Low light Photography

sloper

Hope this is the right place to post this problem, and i hope i can explain it enough too.

Whilst away over the last week, i thought about trying an experiment with the stars.
Placing the camera onto a tripod and adjusting the camera to point up at the stars. I would then put it on bulb setting and leave the shutter open for about an hour or so.

No luck at all. Even in auto mode the camera would not take a picture.
I turned around to face some small streetlights approx 3 miles away that i could see, and the camera took the picture.
When i turned round to face the blackness of the sky, it would not again.
All i could see through the viewfinder was the settings telling me that it was on bulb.
Each time i pressed the shutter release a small orange circle would appear on the screen, and this would preven the shutter being opened.

I tried it on a load of various settings but still would not take a photo.

Any ideas.

Camera is a Minolta 5D using the stock lens.
Any help would be appreciated.

wxwax

Was it on autofocus or manual focus?

sloper

wxwax wrote:

Was it on autofocus or manual focus?

Auot Focus ?

Should it always be on manual for doing low light photography.
Might sound like a dumb question. but still newish to this.

BrettG

On my 7D the default settings is to not release the shutter until there's a focus lock. I turned this off, so that it will now take a picture even if you're not focused.

I would think there's a similar setting on the 5D. Check your manual, or look for something called release priority maybe...

Edit - although it's probably easier/better to manually focus to infinity for star trails anyways, not sure if the AF will focus on stars.

wxwax

sloper wrote:

Auot Focus ?

Should it always be on manual for doing low light photography.
Might sound like a dumb question. but still newish to this.

Should be on manual.

My cameras won't open the shutter until the autofocus is happy it's locked onto something. Autofocus doesn't work well in low light.

In manual focus, just set the lens to infinity and then trigger the shutter (with a remote.)

douglas

If you have trouble focusing in manual you might also want to try auto focusing on moon, then recompose on stars.

SloYerRoll

Sloper,
I have the same problem w/ shootong the sky at night. (Nikon here)
Please re-post if you have any posative results.
AF/MF Question:
Can you select MF on the body even if it is an AF lens?
Not big into the whole MF thing yet.
Too much stuff to shoot w/o worrying about focus.

-Jon

mmroden

Yeah, this sounds like a manual focus issue. I'd suggest that you get a little red LED flashlight or something similar (like can go on a keychain) for this kind of shoot. a red led won't blow out your night vision too much, but you can still see the camera and so forth.

Also! for the infinity focus thing, I don't know about other manufacturer's lenses, but all the Nikon lenses I have tell you the focus distance. For my d70, it's pointless to try to use the viewfinder for focus at night. Instead, just go to infinity (using your red led and the focus range finder on the lens), and then the bulb.

For shots of the stars, expose for more than 30 seconds to get the goodness, up to 1.5-2 minutes for static stars. if you want to get trails, go for at least 15 to 30 minutes (which requires patience, and make sure not to jump up and down near the tripod, or be near a highway where a car or truck can rattle by). Low ISO is helpful, as you'll avoid camera noise. Also, don't worry if the stars appear to be different colors in your camera than what you see in real life; at really dark lighting conditions, our eyes switch to black and white vision (basically, just the rods work, the cones need more light, and cones give us color vision), so we can't see the color of the stars.

You can set your aperture as wide as you like.

ChuckWC

Also, to avoid camera shake when you press the trigger, either use a remote, or if you don't have one, just set the camera to the self-timer: either the 2-second one (if it has it) or the regular 10 second one (so that when you press the trigger, the camera shake won't affect the picture). Obviously, for the remainder of the time, you'll need to have the camera still. When I tried this, since I didn't have a tripod, I simply placed the camera on the ground, pointing straight up.