Hot air...

Well, I have been invited to an interesting event tomorrow night... An air balloon festival! So that will be fun to try out some nighttime photography and the following morning they're off again, so we'll be getting up early to see them. So how do I photograph air balloons? Especially the ones at night? Time to google...

Outdoor night scenes usually include large areas of darkness broken by smaller areas of light from buildings, signs, and streetlights. Pictures of outdoor scenes are quite easy to make because good results are obtainable over a wide range of exposures. Using short exposures emphasizes well-lit areas by preserving the highlight detail, while the shadow areas are dark because of underexposure. Long exposures help retain the detail of the dark areas, while highlight detail is lost because of overexposure.

Therefore: A wide range of exposures can be used.
Short exposures = detail in light areas
Long exposures = detail in dark areas

If you do not have an exposure meter or cannot get a good reading, bracket your exposure.
Focus carefully; depth of field is shallow at the wide apertures required for existing light photography.

So...Use AEB (1/2-2 stops)to retain detail in less bright areas.
Wide apertures are required for night photography with existing light (eg: lots of lighted up air balloons)and of course depth of field will be shallow.

I have a handful of apertures and shutter speed combos to try based on various photographs of lights at night by other photographers so I will just try to experiment.

Wish me luck and hopefully I'll be back here on Sunday with some good photos!