Photography Pridays!! 03.08.2019

Happy Friday!! There is no particular genre of photography for today’s topic. Although I will be talking more about taking pictures in rainy weather; Disclaimer, I will be talking about “SoCal rain” which is mostly ferocious sprinkling.

Most DSLR’s and Mirrorless cameras today are weather sealed, but I would highly recommend double checking the manual or specs sheet to see if it is officially protected. These shot I used my Olympus em1 mark ii with 12-100mm f4 the less popular and hipster brother to the Panasonic G9 or Gh5 for that matter. These cameras are highly rate to be weather sealed with the em1 mark ii having so many video proving its resistance to the elements.

But wait there’s more! remember even if the body is sealed, albeit, with a lens attached…the lens should also have some kind of gasket around the mount to prevent moisture from seeping into the sensor. In a little drizzle this will work fine,but for more torrential down pours look for something weather sealed to complement the body.

The when you are sure your gear is property protected be sure to protect yourself as well! wouldn’t want you to miss the shot because you slipped. For camera settings I tend to expose to the right on my Em1 mark ii meaning I shoot slightly overexposed and pull the details back in post. Try to keep the ISO low if there is bright diffused light in order to maximize the dynamic range. I used the extended low at ISO 64 this allowed me to keep the reflections of puddle from being blown-out i.e. stop it from getting super bright.

If it is raining with heavy defined drops, such as having slower shutter speed this will give some nice motion blur to the water, but if there is a lot of light you will need a neutral density filter to cut the light. For street photography, a shutter speed of around 1/400- 1/800 will yield good results for people moving and static subjects. In the case of the picture about I might have been able to pull more detail from the very bright tile.

There are definitely certain moody characteristics to the environment after rain. Yeah, there will be fewer people, which could be a plus or minus. Rain gives a different feel to life obviously the setting on your camera have to be adjusted, but so does life itself in the raining weather. Changes that aren’t enough to be a whole 360-degree shift; just enough to be able to do what you need to. Keep Snapping friends!