Milwaukee Public Museum

In preparation for the first Photography Field Trip this year to the Milwaukee Public Museum on March 10, I went up there yesterday to check out the museum one more time and to test out the scooter. I am happy to report that the scooter did just fine and I am glad I chose this museum as a venue to shoot indoor photos with the students!

I brought my Nikon D4 and Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 lens with me and shot about 160 images which will help me guide the students on how to properly photograph the various lighting conditions offered at the Museum. It will also help the exposure class as well.

Below is a typical image you can expect when traveling through the "Streets of Milwaukee" section of the museum.

The image is straight out of the camera without the aid of Lightroom 4. Image taken at 1/25 second, f2.8, ISO 2000 with Aperture Priority with Exposure Compensation of -2 EV to keep the image looking exactly like it is when seen in person. Yes, they keep it quite dark in the museum at the Streets of Milwaukee section to simulate a night scene. Come join me to learn how to shoot it properly!

And here is another image from my trip to the Milwaukee Public Museum on Friday. Straight out of the camera, no post production work done. Image was shot with Aperture Priority, 1/25 second, f 2.8, ISO 1600. Nikon D4, Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 lens and taken at 24mm.

Why shoot at 1/25 second? The "handholdability" of any lens for its shutter speed is 1/focal length of the lens x crop factor. Since the D4's image sensor is a full frame camera image sensor, the crop factor is 1. So 1/focal length would be 1/24 second. The camera does not have that as a shutter speed option, so the next best thing would be 1/25 second.
 
The aperture of f2.8 was needed to get as much light as possible to the shot. Plus, depth of field is not much of a factor since the distance from the image is enough to give a fair amount of depth of field.
 
Based on these two settings, the corresponding ISO was picked as ISO 1600 by using Auto ISO.

And finally, one more image from the museum...

Image shot at 1/40 second, f2.8, ISO 800. Image enhanced with Photoshop CS6 to brighten the lower light in the display windows. Air vent and electronic sensors in the ceiling were removed as well.