After our visit to the interior of Valentia Lighthouse I was motivated to capture the very nature and purpose of this great old building, so I set out one late evening to find the light beams illuminating the tip of Fort Point on Valentia Island.
The moon was out so it was not too dangerous to climb along the cliffs and I knew the area but if you want to try and take those pictures be very careful and get to know the lay of the land in day light first.
Never ever go out there when the rocks are wet or the tide is high!
The settings for my camera were manual - I needed long shutter speeds to get enough light for the exposure after I chose a small aperture and small ISO to get a sharp picture with little noise.
The real challenge is to get the shutterspeed right, I remember the last picture I took that night had a shutterspeed of 8 minutes.It takes
roughly the same time for the camera to process the image, i.e. before you see the image on the camera screen.You need to be very patient but the result can be very rewarding. The next time I go, I´ll take another camera body with me to do landscape and portrait shape at the same time.By the way, all photos are taken with a Canon 5d, 2.8 70-200mm zoom, 4.0 17-40 zoom,or 50 and 100 mm macro lenses.
May the light always shine to bring everybody safe home.
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