Ken Papaleo: X Marks the Shot: City & County Building's Holiday Lights

“X Shot” Information

Camera - Canon- EOS Mark III

ISO - 1250

Lens - Canon- 16 - 35 zoom

F/stop - 4

Shutter - 1/100 sec.

Due to Christmas this week, I stayed in town for this blog. I heard that the Denver City and County Building had been decorated this year with 1,000 LED spotlights, 585 LED fixtures and 2,000 LED rope lights for the first time, so I headed down the hill to check it out. I parked my car close by and walked over to the building to get a light reading. If I didn’t have to lug my tripod around, that would be great. I wanted at least a shutter speed of 100 and I was able to do that with an ISO of 1250 and f/stop of 4. Back at my jeep, I grabbed my Canon Mark III and my camera bag with a number of lens. Since my camera had just been returned from a shutter repair, I wanted to give it a good test before heading out of town again. The color of these lights seemed more vivid than the old ones and had more contrast as well. I spent an hour working my way around the building checking out different photo angles. Towards the end of my shoot I stepped back to the street and found a guy selling glow sticks and then some reflections on car windows. I also played with shooting at a slow shutter speed, hand held, moving the camera during the long exposure. I had done this a couple of weeks ago at Hudson Gardens and had good results. I had a fun shoot and the Mark III worked just great. As a reminder, always make sure your camera is working properly after a repair by testing it on something unimportant. I did this here because I had a second camera if needed, and these lights will be turned on every night through New Year’s Eve. I considered this a safe test. If you miss seeing the lights during the holidays, they will be turned on again every night during the National Western Stock Show, January 9 - 24, 2010.