Last week I was able to join the Night Photoworkshop led by Alessandro Della Bella. Alessandro is known from his work of Helvetia by Night, which is well known in Switzerland.
We met at 9pm at the Prätschli Hotel in Arosa. There where about 10 people waiting, including Alessandro. He welcomed us and asked if someone would need some additional gear. I was fine with my tripod, and as he is a Canon shooter, I can not use any of his lenses 😉
I was absolutely not prepared for this shoot, so I packed what I had already in Arosa:
- Nikon D850
- 16-35mm f4 zoom lens
- backup was my 24-70mm f2.8
- my sturdy tripod
- forgot my remote trigger, so I was only able to expose a maximum of 30s
- a bag full of M&M’s
- warm clothing and some water
We walked up to the Prätschsee and got ready as the sky got darker.
Alessandro came around and helped us with the settings and tips.
One very useful hit was how to focus at night… it’s rather easy:
- use your life-view
- move the lens into manual focus mode
- zoom in into the brightest star
- focus until your star is “sharp”
Frame your image, and off you go.
With regards to the settings, as I did not want to do (and could not do) a star trail, the exposure is equal or less than 30s. With my lens in question, I had an aperture of f4. Which led to an ISO around 2000.
So let’s enjoy the results…
roman
