Shooting at night

Nikolai

Aviator327 wrote:

Speaking of shooting at night, Any tips on taking a picture of a car at night using existing light? As an example, taking a pic on a dealership lot which is well lit with those large lights that illuminate the whole area. what settings.ie, shutter speed, ISO, aperature would be recommended? I would be using a tripod and my Canon 10D. Any input would be appreciated or if anyone has a pic of a car night pic would help. Thanks

With all due respect, we can guess all night here (pun intended:-) and don't even come close to what just a couple of minutes of test shooting and analyzing the histogram would give you.

Aviator327

Nikolai wrote:

With all due respect, we can guess all night here (pun intended:-) and don't even come close to what just a couple of minutes of test shooting and analyzing the histogram would give you.

Thanks for the reply. I plan on going out when it get dark to take a few "test shots". Never thought about using the histogram.

Nikolai

Aviator327 wrote:

Thanks for the reply. I plan on going out when it get dark to take a few "test shots". Never thought about using the histogram.

Glad to be of help. Histogram totally eliminates the guess factor. It's not *always* usable, e.g. it's almost useless when the light changes very fast (that is, unless you have a "live" one, which 10D doesn't have), but in your case it looks like a perfect tool for the job.

Good luck, dont' forget to share the final results!

KED

Raphy wrote:

Great thread... i'm just starting out with dslrs and have just been out once shoooting at night... just messing around with the settings, as i'm just getting used to my new dslr...


Exposure:30 sec (30)Aperture:f/22Focal Length:55 mmISO Speed:800Exposure Bias:0/6 EV



With different White Balance settings:






Exposure:0.002 sec (1/500)Aperture:f/5.6Focal Length:200 mmISO Speed:200Exposure Bias:0/6 EV

Were you in the Space Shuttle when you shot this?

KED

KED wrote:

Were you in the Space Shuttle when you shot this?

To all of you have been involved in this great thread, a newbie question: why such high aperture values? Instinctively I would have thought that the more wide open the better?

pathfinder

Smaller apertures ( high numbered f stops like f16 or f22 ) result in longer exposures and vastly greater depth of field.

Scott Boy

You're 3rd shot here is just AWSOME, very cool



Here are a couple I took on the weekend, after this thread inspired me to get out and play at night.





[/quote]

Aviator327

Went out last night and took a few test shots. The yellowish hue is from the overhead lights in the parking lot. This night shooting may be interesting.

Izzy Garavito

suggestions welcome!
Hey all, this is from my first time out at night ever. please tell me what you think or how the shots could be better!






quadtone:

Giphsub

Scott Boy wrote:

You're 3rd shot here is just AWSOME, very cool

Thanks Scott Boy.

Izzy Garavito

Scott Boy wrote:

You're 3rd shot here is just AWSOME, very cool



Here are a couple I took on the weekend, after this thread inspired me to get out and play at night.

[/quote]

Hey Scottboy, I love the sharpiness of this shot. what was the exif? with my night shots I find that the longer i keep the shutter open the less focused (softer) the photos look. I use a tripod and electronic remote release. So I can't seem to get tack sharp pics with long exposures and small appertures, and have to compromise my DOF with sharpness. Is that usual when shooting at night (this is way past sunset, say midnight)

Antonio Correia

Today I made this shot on the beach.

EXIF = Date Taken 2007-11-03 18:59:41 CameraCanon EOS 350D DIGITAL Exposure Time 25s Aperture f/22.0 ISO100 Focal Length 35mm Flashflash did not fire, compulsory flash mode Exposure Program shutter priority

Izzy Garavito

Antonio Correia wrote:

Today I made this shot on the beach.

EXIF = Date Taken 2007-11-03 18:59:41 CameraCanon EOS 350D DIGITAL Exposure Time 25s Aperture f/22.0 ISO100 Focal Length 35mm Flashflash did not fire, compulsory flash mode Exposure Program shutter priority

Is that the moon on the left? good shot!

Izzy Garavito

one more:

and Please, any comments/suggestions/criticizms are welcome as I really want to improve my night shooting!

Canon 30D
17-55mm EO-S
F/8.0
13/1 shutter
17mm focal length

Giphsub

Izzy Garavito wrote:

Hey Scottboy, I love the sharpiness of this shot. what was the exif? with my night shots I find that the longer i keep the shutter open the less focused (softer) the photos look. I use a tripod and electronic remote release. So I can't seem to get tack sharp pics with long exposures and small appertures, and have to compromise my DOF with sharpness. Is that usual when shooting at night (this is way past sunset, say midnight)

Hi Izzy, that was actually my pic. I think Scottboy lost one of the quote tags when he quoted my posting, adding a little confusion to whose pic that was.

That shot was 15 sec exposure at 4.2f. Focal length 32mm. I don't really know why you don't get sharp pics at night I also use an electronic remote release... Perhaps at low aps your focus is not quite hitting the intended target and so getting lost in the shallow DOF??

Antonio Correia

Izzy Garavito wrote:

Is that the moon on the left? good shot!

Don't tell anyone, but he Moon was not there !
thumb

Izzy Garavito

Giphsub wrote:

Hi Izzy, that was actually my pic. I think Scottboy lost one of the quote tags when he quoted my posting, adding a little confusion to whose pic that was.

