Kamil Tamiola Shows Us How To Create Awesome Nighttime Images

Alpine photographer Kamil Tamiola has made quite a name for himself shooting landscapes and people in hostile high-altitude environments. His work is stunning, and he admits that a large part of what sets him apart from other photographers is his use of nighttime and twilight imagery, which can be incredibly difficult to capture in this environment. In this video, a very cold Kamil will walk us through what it takes to create one of his gorgeous high altitude images.

via iso1200.com

Mike Kelley's picture

Michael Kelley (mpkelley.com) is a Los Angeles-based architectural and fine art photographer with a background in digital art and sculpture. Using his backgrounds in the arts, he creates images that are surreal and otherworldly, yet lifelike and believable. A frequent traveler, Michael's personal work focuses on the built environment of unique

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I think this guy's got the inverse square law a bit wrong...

That exact point would be one that I would LOVE clarification of.

I never thought of the rule in such a manner, but maybe it's true? Since anything that is being lit could be considered a light source, perhaps it works equally the way he says?

Any physics geniuses around?

Dear Domagoj, I see inverse square law as a physical phenomenon... Here is  some basic reading about this... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law#Light_and_other_electrom...

Hm...Doesn' it apply to the way the light falls off with the distance, relative to the subject and not the distance relative to the camera? If I move my camera a few meters back or forth, the amount of light hitting the lens stays the same. But if I move the light it's another story...

No! It is the camera that registeres the light, hence the distance of the observer (the photographer) with respect to the source is the key factor! Once again the inverse square law is a great simplification of more complicated phenomenon which involves the theory of the vector fields and the flux of light.

So you're saying that if I light my subject with any kind of light and decide to move my camera further or closer to the subject, I have to change my exposure values?

I am saying that if your subject is emitting light (point source) and you take a photo check the exposure, and after that move 4ft away with respect to your initial position, the effective light intensity will drop roughly 1/4² = 1/16 (16 times) and you will register less light with your camera. This is the most important practical implication of the inverse squares rule!

nikons long exposure noise reduction should 100% be on not of, as it will remove the noise generated from heat of the sensor. Also his comment on moving away from the subject to reduce exposure is valid in regards to the sky(starlight) as your only reducing the close light as the sky is ages away it wont effect them.

True indeed. The inverse square law is only applicable to the artificial point light sources (climbers with head torches e.g.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law#Light_and_other_electrom...

Dear Sean, obviously you are referring to so called Boltzmann noise. You may trust me or not (I have PhD in applied physics), I have tested the effect of the LONG EXPOSURE NOISE REDUCTION (built in) with respect to ALGORITHMS in e.g. Nik Define2 or median based noise reduction in Lightroom 4. I am always selecting for third-parity reduction methodologies.