Category Archives: Night Photography

20 February 2025 (Joe Gilhooley: If I Can Do It, You Can Do It)

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The club was delighted to welcome Joe Gilhooley from Loanhead, Midlothian to talk about his work. Joe’s interest in digital photography began in 2010, when he wanted to record his daughter growing up. He purchased a Canon DSLR and took the camera on family trips. He developed a liking for landscape photography but fell into the usual trap of coming home with 400 scattergun images of the same scene. He now recommends pretending you have a roll of film and only capturing the small number of images you think are worth keeping. Joe has 3 Canon DSLR camera bodies, a Sony compact camera, and a selection of 9 lenses. He always uses a tripod for landscape photography and recommends using the camera in “mirror up” mode with a remote shutter release to prevent camera shake. Joe’s love of landscape photography won him the “Scots Magazine Photographer of the Year” award in 2017 and 2019. Joe joined the Royal Photographic Society in 2020 and achieved an LRPS qualification in 2021 and is working towards the ARPS qualification. You can see more of Joe’s work on his web site:

http://www.joegilhooley.co.uk/

Joe started by showing us the 10 images he had submitted to win his LRPS qualification, which included a night view of the Forth Bridges, a night view of Edinburgh from Calton Hill, star trails over the Belhaven Bridge and a clever still life which simulated colours being painted onto a bowl of fruit. Joe likes to take his landscape images during the blue hour: the hour just before sunrise or just after sunset when sky is still bright enough to give a blue background. Joe watches the weather forecast and will often drive to a location at short notice to arrive in time for the perfect conditions. Calm conditions at sunrise are ideal for capturing still reflections and morning mist. Joe took us on a journey across Scotland, showing us a wide variety of excellent images of castles, gardens, monuments, lochs, mountains and iconic viewpoints. His subjects included landscapes, cityscapes, wildlife, star trails and fireworks. In 2022, Joe successfully applied for a press contract to photograph the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, which gave him the opportunity to capture some beautiful images of the event. Joe had also offered his services to several football clubs, and had obtained a press pass to capture images of key moments during their games. Joe finished by showing us some of his sports photography images. Joe uses two camera bodies for his sports photography. One body has a 400mm lens attached, which he uses to capture distant action. The other has a 70-200mm lens, which he uses when the action gets closer. He uses fast (f2.8) lenses and a very high ISO to achieve the fast shutter speeds required for sports photography. A monopod helps to support the weight of his heavy 400mm lens.

It was a fascinating evening where Joe gave us hints about good places and times to take photographs and encouraged us not to be afraid to contact organisations like sports clubs and local newspapers who may need a local photographer.

  • We are having our “Sense of Speed” club photoshoot this Saturday, 22nd February at 10:30am in Lewisvale Park, Musselburgh, EH21 7AR. Bring your camera to practice photographing bicycles, dogs and people moving against a background. For best results bring a lens with a large maximum aperture, such as f2.8.

20 October 2022 (Paul Money: Astrophotography)

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This week was another joint Zoom talk hosted by Beeslack Penicuik Camera Club. Paul Money, an astronomer and ‘Reviews’ editor of the BBC ‘Sky at Night’ magazine, connected from Lincolnshire to give us a guide to astrophotography. Paul has written a book on astrophotography called “Nightscenes: Guide to Simple Astrophotography” and mentioned that a new version of that book is about to be published.

Paul began by describing his early forays into astrophotography, using a Zenit film camera and high ISO slide film. Those were difficult days for astrophotography because the relatively low ISOs meant you needed long exposures, and you couldn’t see what you were getting until the film was developed. Paul was enthused by the latest developments in digital photography. His latest Canon camera can go up to 120000 ISO, and even modern mobile phones can now capture hand-held images of the night sky! Canon and Nikon cameras seem to be equally good at capturing good images of the night sky. We were given the following hints and tips for good astrophotography:

  • Turn off the noise reduction in your camera settings. Faint stars look like noise and will be removed.
  • Set your camera to manual exposure and manual focus. Most night shots are too dark for your camera’s autofocus to work properly. You can focus on a bright street light at least a mile away or use the “live view” option on your camera to adjust the focus to make the stars look as small as possible.
  • Most exposures will need a high ISO setting, but Paul recommends going no higher than ISO 1600 to get the best quality. Shots of the Moon or bright planets can be done at lower ISO settings.
  • Use a wide aperture, ideally a stop down from the widest setting of your lens. Paul tends to use f/5 but recommends stopping down to f/11 for scenes which include the full Moon or bright lights.
  • Use a decent tripod so you can take long exposures without camera shake. You can fit the tripod with a ball and socket bracket that allows you to point the camera upwards at any angle.
  • Also use a remote shutter release; preferably one that can make a timed exposure or take several exposures at regular intervals.
  • Don’t use a filter. You need to get as much light into your camera as possible through as few glass surfaces as possible.
  • Use a red light to help you see without spoiling your night vision. You can buy a special red torch or just cover an ordinary torch with a red wrapper.

Paul then gave us a quick introduction to the night sky. The stars rise in the east and set in the west and appear to rotate around the north celestial pole. If you point a camera north and take a long exposure you will see star trails revolving around the pole. The stars tend to move more slowly in the sky around this point, so you can get away with longer exposures before they start to trail. If you point your camera away from the pole the stars will move across the sky more quickly and you’ll need a shorter exposure. The exposure also depends on the kind of lens you are using, with telephoto lenses requiring the shortest exposure. Paul gave us the following guide to maximum exposure time before the stars start to trail:

  • Wide angle lens (18mm): Near the pole (60 seconds), Away from the pole (40 seconds)
  • Standard lens (50mm): Near the pole (30 seconds), Away from the pole (20 seconds)
  • Telephoto lens (135-300mm): Near the pole (20 seconds), Away from the pole (10 seconds)
  • Super telephoto (500mm): Near the pole (2 seconds), Away from the pole (1 second)

Paul took us on a quick-fire, enthusiastic and fascinating tour of various types of astrophotography, ranging from wide-angle shots of the constellations, star trails with foreground objects, telephoto views of the planets, a lunar eclipse, Earthshine on the Moon, noctilucent clouds and shots of the aurora borealis. Paul mentioned that, although most photographers like Adobe Photoshop, he prefers PaintShop Pro. He also recommended StarStax software for combining multiple images of the night sky.

If you would like more information here are some of our previous talks on astrophotography:

Ford Renton: Practical Astro-photography

Andy Bennetts: Astrophotography & Action Photography

Next week we have a Digital Photo Feedback session. This session replaces our old “Photo Advice Night”, which was based on prints. Please bring along up to 6 digital images (or email them to me) to get feedback and advice from other members. See you on Thursday.

Steven