That shot was 15 sec exposure at 4.2f. Focal length 32mm. I don't really know why you don't get sharp pics at night I also use an electronic remote release... Perhaps at low aps your focus is not quite hitting the intended target and so getting lost in the shallow DOF??

Hey Mike, my bad. great pic do you set your focus manually, then? what about when I'm using aps at 10-22? I usually let the auto focus do the job, but I'm finding that I might have to get a high power flashlight and do it myself. How do you all find focus at night?

Izzy Garavito

and the colors change when I post them for some reason -.- anyone know how to fix this?

Nikolai

Izzy Garavito wrote:

and the colors change when I post them for some reason -.- anyone know how to fix this?

You're prolly working with AdobeRGB (or some other extended color space). Web is sRGB kingdom...

jogle

With Guy Fawkes night tonight I went back through my photos from last year and thought I'd post some here:

jogle

Hey Scottboy, I love the sharpiness of this shot. what was the exif? with my night shots I find that the longer i keep the shutter open the less focused (softer) the photos look. I use a tripod and electronic remote release. So I can't seem to get tack sharp pics with long exposures and small appertures, and have to compromise my DOF with sharpness. Is that usual when shooting at night (this is way past sunset, say midnight)

How heavy is your tripod? do you use mirror lockup?

If you hold one of the legs of your tripod and hit the shutter, you will feel a shudder as the mirror flips up, the whole point of mirror lockup, is to reduce the mirror slap by hitting the shutter once to lockup the mirror, waiting a few seconds then hitting it again to open the shutter. This helps heaps with the sharpness in long exposure shots.

The sturdiness of your tripod is a big thing too, especially if there is any wind. My tripod has a hook in the center under the head. For night shots, I take some cord and hang my camera bag off this hook, I make it just touch the ground so that it won't swing around. All that extra weight pulling straight down makes it much more stable.

Izzy Garavito

Nikolai wrote:

You're prolly working with AdobeRGB (or some other extended color space). Web is sRGB kingdom...

Hey Nik, if I change the color space in the camera, will it stay consistent after post processing, or do I need to make some adjustments? and if I shot in adobe rgb, can I change it later, or is it finished?

Izzy Garavito

jogle wrote:

How heavy is your tripod? do you use mirror lockup?

If you hold one of the legs of your tripod and hit the shutter, you will feel a shudder as the mirror flips up, the whole point of mirror lockup, is to reduce the mirror slap by hitting the shutter once to lockup the mirror, waiting a few seconds then hitting it again to open the shutter. This helps heaps with the sharpness in long exposure shots.

The sturdiness of your tripod is a big thing too, especially if there is any wind. My tripod has a hook in the center under the head. For night shots, I take some cord and hang my camera bag off this hook, I make it just touch the ground so that it won't swing around. All that extra weight pulling straight down makes it much more stable.

Hey James, thanks for the tip! i hadn't thought about hanging my bag from my tripod

I do use mirror lockup for night shots, but I'll try to hang the bag from the tripod and see how that works.

Thanks a ton
Izzy

Nikolai

Izzy Garavito wrote:

Hey James, thanks for the tip! i hadn't thought about hanging my bag from my tripod

I do use mirror lockup for night shots, but I'll try to hang the bag from the tripod and see how that works.

Thanks a ton
Izzy

Using a (usually rather heavy:-) camera bag as a tripod stabilizer is a fairly common technique. Here's a sample from a small sunset shooting gallery:



If nothing else, it's much better to keep your bag up in the air than have it lying on a dusty ground and thus risking bringing more dust into our fragile gear... And if shooting in public places it's also one less point of concern that it get its own legs and walks away from you...

HTH

Izzy Garavito

Excellent ^.^ Ill give it a shot and see if that's what I was missing. Hey Nik, how can I change my photos from adobe RGB to SRGB in post processing?

Giphsub

Izzy, I used auto focus on those shots cos there was enough ambient light around.

Nikolai

Izzy Garavito wrote:

Excellent ^.^ Ill give it a shot and see if that's what I was missing. Hey Nik, how can I change my photos from adobe RGB to SRGB in post processing?

PS|Edit|Convert to Profile...

Scott Boy

Izzy Garavito wrote:

Hey Mike, my bad. great pic do you set your focus manually, then? what about when I'm using aps at 10-22? I usually let the auto focus do the job, but I'm finding that I might have to get a high power flashlight and do it myself. How do you all find focus at night?

Hey Izzy, I was using my auto focus at night and found that it just didn't focus very well in the dark. I've now swithced and started using the manual focus and I think it works a little better.. you may want to try that.

Scott

TylerW

Here's a good general question for the urban night shooters out there - is there any really good white balance preset for shooting under sodium lights? I went through my big pile of shots from SF's Dia De Los Muertos parade (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=674660#post674660) from last friday, and it was a nightmre in post processing getting the colors right again.

Any tips/kelvin settings?

Izzy Garavito

Nikolai wrote:

PS|Edit|Convert to Profile...

Nik, when I do that (sorry to ask in this thread, btw) and save as srgb the images look the same online as they did with aRGB. am I doing something wrong?