The United Kingdom is renowned for its imperial heritage, but for us landscape photographers, its rolling plains, cliffs, and mountainous reliefs provide rare natural opportunities for us to capture. During my year residing in East Sussex, England, I tried to go on excursions to such sights as much as possible, from the chalk cliffs of the South Downs to Hadrian’s Wall that defined the informal borders of England and Scotland, and the natural landscapes in between. Some of the image I have already posted, like the chalk cliffs of the Seven Sisters, and more are still to come in future Pic-A-Days.
Living in rural England was also an opportunity to escape the light pollution that plagues metropolitan settings like Toronto or London. Looking up on a clear night might convince you that perhaps those romance novel cliches like “seeing the stars reflected in your eyes” weren’t so overblown. Photography-wise, a nightscape with the absence of artificial light is perfect for long exposures, but best of all, time-lapse sequences. Being new to the genre, I bought a intervalometer unit for my camera and began experimenting. Here is one of my better attempts. I recommend watching in 1080p in full screen since YouTube heavily compresses the file.
This was compiled using 653 frames that were downsampled from 10 Megapixels to 1080p, about 2 Megapixels, and edited in Adobe AfterEffects. While the sequence was shot successfully, there were some limitations in terms of sensor noise that translated to the softness in the video, along with blotchy artifacts. And although I said there was no artificial light, this particular location in the garden grounds of Herstmonceux Castle had tungsten floodlights in the distance, trading absolute darkness for a better composition.
But through such experiments, I have learned some things to watch out for. Firstly, calibrating white balance is essential to getting natural looking night skies and is unfortunately done through trial and error, or if there is enough moonlight, using a white/grey card. For a less precise but more time-saving strategy is to set the white balance to Daylight and correct any problem in post. While it may not be most economic to shoot RAW that fills up a memory card quite fast, I think the same principles for image quality apply for space-hungry sequence shots. With RAW, there is much more headroom for post-processing, like white balance, that may save you from standing in the cold for hours again. I have yet to try this technique, but if you happen to have a power outlet near you (in a field?) or a quantum pack, shooting tethered would be possible. Lastly and nevertheless, a plethora of batteries, a sturdy tripod, and a dual battery vertical grip or AC power are key ways for smooth and interruption-free footage for compiling. Enjoy.
