help with night shots please? (pics added)

[panthrcat]

the last 3 nights I have been out on evening adventures trying to capture moon shots and reflection shots of the town on the harbourfront,, and come to the conclusion that I suck at it!!!

any ideas how I can make the images look anything close to what I'm seeing with my eyes??

I own a

Canon EOS 40D

28-135mm IS

50mm f/1.4

surely I should be able to make nice night shots with that??

so frustrated!!

Sue

[fishinchicks]

Have you used a tripod or monopod? It helps with the stability thing. Also, using a remote switch or timer can help.

I have not attempted a great deal of night shots, so I cannot help you out with shutter speeds, ISO, etc. I'll leave that to the experts.

[marine_man]

It might help if you post a picture of what you're getting for results...

marine_man

[Dbl]

I would help to see a picture. Is it completely dark or is there some light left in the sky? How bright and how many lights, is it like a cityscape?

For night shots to get you in the ballpark exposure-wise, put your ISO on 100, aperture around f8 to f16. Camera in Av mode and see what kind of shutter speed it gives you. Once you see determine the shutter speed put the camera in manual mode with those same settings. Now all you need to do is take a series of shots just adjusting the shutter speed.

For instance when in Av it may shot a shutter speed of 1 second, start there and go to 3 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, you see what I mean. Also go with a few shorter shutter speeds. Look at your LCD and see what looks good.

My normal start point for a cityscape is ISO 100, f8, and 10 seconds. I've done a lot of night shooting and that usually is a good starting point for a large city with a lot of lights. I adjust the shutter speed from there to get the effect I am looking for.

You can also play around with your white balance settings, most city lights are tungsten so try setting your white balance to tungsten. The lights become more white and the sky becomes more blue. I also like to have some light left in the sky. I have many different examples of night shots if that would help I will post a few different scenarios.

[panthrcat]

thanks for the replies folks! I do have a tripod,, and I know I have to use it especially for night shots,, check.

as for the ISO, perhaps that's what I'm doing wrong, I had it set higher, (I was under the impression to bump it up due to dark scenes, but now I understand that I still want the image to be dark,, hence the lower ISO... thanks for clarifying that)

I am at work now, never thought to post here while at home,, and post a picture to show you what I mean,, I have several from last night,, I'll post them when I get home,, I had a nice idea last night, while walking into the beach,, the moon was so beautiful,, and the stand of tall pines was just begging to be shot,, so I positioned the moon through the trees, and come up with a shot that looked good and somewhat bright (the trees are visible in the image) but the moon is so blown out it looks almost like the sun. ~sue scratches head~

I have been reading about it at work today in my photo books,, (yea I love working, that's when I get my internet stuff done and my photo books actually get read!!)

I have another question about my tripod,, I have a Velbon, a fairly good sturdy tripod, but it doesn't have a swivel head,, and if the truth be known, it drives me crazy that I can't swivel my camera,, it's either up 'n down or side to side.

also should I use my polorizer filter on such a scenereo??

this nite time stuff is new to me, so thank you all for helping me to come up with some better night images.

Sue

[panthrcat]

I don't think any more needs to be said,, here are the images I was referring to folks,, h-e-l-p!!

oh, I'll just say that I never did any adjusting of any sort to these images, they are sized is all.. I shoot in RAW and also jpeg format,, these are the jpeg format

[MARINERMAGNUM]

The 1st 2 are just simply out of focus. The 3rd isn't too bad.

An important thing to remember is to focus one third into the scene,and use the smallest aperture you can get away with so that more of the entire scene is in focus.

I will often shoot 30 sec-1 minute exposures at night at F22 so everything is sharp throughout. You also may want to try using your distance scale for focusing.

[Dbl]

Sue,

I am going to post a few examples for you that may help you along. I shot these last month on Lake Vermilion which happen to demonstrate what you are trying to do.

