Submitter's name:	Hans van Veluwen
Title:	Night Shift
Camera:	Olympus iS-3000
Exposure Mode:	Night Scene Program + Zoom Exposure
Aperture:	F4.5~F5.6
Shutter Speed:	approx. 1/2 sec.
Film:	Kodak Gold 400
Location:	A10/E35, the ring highway of Amsterdam
Technique:	I just set up the iS-3000 on tripod on a bicycle bridge over the A10 highway, and experimented with various night exposure techniques. I deliberately used the iS-3000 instead of the OM-4Ti, because I wanted to give the built-in Night Scene Program and Zoom Exposure of the iS-3000 a test drive. Now which better location for a test drive than the highway? ;) In the Night Scene Program an automatic negative exposure correction is applied, to prevent darkness to be washed out and highlights to be burnt in; Zoom Exposure, which can only be activated in the Night Scene Program, and only when the automatically selected shutter speed drops below 1/3 of a second, lets you zoom during exposure. I know, I know, this technique is a relic from the seventies, but since Olympus went into the effort of building it into the iS-3000, I thought I would at least give it a try. I also made some exposures in Manual Mode with small apertures, which resulted in more classic night scene traffic shots, with long beams of red and white light, and I also used a star effect filter on some shots, quite nice too, but the Zoom Exposure shots were the most spectacular and alienating. I only made one mistake: I underestimated the amount of light at the scene. Since I needed really long exposures, a slower film and / or an ND filter would have been very useful.
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Comment left by: Barry Bean (bbbean@beancotton.com)

The technique may be a relic from the 70s, but then so am I. Nice shot!

Comment left by: Steve Goss (steveg3@flash.net)

Wow? But can you, or anyone tell me how only the car lights zoomed, and not the signs, or curb?

Comment left by: Steve Goss again (same)

That should have been Wow! with an exclamation mark, not with a question mark.

Comment left by: submitter (no e-mail specified)

The iS Zoom Exposure Mode has a kind of intelligence that prevents pictures to be distorted beyond any recognition. After the shutter opens there's a short delay before zooming starts. This emphasises the image at the starting position of the zoom (in this case the 35mm position) and lays the zoom light streaks on top of it as a ghost image, towards the centre when you're zooming in.

Comment left by: Mike Butler (abutler@flash.net)

I'm glad I did not try my version of this shot. I don't have the ability to zoom during exposure and that really makes the image. Great job!

Comment left by: Siddiq (siddim01@student.ucr.edu)

Hmm, must be those, ahem, mushrooms you have there, that inspire such pictures as this and your past entries ;) The streaked lights look like something vaguely familiar but I can't seem to place it at the moment, arg!

Comment left by: submitter (no e-mail specified)

I guess you're right, whip'n'snapper. Which reminds me, for the Macro Tope event I'm still looking for Oly's LSD macro lights ;)

Comment left by: Wiliam Wagenaar (wiliam2@wish.net)

Very nice shot. While the technique may be from the seventies, how many (few) of us have actually tried it?

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