Sydney By Night

There are 2 main schools of thought when it comes to photography at night. Actually there are probably more than two, but that's irrelevant.

One is to take a spot meter of certain areas and then calculate the settings you'll need to correctly expose the frame... or you can fire and pray.

I'm a fire and pray kind of man. I know what I need to let in the maximum and minimum amounts of light. It's finer things like exactly how long I need to set the shutter to be open for to get the effect I'm after. Setting white balance if there are a few different light sources (Moon, fluro lights, street lights, etc). The small things that are fun to change and see the effects. Like the difference on the water between a 5sec exposure and a 15sec exposure. I don't like going into a situation with as much potential as Sydney Harbour with a fixed idea in my head or it clouds my want for experimentation. One night at 9pm it might look good after 5 seconds, 2 nights later it might need 20 seconds. I like to experiment with these sorts of things. There is a calculator online to help with working these timings out, but who cares.

So, on my last weekend away with my wife before we have our first child in 2 weeks, I took the camera to take photos of Sydney Harbour at night. I'm the last of the romantics I know.

Nothing special here, just an Adobe Camera Raw preset and some level adjustments. Hope you enjoy.