Night Time at Knowlton

Knowlton Church is a 14th Century ruin of a church which was built in the centre of a pagan earth circle dating from the Bronze Age.  After my accidental success with capturing the band of the Milky Way while in Devon last week, I wanted to get out and try again with some proper technique.  So, 3 of us armed with camera's, tripods and torches travelled up around 8pm on a Friday evening.

Immediately, it was obvious that there wasn't going to be much chance of capturing the Milky Way - the moon was almost full and like a spotlight in the sky.  When we got to Knowlton Church, it was easy to walk around without the use of a torch as the light was so bright.

I went with my 5D2 - this is a superb camera for landscape shots with a 21MP full frame sensor and excellent high ISO performance.  I took my 24-70 f2.8L lens, but quickly swapped it for the 17-40 f4L to get wider - there was really no need for f2.8 as there was no chance of capturing anything deep in space due to that bright moon!

The first shot shows the church under the stars.  Some light pollution is visible, probably from Blandford, but maybe generally in the sky from Poole/Bournemouth etc.  This shot shows the typical distortion you get from an UWA (ultra wide angle) lens - it's fairly easy to correct (but I didn't in this shot).  Note that you can click on any of the images for a bigger view.

 

Knowlton Church at Night (25s, f4, ISO1600)

Up on the ridge of the earth works, the church could be captured under the moon.  Typical exposures to capture detail in the moon are around 1/100s at f8 with a low ISO - this sort of exposure would end up with everything else black.  The resulting long exposure shot blows the moon out massively, losing all detail in that area and making it look like the Sun!  But, you can see the glow from the horizon and the stars which show the shot was taken at night.  The church didn't have a lot of detail, so Colin shone one of the bright torches over the building to bring out the detail - a technique known as "painting with light".

  

Knowlton Church under the Moon (30s, f9, ISO 1600)

I wanted to capture something from a different angle and get rid of the glare of the direct moon, so I went inside the ruins and took a wide angle shot upwards.  Over the time of the exposure, a small cloud drifted across the shot leading to the ghostly lines in the sky.  The bright halo of the moon is visible just the other side of the church wall.

  

Ghost Clouds (25s, f4, ISO 1600)

With a few "landscapey" shots in the bag, we started playing around.  Long exposure shots are great fun as if you don't stand in one place for very long then the camera won't capture your presence unless you're well lit.  So, running around, stopping occasionally and being lit with a torch can lead to this sort of picture:

  

Multi Me!  (30s, f9, ISO 3200)

Rob had brought along an LED torch, so as well as painting with light, we started drawing with the torch.  This shot shows how a long running spiral through the ruins comes out:

  

Spiral (30s, f9, ISO 3200)

Another effect can be captured by slowly zooming the lens during the shot.  Rob painted a kind-of solid cross in light as I zoomed from 40mm back to 17mm.  I deliberately got to 17mm with a few seconds to spare so the wider part of the image had more dominance in the final result:

  

Zoom Cross (30s, f9, ISO 3200)

My turn mucking around with the torch - I decided to write my name.  This shot has been horizonally reversed so it comes out right, otherwise you have to try and write backwards which will never look any good!

  

Richard  (30s, f9, ISO 3200)

This shot with a heart might make an interesting Valentines Day card - unfortunately we're about 2 weeks too late!  Still, the effect is nice:

  

Love (30s, f7.1, ISO 3200)

And finally, I wanted to capture something a little different, so I put the camera at a strange angle to get the whole of the church in and took a long exposure shot without any light painting to capture a more natural colour.  

 

Church (30s, f6.3,  ISO 1600)

As well as these shots, I also took some series of shots which I intend to try and align and merge to bring some more detail out in the sky.  This may or may not be successful - if it is, I will definitely post the results and technique up on here...

So, any conclusions?  A few:

• you won't capture the Milky Way when the moon is almost full and like a spotlight in the sky!
• Painting with light is a lot of fun and worth a try.  It takes a bit of getting right - too much torch light and you blow out details, not enough and the light can look patchy.
• Take time to make sure your shots are right - it's no good taking home 100 shots when you end up throwing them all away as they're all not quite right (focus, obstructions etc) - it's better to get one or two really well taken shots.
• There's no substitute for getting out and taking pictures!

You can find information about Knowlton Church from quite a few places on the web - this one is specifically about Knowlton and it's history: Knowlton Website