Shooting outside holiday lights

[MuleShack]

Maybe it was the fact that I was in a hurry or that I was balancing on my roof with a tripod but i'm not getting the results that i would like.

Here is the situation: We live out in the country in 2 1/2 acre lots and my neighbors decorate better than the Grizwalds. At first it starts out annoying because there are so many light, but the closer to christmas it gets, the better it appeals to me. So I'm about 400 - 450' away from the majority of the lights from my roof top to their yard.

I have a 7D along with the canon 24-70IS. I have shot some fireworks at night and tried using settings similar to those but the lights seem to be clumping together. (note that I didn't have time to download them from the camera yet before leaving tonight) I tried low ISO to high ISO, I tried a wide aperature, then mid range then small and even tweaked the metering mode from pinpoint to evaluative and exposing more and less than the meter suggested. By looking at the photos on the screen they either "glow" too much or they seem to dark with not a lot of definition.

Is it simply that I am too far away to get the good detail or possibly be the tripod is not totally stable on the crest of the roof?

Does anyone use a filter to take out any extra white light doing this?

Are the fire works settings going to be my best bet to tweak or should I just look at moving closer? (aperture 7-9, ISO 200, AWB, Landscape Mode, shutter between 2-5 seconds)

I'll post up some of the shots that i took tonight in the morning when I get home.

Thanks

[Dbl]

Mule, you have definitely exposed for the dark background causing over exposure of the lights. This is when you need to shoot manual and take charge of your metering. Take a look at the thread I resurrected from the last few years, that should help answer more of your questions. If not post a shot or two and we can get you on the right track.

[MuleShack]

Dan, the landscape I noted was not on the dial, but one of the shooting options (cant think of term) such as standard, portrait, landscape, black and white, etc. I was on manual mode on the dial and adjusting according to the meter in the view finder. I'd shoot at even par, then adjust over and then under center to see results at each ISO and aperture adjustment using shutter to float the meter up and down.

I admit it is hard to tell details from a 3" view finder, but it looked like from the distance it was shooting, the lights would blend together on manual focus.

Will know more after work in the morning.

[Dbl]

When shooting at night you really need to only adjust one thing at a time. Fix your aperture, shutter speed and adjust ISO. Or Fix ISO, Aperture and move shutter speed, my personal favorite. I don't even use a meter. ISO 100, mid-range aperture and shutter speed to get my results. If you want more ambient light to show through use a higher ISO. In that case I keep my aperture and shutter speed fixed and up the ISO until I get the amount of ambient light I want.

There is no right or wrong way to do this, just the one that works for you. But the key is don't change two things when you adjust for your next shot. Only one thing, shoot adjust, etc until you get what you want. The other key is to set your focus on manual, don't let the autofocus try and work. On the 7D you can put it in live view mode to check your focus. Works nice and night.

[MuleShack]

Forgot about live view...that would have helped a little.

[MuleShack]

Well here are a few of the examples.

Turns out that I only shot 15 but being in the position I was in on the roof it seemed like more. I started at a lower ISO and went up. I see as I went up, the worse it got.

I never did try it at 100 like I thought. The other part may be a tripod wobble also.

I'll have to try it again tonight. Looks like I will start at 100 Iso and around a f7 and work from there.

4 sec f8 iso640 45mm

.8 sec f8 iso 640 60mm

1.3 sec f8 iso640 60mm

5 sec f22 iso1600 70 mm

[MuleShack]

My neighbors got nothin on these guys

[Dbl]

If you look at the other thread on shooting lights I mention trying to shoot closer to sunset. What will happen as you found out is that you get a sea of lights surrounded by black! Without shooting this HDR you can't capture all the tonal ranges from the bright lights to the dark sky.

Shooting this wide and including much of your environment forces you to shoot earlier or stack your shots unless you want floating lights. Your settings above all look like they are close, just variations on the same basic settings. A three shot HDR to expose for the bright lights, the smaller lights and some of the sky might just be the ticket if you are forced to shoot with complete darkness.

[MuleShack]

I tried this last year but from the house window at night and I recall it turned out a little better. However, there was lots of snow and i believe there was also a good moon. the lighter background of the snow made for what looked to be a better picture. I guess that's what I was expecting this time.

It actually looks better up close from the road, so i may try to do something in the line of a collage and stitch a few together and see how it looks later in the week.