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Lights and mist #1

Ruthin at night, with streetlights shining through mist, North Wales

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The story behind this image

Who would have thought a foggy night would have yielded any potential for photography? And yet there I was, stood in the car park at the foot of Moel Famau, looking out over a fogbound Vale of Clwyd marvelling at the play of light from the town of Ruthin far below me.

One of the main advantages of digital photography for me is the ability of the camera's sensor to pick up details in the night sky that the human eye can't define, and I was pleasantly suprised while processing this image file to find stars in the sky that I wasn't able to see with the naked eye on the night in question.

Another advantage is the ability to control and adjust white balance. When I looked at this scene my eye/brain system did an auto white balance which rendered the sky black, but when I downloaded and examined the file the daylight white balance setting that I normally use rendered the sky a beautiful deep blue.

Just fantastic, and well worth making the effort to go out on what was a very unpromising night for photography.

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Image data


Filename - lights mist 01.jpg

Camera - Canon 5D

Lens - 24-105mm zoom @ 24mm

Exposure - 20secs @ f5, ISO400

Location - Ruthin, North Wales

This image - 800x533px JPEG

Conversion - ACR & PS-CS2

Comments - Tripod, mirror lockup and cable release used to prevent camera movement.