[Tips] Shooting Sakura at Night

A short trip to Tokyo again. Walk around Asakusa(浅草) and Ueno(上野) before coming back. Will write a more details post when I'm free. So now just want to share some photo tips in this entry.

Japanese love sakura so much that after the sun goes down, they will light up the flowers and have another round of hanami(花見). Normally tungsten light bulb is used and cast a yellowish color over the flowers. Nowadays, camera built-in auto white balance is good enough to help you get the right color, or you can change it to tungsten mood or even take a grey card to make sure you will get 100% neutral light. And the result will be the same with the sakura taken in day-time. Or maybe a little bit yellowish like the one bellow taken using auto-WB.

Not a bad shot right? Personally I like it too. But why don't we go one more step further to be more creative? And this is where the tip come into action. Turned the WB to fluorescent. And guess what, you will get a purplish sakura.

You don't even need to load the photo into photoshop, all is done right inside the camera (I shot in RAW so I have done some minor adjustment)!! With just a little change to the setting, using them at unnormal circumstances, and a click, you can get another piece of art into your own collection. Remember, photography is all about adventure and trying out new things. It cost nothing in this digital world. Hope you get some new ideas before you grab your camera for another round of photo shooting. And again, thanks for stopping by. :-)