2. A Fuji in Sweden !
Buondi’ ! 😊 New weekend, new Coffee Break Snap!
As you have probably guessed from the title, today I am not taking the coffee at my usual café’ in Basel, but … at my usual café’ in Malmö! Yes, I will spend this weekend in Sweden, visiting my boyfriend and all the places I missed the most.
True, maybe I did not tell you that I lived in Sweden for 14 years, from 2007 to 2021: Sweden gave me my PhD, many beautiful memories, and my boyfriend, so when I moved to Switzerland 4 years ago, I left in Malmö a piece of my heart. Being here is like being back Home…
But let’s talk photography now, before the coffee break is over (my boyfriend is already asking me if I am done writing… ooooops. I will bring him another coffee or two now, so we buy some more minutes 😉 ).
Most important thing: which camera and lens did I bring with me? This was the big dilemma, as always before a travel. At the end, I opted for the Fujifilm X-T5 + Fujifilm xf 23 mm f/1.4 LM WR.
Why this choice? Well, for this second coffee break together, I thought to show you how I reason when I go out for street photography at night, and although my go-to lens for most of my street creations is the Fujifilm 56 mm f/1.2 WR, the 23 mm focal length will allow me to show you a bit better some places I want to take you too. If cropping is needed, the 40 mpxls of the X-T5 will prevent resolution issues.
PREPARATION TIP 1: SAFETY
Are you used to shoot at night? I actually LOVE how streets transform at night, with all colors, reflections and lonely figures appearing and disappearing in the city. Of course, shooting at night may be not very safe, so I usually bring only one camera and one lens with me, and I walk with no headphones in my ears, to stay alert all the time. Last night I was lucky to have my “bodyguard” with me, but in general I keep one eye focused on what to create, while the other eye is scanning the street for potential dangers (… … let’s move on ;) ).
PREPARATION TIP 2: MULTIPLY YOUR CREATIVITY
If you are “coffee-break-snapping” with me, you probably know which is my favorite photography technique: multiple exposures! Exactly!
Shooting at night is ideal to multiply your creativity with multiple exposures, thanks to the subject isolation offered by the contrast between deep darks and bright neon lights. Since both my Fujifilm X-T4 and X-T5 have dual SD card slots, I assigned SD card 1 to RAW and SD card 2 to JPEG. In this way, I can leave the multiple exposure setting always turned on and attempt in-camera multiple exposures every time I want (…always… :) ), without the worry of ruining the first shot (which will be saved in SD card 1 in raw format).
I took a photo of the screen of my Fuji X-T5. I took the photo with my phone, so it is not the best photo ever, but at least you can see where the setting is!
Remember: the output of multiple exposures is ALWAYS a jpeg, so you will only find your creation in the SD card assigned to jpeg files. In the SD card assigned to RAW files, you will find the single shots you took to compose the multiple exposure image.
If you want to practice multiple exposures and have a camera with dual SD card slots, this might be a good tip for you.
In-camera multiple exposure; Fujifilm X-T5 + Fujifilm xf 23 mm f/1.4 LM WR
PREPARATION TIP 3: FIND INTERESTING LIGHTS
The etymology of the word photography is photos (ϕοτοσ), light, and graphos (γραοσ), writing, delineation, or painting. We all know that light is the most important thing in photography, right? Well, at night even more. Finding a street with some colorful lights coming from a restaurant, a house, a traffic light or streetlamps is essential for a good start of your night photo-adventure. In Italian we say “Chi ben comincia, e’ a meta’ dell’opera” (uhm… the translation could be “Well begun, half done”).
So, GO FIND THOSE INTERESTING LIGHTS!!!!!
In-camera multiple exposure; Fujifilm X-T5 + Fujifilm xf 23 mm f/1.4 LM WR
CAMERA SETTING TIPS: APERTURE, ISO, SS and EXPOSURE COMPENSATION
Night street photography means having to deal with low light and harsh contrasts, so we need to find a way to give the camera sensor enough light to capture the scene without unwanted camera shakes and noise, but we also want to avoid to blow out the details of the highlights.
Now I tell you the overall compromise that I have found, but I adjust it depending on my “here and now”.
1. Aperture: for night street photos, I usually bring with me my power horses (=fastest lenses), which are the Fujifilm XF 56 mm f/1.2 WR (my favorite!) or the XF 23 mm f/1.4 LM WR. I use the max aperture the lens allows (f/1.2 or f/1.4) when I want nail a shot of a silhouette walking in the night for example or when I want to create a nice bokeh with all the beautiful city lights. As I mentioned before, I always attempt in-camera multiple exposures, so for the following shot I choose the aperture depending on the situation (see my comment on the SS below).
2. ISO: I set the ISO to the maximum I can deal with. I mean, the higher the ISO, the higher the noise (grains) in the photos… so if you do not like noise maybe 3200 could work well… I do not mind noise, I can also go to 6400 honestly.
3. SS: the shutter speed really depends on how steady your hands are and most of all on the effect you want to achieve. When I just want to nail a sharp image of a person walking in the night, a 1/60 s works well for me… but if I want motion blur I may want to go for a long exposure (in that case I also need to readjust the aperture… well, you know this, I am not going to explain you the exposure triangle ;) ).
4. Exposure compensation: ok, this is important in my opinion. The biggest risk we may encounter when we shoot at night (immediately after the one to have our camera stolen 😉 ) is to blow out the details of the highlights. To avoid overexposing the bright areas of the image, I find it very useful to keep the exposure compensation to -1/2 or -1. The image will come out a bit dark, but it is much easier to increase a bit the exposure in post, that trying to recover “burnt” highlights.
Ok, in the end this was a long coffee break snap… I hope that you found some useful tip and that it was not too long 😊 These are just tips, not “must do”. If you would like to share some of your tips, please write them in the comments.
Since my boyfriend has already finished his third cappuccino, is better I go now!
Have a great continuation of your weekend! Chat soon again!
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