One of the most visually impressive sights on the North Wales coast is the huge historic castle at Caernarfon.
Situated right on the seafront at the mouth of the Afon Seiont, the castle looms over the small tidal harbour and town, and it was overlooking the harbour that was my chosen spot for this time lapse video.
With the tide just starting to come in around sunset my plan was to record stills for an hour or so as darkness fell, with the incoming tide floating the boats in the harbour while the castle lights came on a gave a nice reflection of the castle walls in the still waters of the harbour.
Good plan - and for early stage of the shoot as the natural light was diminishing the plan seemed to be working perfectly.
But as the sky got darker and darker I waited in vain for the castle lights to come on, only to find out from a passing fellow photographer that the castle hadn't been lit all week!
Bummer! What was I to do?
I thought about packing up in disgust, but then I thought a bit more and realised I could use this situation to my advantage.
Having photographed the castle at night before, I knew that the the artifically lit walls were quite bright, and I had to limit my exposure setting to prevent the lit walls from burning out, thus causing the surrounding darker areas to be rendered completely black.
But with the unlit castle walls being of roughly the same brightness as the surrounding scenery, especially the foreground boats bobbing in the water of the harbour, I could use a much longer shutter speed and ISO setting towards the end of the video than if the castle walls had been lit, thus preserving shadow detail in areas of the frame that would have turned completely black otherwise.
So what I thought was a problem turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
I'm certainly glad I didn't follow my first instinct to give up when things didn't happen according to my original plan.
Filename - caernarfon timelapse 07.mp4
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 17-40mm zoom @ 22mm
Exposure (start of sequence) - 0.8 sec @ f4, ISO100
Exposure (end of sequence) - 10 secs @ f4, ISO800
Filters - 2 stop neutral density graduated filter used to balance the exposure between the scene and its reflection.
Shooting interval - 10 seconds
Location - Caernarfon, North Wales
This clip - HD 720p, 30fps
Clip duration - 17 seconds
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