Wallpaper: Kenya at Night
Click the photo above to download wallpaper.
I know I said I was done posting on the Kenya trip. I guess I lied. But I hope you can forgive me as I want to give you a wallpaper for your desktop. This was taken on the last night I was in Kenya. You have already seen a version of this earlier. I think this version works better as a wallpaper than the prior image. We were at Mida Creek which is a mangrove reserve and as such is the home to many different species of birds. The staff and volunteers of A Rocha Kenya were doing a night time bird ringing. Many of the volunteers where from a local Kenyan group called the Mida Creek Bird Club. It was exciting to see these young men take such a interest in the conservation an of these birds and in their community. I hope you can use this wallpaper as a way to remember the wonderful work being done by A Rocha Kenya.
Simply click HERE or click the image above to download the wallpaper.
Matt,
Can you tell us about how you captured this shot? Like how you got such great detail in the stars, clouds and foreground but the fire scene isn’t all blown out.
Jeff
Jeff, certainly, there is no secret here. Here is the EXIF data:
Exposure Time: 25 sec
Exposure Program: Manual
ISO Speed Rating: 500
Lens Aperture: f/3.2
Exposure Bias: 0 EV
Metering Mode: Spot
Flash: No Flash
Focal Length: 16.00 mm
There is no magic here. The shot was take about an hour or so after sunset. So, the sky was not super “black” and the moon was up, though it was not full it did add light to the ground. The fire was small, this is why it is not blown out. Frankly, the fire IS blown out in other frame. Does this help explain things?
BTW: I didn’t use a tripod. I simply set the camera on the tailgate of a pickup truck and prayed. 😉
I think I had wrongly assumed that this was taken very late at night. It makes good sense now that you explain it. BTW I am also a fan of using rocks and things as tripods. It doesn’t always work really well but better than nothing. This shot looks nice and sharp. (Don’t tell Gitzo.)
Jeff
Very nice, Matt. You mentioned that you metered in spot mode. What did you meter on?
Ian, Here is the deal. I was focusing and metering in manual. So I really judged it by the seat of my pants. I knew I didn’t want a super long exposure because I was virtually hand holding it (BTW, when I was digging in Lightroom looking for this image for the EXIF data, I saw that this was in fact NOT one of the images I held on the back of the truck. This one was much lower and I rested the camera on a stone, very close to the ground.) so I wanted to keep it short. I kept my aperture as open as much as I could (f/3.2) to give me a shorter shutter time and gave it several tries to find the closed exposure I liked, in this case it happened to be 24 sec. Does this make sense?