camera-playing at night

Very productive article writing night tonite, shows how boring and uneventful my nite is ^^

There's this place in my town called Kali Code, literally translated "the river code" (you read code = cho-day, instead of reading it like it was the title of Dan Brown's book) and me and some pals like to go-a-wandering there, sitting for a few hours (usually midnite) to sip some warm coffee and enjoying the breeze.. its quite a slow nightlife there, just loads of people talking in the outdoors under the starry sky :)

I suddenly remembered last night about a photography trick.. Its partly exploiting the irregularities of the camera at night, its a mix between panning and going bonkers hahaha.. So you put your camera on night mode, if you use an SLR use a slow shutter speed (interestingly you dont need a tripod for steadiness on this one) keep the ISO mid i guess (200-300?), and if you could use a narrowed focus (2.ish) there'e be cooler effects you can get.. In my case i used a stupid handphone camera, so all i can play around with is clicking on the "night mode".. But i found as crappy as this camera is, it apparently could still be played with.. What you do is first you move around your camera (in circles, figure 8s, or whatever, just move it!) then in the middle push the click, and keep it moving (for handphone cameras keep going for 2 seconds, for SLR users as long your shutter speed is).. Make sure you dont point something dark (this only works at nite) if not it'd all be useless --"

then you'd get something like this..




The better your camera is, the better and cooler effects you'll get.. I personally think these are pretty spiffy and entertaining stuff.. So much to play around with when you hold cameras at night.. Start experimenting guys! :)