It was full moon recently -as it happens often- and I wanted to try and mess with long exposures on the digital camera. The thing is that while I was cycling to the lake I thought “damm it , I don’t have the tripod with me!” But then again, who needs a tripod when all one wants sometimes is to play? So I decided to use the camera’s body as my tripod, and place it anywhere I could, really. At the beginning it was messy and unstable, but quickly I found ways to rest the camera in certain places, like over rocks, steps, trash cans, etc. to get, if not an appropriate level, at least a firm hold.
You see, I haven’t had fun with my cameras ever since I went digital. Somehow there is a need for perfection, for high definition, for sharpness, that I wasn’t looking for when shooting for example with my Lomo collection of plastic cameras, or even the Seagull or my pinhole box. Yes, perfection may be experienced to be no fun in cases. What I really wanted that night was to get out, look at the moon over the lake, and its reflection; walk in the park and use the camera as that therapeutic tool that use to be free of critical underpinning, innocent.
I discovered a good few tricks for long exposures with the Nikon D300 that will be handy at other non-playful times. Also, I saw how the noise levels are affected in different settings, and above all I just had a bit of much needed digital fun.
These images above are what I could salvage from the experiment. Nothing great, but fun. I will post here some proper night shots of the lake Zurich as soon as I can.
