Need some help.... Thanks!!

Jeff_Milo

I don't shoot a lot of night photography, especially shots like this one. But with the San Diego skyline in the perfect spot at last nights wedding we thought we would give it a try. I know its to late for this shot but I have two more weddings in San Diego this year and will want to try it again. So my question is this.... How do you take this shot and get both the couple and the city in focus. This shot was taken with a rented Canon 1Ds Mark II on which I could not find an A-DEP mode. Your comments and suggestions are very much appreciated.

angevin1

Jeff_Milo wrote:

I don't shoot a lot of night photography, especially shots like this one. But with the San Diego skyline in the perfect spot at last nights wedding we thought we would give it a try. I know its to late for this shot but I have two more weddings in San Diego this year and will want to try it again. So my question is this.... How do you take this shot and get both the couple and the city in focus. This shot was taken with a rented Canon 1Ds Mark II on which I could not find an A-DEP mode. Your comments and suggestions are very much appreciated.

The Only way that I know of to get both the city lights and the couple in focus with that one shot is to be positioned very far away with a long tele and have a depth of field that allowed it.

That said. if I wanted both in focus, I'd have shot one of the couple and one of the city and layered them together.

WingsOfLovePhoto

not an expert on lighting but the way to get things both near and far in focus is to use a small aperature like when doing landscape shots ie: F16-22? High Iso and a pretty slow shutter speed. On a tripod with maybe a remote shutter release? You would have to have a superior way to light the bride and groom while also keeping the city in the dark with just the city lights. No easy task I would think. Just a guess. Interesting question though, hope others chime in....

divamum

Did you have a tripod? I thought I saw camera shake (those streaky lights on the skyline sugggest it) and the exif shows that you were at 1/15 and 2.8. Shallow DOF, and slooowwww.... especially if you were handholding!

I'd have thought a smaller aperture would certainly have helped with front to back sharpness - f11+, maybe? I think Swartzy has done some shots with a clear background and b/g, so maybe he (or somebody else who regularly does this) can chime in

tenoverthenose

With a tripod, everything becomes easier. Lock the camera down, set your aperture deep and figure out a reasonable length of exposure to get the city to look the way you want. Then add you flash as needed on the couple for proper exposure. As long as there is no ambient light on the couple (here there is some street light) you will be good for a long exposure. Just remember not to cook your flash trying to make it pump out f22 through an umbrella.

OR...

Raise the ISO up (I like to use 1600 for this type of work) and pop a wide lens on. With a wide lens you accomplish two things, reduce camera shake and increase depth of field. Try and frame it up at about f4 or 5.6 (maybe 3.5 if you need to) and find your shutter speed. Hopefully you will be close enough to be in hand holding range. I will try to do a handheld shot for up to about a full second with a wide lens. Some shots will be blurry, but I will nail others.

I hate to carry around a tripod, so I normally run with option 2.