First on your shots you are shooting in Av and in the first photo the camera is going to expose for the brightest object in your shot...the moon. The rest is underexposed.

Second shot again shot in Av now you are at ISO 640. The camera is exposing for the lights on the buildings, not the rest of photo. You really need to get the camera in manual and take control of how YOU want the picture to look. Bracket as I mentioned in my first post until you get the look you want. Keep ISO and aperture the same and just change your shutter speed. That will get you started.

Once you are familiar with those results start playing with your ISO. This will give you more ambient light into your shot with other factors staying the same. Only change one setting at a time when experimenting, you will now know what that change did to your shot. If you change a few settings and then shoot you don't really know what you did to effect the change!

Here are my examples that will illustrate what I was talking about. For the most part these are throw-aways but they do illustrate my points.

#1 This was taken at ISO 1600,F8 for 30 seconds.

#2 Same shot taken at ISO 200, F8 for 30 seconds.

#3 ISO 800, F8 for 30 seconds. More ambient light is let in.

#4 ISO 1250, F8 for 30 seconds.

#5 Just a shutter speed adjustment. This was at ISO 100 F10 at 1/4 second.

#6 Same shot only at 6 seconds. Notice how much more ambient is let in on the details. Much more colorful with the slower shutter speed blurring the lights.

#7 And last a river view shot at ISO 100 F8 and 3.2 seconds.

Note all the same settings, ISO 100, F8 just change the shutter speed? It is what I like to use as a starting point. You can come up with your own settings but try to then only change one parameter, in these cases shutter speed or ISO. Hope that helps you some Ask more questions if I haven't cleared some of this up for you.

[Dbl]

I see MM chimed in while I was making my long post. I don't advocate using apertures smaller than say f16 because of lens defraction issues unless you need it for a special technique. I won't go into detail on it unless you really want but you will experience softer shots as you use smaller apertures beyond f11 to f16 as a general rule with many lenses and cameras. I rarely shoot above f8 at night and considering your large depth of field at infinity in probably 10,000+ night shots over the years I have not had an issue with getting sharp photos. In my ferris wheel shots I was at f10 because I was closer to the subject and needed a bit more depth of field. City scapes and distant shots don't need more than f8 because you are so much further from the subject giving you a larger depth of field.

I am not seeing out of focus shots, but I do believe they are suffering from no PP sharpening (which you said) making them a bit soft.

[MARINERMAGNUM]

Quote:

I am not seeing out of focus shots,

Her 1st shot appears to be at infinity focus-nothing up close is sharp,but tiny stars are visible.

The 2nd shot appears to have the water up close more in focus than the city scape. ?? I dunno?

Even with no PP as she stated,[i assume these are the jpegs direct from camera] the in camera processing would render a sharper image than she posted. I have used lenses that are well below the quality of hers,and they were able to produce good sharp images-with standard in camera jpeg burning.

The 3rd would indeed pop with a small sharpen. I can't pull the exif data for some reason,but I assume the 3rd was at a small aperture,as I can see sensor dust in the sky.

Wish I could drive over and help!!

[Steve Foss]

Sue, I've been on the road and have just been limited to looking in now and then, but Dan's got you on the right track, IMO. Have fun applying those techniques, and be sure to share the results with us!

[panthrcat]

I can't thank you guys enough for your help and advice,, I plan on getting out for at least 3 nights next week.. and will experiment with what's been said here. thank you for the examples!!! it helps me to actually "see" what your talking about!!

perhaps for fun I'll try to adjust the RAW format to see if I can make them a little nicer to view. just to see how much I can correct them.

I sure wish you could drive this way and help too!! I'm looking for a photo buddy as it's not quite the same alone,, (in fact I DON'T go alone) I have a friend who is a bird watcher who is also a good sport about getting out in the evening, but I fear I am boring her with my photo stuff.

I'll keep you posted as to any new images I can come up with. you guys are terrific!!!

Sue