366 Days of 2012, Day 82 - Be Dazzled

I see this spectacular light show on Rundle Street several times a month when I head into the city in the evening for one reason or another. I'd never before tried to take a photo of it but when I tried this evening I realised it was not as easy as I thought it would be.

To start with I had no tripod so it would have to be a hand held shot. That meant a high iso and wide aperture just to get a reasonably short exposure. At 1/20 of a second I can still hold the camera quite still (Canon IS works wonders here!). As it turned out this was perfect.

A tripod and a long exposure would have smeared the colours around the image rather than help depict the individually lit and moving elements. Too short an exposure would have resulted in me struggling with low light levels or dealing with lots of image noise. It seems 1/20 of a second was just about right for the best effect.

The display put on quite a light show transitioning through a great range of combinations. It took quite a few shots before I managed to capture something pleasing.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 82 - Be Dazzled'. 1/20 sec at 60mm f/4.0, ISO 1000