“It was a dark and stormy night.”

Cadence

We planned on shooting at midnight when the moon was high enough in the sky to do portraits, but we got clouds, lightning, and wind. So we went with it.

The camera was mounted on a tripod. The exposure was a combination of flash and ambient light.  I used an on camera flash to light Cadence. The automatic flash sensor did a good job. If it didn’t I would have switched to manual flash.

For the ambient light exposure the camera shutter was set to B (for bulb).  I would hold the shutter button down until there were multiple flashes of light in the background to light up the clouds before letting up the shutter button. I had to experiment to get the exposure right for the background. I kept trying longer and longer shutter speeds and higher ISO settings until I got the look I wanted. I eventually ended up with exposure times around 20 to 30 seconds and I had the ISO at 2500.

Although Cadence was lit by flash, after the flash fired she had to freeze for 20 or 30 seconds until I closed the shutter. If she had moved the background would bleed through her image.

Cadence

Cadence before and after Topaz Sharpen AI. Click the image to see a larger version.

At ISO 2500 the images were pretty noisy. I used Topaz Sharpen AI software to remove the noise.

Photo Data: Canon 5D Mark III camera, Canon EF 17-40mm lens at 17mm.  Aperture: f/8. Shutter: 23 seconds. ISO 2500.