
halftime, a blizzard had blown into town. The day went from a
Kodachrome 64 to a high-speed, tungsten-balanced, pushed-
more-than-one-stop Ektachrome day. Barry, of course, had his
bags full of fi lm, selling several rolls of the high-speed stuff to
one of the Sports Illustrated out-of-town staff photographers
who wasn’t as well prepared. Finally, Barry purchased several
bricks (35 mm fi lm packaged in 20-roll bundles) of different ISO
fi lms for a Sports Illustrated–assigned golf tournament. One day
before his departure to the job, the magazine canceled the story,
leaving him with hundreds of dollars’ worth of fi lm that he
eventually used on other jobs. Thankfully, this kind of thing
doesn’t happen in the digital world. Simply changing the camera
settings solves all these problems.

A short time later, this race pho-
tograph was taken in early-
morning light simply by changing
the White Balance to the Cloudy
setting. © 2006 Barry Staver.

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