Long Exposure Night Photography

One of the first accessories I purchased for the a6000 was a tripod.  I picked up the Mamiya 1507 for $90 used on Craigslist.  It has a pan and tilt head, which I think is intended for video work, but its rock-solid.  My only complaint so far is that it gets a bit heavy after carrying it for a while.

On Halloween, 2015, I took the camera, an LED flashlight, and the tripod out to the front yard, and while waiting for the trick-or-treaters to come by I experimented with some long exposures in full manual mode.  The image below is a 15 second exposure, during which I painted the face of the pumpkin and the green plastic candy bowl with light from the flashlight, and then half-way through the exposure removed the bowl to give it the translucent, see-through appearance.  The light painting balanced the difference between the candle-lit interior of the pumpkin, and its exterior, which would have been too dark without some additional light.

Sorry, kiddies -- the candy bowl is a hologram!  f/16, 15 seconds, 50mm, ISO 100

This image was one of my first taken in RAW format.   At the time, I think I processed and converted the image, at least in part, using Sony's Image Data Converter tool, since it would be several more months before I discovered Darktable, my current choice of RAW editor and cataloging software.