TAOP - Light - Project: Light through the day 

The purpose of this exercise is take a series of images from dawn to dusk, one per hour and a few more during the final hour as the sun moves toward the horizon, to show how the light changes through the day

The exercise comes a long for me at the end of June so its an early start and a late finish.

I would have preferred to use a better scene but given I need to take about images over 16 hours a location close for me was important in addition to being able to capture the same scene repeatedly and consistently. 

Due to the long timespan I've decided to set up my tripod on the drive and using a zoom lens focus in on Eastbach Airfield and capture the light as it changes. This is a private airfield on the top of hill across a valley from me. Its little more than a strip of mown grass in a field where a few small planes and micro lights fly from.

Its taken me a while to be able to have the time for this and in preparation I have:

a) checked the sunrise and sun set times for my location. Its 4:53am (gulp) and 21:32

b) I checked the weather to ensure I had a sunny day on a weekend

c) I pre-tested the view I wanted in advance including the tripod angle I wanted. Once the tripod itself was set I didn't change the settings but I marked the spot for the tripod feet so I could repeat the same view for each of the images. This enabled me to bring in the camera and tripod. We are lucky to live in a relatively crime free area but it was prudent not to tempt fate. All images have been taken using a remote shutter release.

If you look carefully at bottom left edge and middle right edge you can see 2 of the 3 red circles I've marked for the tripod feet to ensure I get the tripod in exactly the same position each time, the tripod and head settings were left set


Part of my selection was to include some trees so that the colours of the leaves could also be seen in different colours as the light changes and a decent portion of the sky to capture the colours as the sun sets.

All images are jpegs with no processing other than to resize the images. I'm updating these on the blog as I go along.


5am

The sun is too low to light the hill of the tree as the sun starts to rise; it rises behind the camera, the camera is pointing south west. The light is almost blue and without heat warmth

6am

A significant change in the light  between this image and the one above at sunrise

7:30am

Unfortunately I fell asleep and so missed the 7am image
Here the sun is clearly lighting the field and the trees

8am

9am

10am

Shutter speeds are increasing as the light gets stronger

11am

12 Noon

1pm

Between 12 and 1pm the sun is it its highest and now on the left of the camera (south) and almost overhead. The colours of trees and grass in fields have over the morning changed colour, and is the image above shadow can be seen in the trees as the sun shines overhead; the top of the trees and now lighter, perhaps off colour in the bright light. The colour of the light now appears colourless



2pm

You can see how the sun has moved behind the willow tree (bottom left) and how some of the tree that faces us is now in shade

3pm

The sun is now facing the camera but I've positioned the shots so that it would be out of frame (above) as it went passed the camera. T
4pm

Looking at the tree to the left of the image and then back at 3 or 4 or the previous images you can see how the colour of the leaves are are different, being lit differently as the sun starts to move around, The right side if the tree is now being lit

The images between 1pm and 5pm show a harsher and stringer light, it was the same for the heat and warmth of the sun. Images taken at this time of the day for this time of the year will have stronger light and more defined shadows. Not a good time for portraits as people may have seen from images taken which create less than flattering images




5pm

The sun is getting quite low and the strength of light low and so shutter speeds are slowing and I'm needing the tripod and remote shutter

6pm

The sun has now moved to the right of the camera and the brightness of the sun is much reduced, there is now almost no visible light reflection on the leaves compared to the previous images



7pm

The quality of the light is now changing and appears to be starting to head toward a bluer colour. I notice there is now more cloud, now doubt a meteorologist could explain this, perhaps as moisture in the ground heated by the sun during the day now starts to condense as it cools


8pm

The light is now starting to fade



8.30pm

I decide to take some more images as we enter the final hour before the sun sets, for today its estimated at 9:35pm



8.50pm

The quality of light is now reducing and I can see how the camera is struggling to expose correctly with the lighter sky, darker foreground and haze



9.10pm

As we enter the final 30 minutes before the sun sets (right of camera) you can see in this image (right) the cloud is lit almost pink by the sun and the field underneath has also picked up this orange/red/pink colour also. Within a minute of taking this image I've taken the camera off the tripod and taken this handheld from the corner of my garden, about 45 degrees right of the original camera position.

Shooting directly into the sun as it sets the camera has done very well in exposing the image with no flare. It didn't look this colour with the eye but the cameras exposure has compensated in exposing the bright light with a faster shutter speed and almost put into silhouette the other elements within the frame.



9.30pm

Just before sunset the available light is low in strength and a hazy effect is visible. The light is softer and less harsh and less extreme contrast is visible in shades of the leaves on the trees

I've again taken the camera off the tripod hand held and repeated what I did above shooting directly at the sun just a few minutes before the sun sets

The strength of the light has considerably weakened and its interesting to see how the camera has exposed this (all images taken in aperture priority with aperture at f/8). I'm handheld hence the camera shake. I could have increased the ISO to get a faster shutter speed to eliminate this but the purpose of the image was to try and demonstrate the light quality just as the sun sets

9.40pm 

This is the final image of the set and the quality of the light is reduced and causing minimal shadow. The colour takes on a blue appearance and heads towards the opening image


Reflections
I had left this exercise for a while due to the commitment of the activity and my available time - this has been a 16 hour period all performed on the same day. This is the first time I have done something like this and I think it has been very rewarding and has been an insightful activity reflect on how light changes through the day.

Whilst I would have preferred a better location to focus on and have a set of images with something more rewarding to look at, I still think my choice of combining sky, fields and trees has been a good one as they have all very clearly reflected how colours, shadows, light direction and reflections change during the course of the day. This can been seen in the images though the changes are subtle. Some of this I have commented on.

Looking back across this images the next day as I write this final piece. its very interesting to to see the light changes which without I would not have fully appreciated

I have had a look for some on-line software as being able to to display this set of images as a rolling display where each image gets a few seconds would have been great way to display this. Unfortunately I don't believe I can do this via this blog. Something for me to look into.

In terms of the images I think I liked the 5am image the best, the soft blue light and the recognition of the start of a new day just starting. Had my camera position been such as to capture the sun set then the image at 9:10pm of the sun is also quite dramatic and in contrast one of warmth to one of cold