Quick Tip: Photography in the Rain

April Showers

This time of the year with its crisp and clear air is magical for getting those beautiful wet pavement shots.

At night after (and sometime during) a good rain the wet and shiny streets of your local (or not so local) downtown city reflects the brilliant lights to create colorful and vivid imagery.

Shoot from under an umbrella or an awning. If you can’t find some shelter to shoot from get yourself a large zip type bag and cut a hole in it for you lens. Stick the lens with an appropriate hood through the hole just enough so that the plastic will not obscure your field of view. This should protect tour camera enough to get the shot. Uses this technique at your own risk as this is only a suggestion.

After shooting in the rain dry you camera off immediately.

If you want to capture the rain dead in its track you are going to need to crank up your shutter speed to 200 or better especially if you want to capture the droplets creating crowns as they hit a shallow pool of water. Then again a slower shutter speed can yield a beautiful soft focus.

The other thing you will need to do when shooting reflection is to increase your f/stop so that more of your image is in sharp focus unless you are trying to draw attention to a very specific section of the image.

When photographing light reflection of wet streets or any type of standing water try to orient yourself in such a way that the reflected light bounces off the water and directly into your lens. This will give you the brightest and clearest photo.