Nighttime exposure balancing

mattslaughter

Hi all,

I recently went up on a rooftop in Washington DC in hopes of getting shots of the capital building at dusk. I also wanted to try and and get a nice, long, exposure of the capital and the surrounding buildings, but came up a little short. http://mattslaughter.smugmug.com/gallery/7533532_Jus5B#486548002_fNRW9

It was windy, and my tripod isn't the most sturdy, but you can see that I had a challenge balancing the exposure of the capital and the surrounding structures.

Any suggestions?

I was using a Nikon D40x with a Nikkor 18-200 VR lens (VR was turned off while the camera was on the tripod).

Thanks,
Matt

CWSkopec

mattslaughter wrote:

Hi all,

I recently went up on a rooftop in Washington DC in hopes of getting shots of the capital building at dusk. I also wanted to try and and get a nice, long, exposure of the capital and the surrounding buildings, but came up a little short. http://mattslaughter.smugmug.com/gallery/7533532_Jus5B#486548002_fNRW9

It was windy, and my tripod isn't the most sturdy, but you can see that I had a challenge balancing the exposure of the capital and the surrounding structures.

Any suggestions?

I was using a Nikon D40x with a Nikkor 18-200 VR lens (VR was turned off while the camera was on the tripod).

Thanks,
Matt

I see the problems with your tripod... I have had the same issue (cheapo $10 tripods aren't too sturdy! ) and have been told to try to weight it down. My dad suggested hanging my camera bag off it to help hold it down. I've seen better quality tripods than mine that actually have a built in hook just for that purpose. Mine doesn't have one, but I put a carbiner clip in my bag for the next time I go out.

I'm sure some of the more knowledgable folks can help you out with exposure, but my trick to get close to right is bracketing. I usually start in AV mode so I can set the apeture I want, then bracket +2/3 and -2/3 and just start shooting. After the set, I check the histograms for each shot and adjust from there. Once I get one that real close to what I want, I make a note of the shutter speed and flip over to manual mode, set the apeture I want and the shutter speed I liked. At that point I adjust shutter speed or ISO in minor, minor steps to get to where I want.

It's definitely not the most efficient way to go about it, but it's helping me learn and get a better feeling of where I should start, thus cutting down on the adjustments I have to make. Plus it'll really show you the impact of how each adjustment affects the scene.

Hope that helps!

Qarik

the shots of course are very out of focus so a sturdier tripod is a must. 2ndly I would zoom in a lot more and isolate the the capitol building. lastly I would meter off the dome building itself to get your exposure. The building is way over exposed. I am guessing you had area metering of the enture scene. I would swithc to center weighted or spot mettering of the dome itself after you zoom in.

To help with the wind..you can open up the aperture quite bit since you are so far away and still have good focus. Then you can increase your shutter speed to reduce the effect of the wind.

mattslaughter

Thanks to both of you. I am going to try to get out and take some twilight shots with these new techniques as soon as the weather clears up.

Cuong

You definitely need to invest in a better tripod and head if you're interested in doing night photography. Since the Capitol bldg is much brighter than the surrounding, you'll need to do multiple exposures (one with the Capitol exposed correctly and another for the surrounding), then merge them for the best result. This is where sturdiness of the tripod helps to obtain sharp and matching images to reduce aligning effort when you layer them. I second what Qarik said. Also shoot in manual mode so you have full control of the exposure.

Cuong

pathfinder

Matt,

These kinds of shots involve a very great difference in the amount of light present in the highlights ( in the artificial lighted areas ) and the shadows.. The latitude is probably too great to capture both ends of the image in one single frame, and the light variation is larger than the 8 stops a digital sensor can completely capture without blowing the hightlights or underexposing the shadows.

This is an ideal place to explore HDR, since shooting 3 - 5 frames from a firmly secured tripod, you will be able to capture 10 or 11 stops of light and have a final image with shadow detail and highlight detail from a well done HDR image.

When I shoot lights like this, I purposely underexpose my meter by 1-2 stops to allow the shadows to go to black, and to prevent the lights from blowing out due to over exposure. HDR allows one to capture all the shadows and all the highlights, but requires 3-5 frames and subsequent processing -- there is no camera out there yet that will process HDR -> jpgs in camera for us yet. That day may be coming, but it is not here yet, and probably will not be in the near future.