Low Light shooting.

dragon300zx

There is a huge Halloween display that is taking up 2 yards near my house. It looks great right at dusk while there is still some light but not much. Using my 10D and a 28-80mm f4 what would be the best way to capture these images. I know I will need to use my tripod but I also don't want to use a flash cause that just washes the photos out (i tried some shots tonight and well they are rather depressing). Hints, tips, tricks?

This was the best one from tonight. Everything else was either way to washed out, way to dark, or way to blurry since i didn't have my tripod out.

cletus

A tripod is going to open up all kinds of posiblities for this shot. Obviously the tripod will let you take long exposures that wont blur. The other thing is that you'll be able to take multiple exposures of the same shot. You could take one shot that is underexposed (according to the meter in the camera) and another that is overexposed.

The underexposed shot will have detail in the light areas of the image (the sails for example) while the overexposed image will have details in the darker areas. You could then use Photoshop (or Paintshop, etc.) to combine the two images. Andy just had a tutorial and digital darkroom assignment on this topic.

One other thing... I'm not sure if the 10D has a flash under/over exposure adjustment. If it does, you could setup the camera to have the flash underexposed. That way the flash might help add some light without washing everything out.

Good luck!

cletus

Dragon,

Any luck

damonff

cletus wrote:

One other thing... I'm not sure if the 10D has a flash under/over exposure adjustment. If it does, you could setup the camera to have the flash underexposed. That way the flash might help add some light without washing everything out.

Good luck!

Set up a tripod and also set your 10D to use the second curtain flash (in custom functions). These changes'll make all the difference.