Photographing Spectromagic

[Administrator]

Okay, this is a very tricky one and most poeple frankly just won't be able to get the shot they desire.

Let's approach this from the point of view of having the type of camera that most people have. The small, compact digital camera. They can range from $100 to nearly $500. However, regardless of the quality of the camera you purchased, you likely will have trouble getting the shot you want.

Why? Why can't you take "good" pictures of Spectromagic? Well first of all, it is at night and to put it simple, a camera is built around light. The way the shutter works, the senseor and lense, it is all built around refracting light. Without light, a camera is typically out of it's element.

In recent years, these companies who create these cameras have tried to counter this problem by providing you more options. The option to help fight darkness is called ISO. In basic terminology, the higher the ISO, the lighter the image will be. However, you must be very careful, ISO can be a very bad and destructive thing to your photo quality. When you start raising the ISO, you start getting something called "noise" in your photo. This is the grainy, brown sprinkling you see peppered throughout the photo. Too much of this and it ruins the photo.

The other counter to darkness is a longer shutter speed. Manufacturers are putting this option to lengthen shutter speed in most digital cameras today. Putting it simply, the longer the shutter is open, the brighter the photo can be. In many cases, you can actually make it appear brighter outside than it actually is. However, as well, this can be bad and destructive to a photo. While your shutter is open, it causes anything moving to blur, which is why anytime you use a longer shutter speed (shutter speed is listed on your camera in seconds, 1/1000, 1/500, 1/250, 1 second, 3 seconds, etc). However, even with a tripod, anything that is moving outside of the tripod will blur. If you are looking to get into photography, this is something many photographers do on purpose, in an artistic way.

Here is an example: In the photo below, the camera was on a tripod, and because everything except for the ferry is still, it is sharp. This shot was about 3 seconds, and because during that time the ferry was moving, you can see it is blurred.



This is the problem with photographing spectromagic. Well, sort of. So we know we can't use a long shutter speed because the parade is moving and the photo will blur.

So, you say, "let's go with a higher ISO" (assuming you can control this on your camear, if not, skip down because this won't apply). However the problem is, most consumer grade cameras don't handle ISO very well and even a slight adjustment upwards can really create havoc. Just FYI, even $2,000 cameras fight this, but handle it better.

So, lastly, you say to yourself "duh, use the most obvious option, a flash!". Well not so fast there Trigger! There's a problem with that as well. Have you ever actually tried to use a flash on Spectromagic? Have you noticed what the photos look like? Basically the flash is brighter than the thousands of lights on the floats and drowns out the colors.

I think however, this IS the best option, though not ideal. Yes, you will get a still photo, with no blur and you can EASILY photograph the characters. However, just understand that you will lose much of the beauty and color related to the lights on the float. Unfortunately without thousands of dollars spent on camera equipment, this is probably the best you will do.