Night Photography

[abrahavt]

When doing night photography eg. out doors with little light and long exposures how do you decide the shutter speed in seconds to get a proper exposure? eg.4 secs vs 8 secs vs 15secs etc. Do you use Tv mode and set the desired speeds or can you pick your aperture and let the camera choose a long shutter speed.
I am a novice photographer.
Thanks

[pwaug]

I am also fairly new to the digital world and have exprimented some. Bracket! Do a few shots at differant f stops and shutterspeeds in the Av and Tv modes. With the ability to see your result immediately, you can choose what suits you best. Don't forget to try differant ISO settings as well. You can manipulate the images with PhotoShop or what ever editing software you are using. Good Shooting
Paul

[Eric F.]

abrahavt,

I have taken several night shots, with rather good success. The key was to take a lot of them, (this is my key to digital photos in general;))

I usually start by composing the shot and then selecting a middle of the road second in Tv. 4 seconds on the G1 and 6 seconds on the G2. Use the timer or remote to trip the shutter to eliminate the shake and then see what you get. Adjust for more or less exposure and shoot away. You WILL end up with a good one if you take enough shots.:p

Here is one of my favorites taken with a G1.

http://home.att.net/~ozarke/wsb/media/69185/site1087.jpg

[mlfrancis]

I am fairly new to photography and very new to the digital world. I tried doing some city skylines tonight and must say that I have an all new respect for many of the night shots posted throughout this board.

I started to post a question about night photography, but I found your post first. I thought I would add to it and see if we could get any other suggestions from the guys and gals that take such good night shots.

After taking about a dozen of the same shot with my
G2, I have come up with a few ideas of things I should have done, or will do the next time.

1.) Shoot in RAW mode or turn the unit to super duper fine JPG. It is too easy to get JPG artifacts in the dark areas.

2.) Turn off the digital zoom. During the day I am pretty happy with the digital zoom if not used too much. At night... UGH! It will be turned off, or at least not used at all next time. I tried it on a couple just to see what it would do.

3.) Use the remote to trip the shutter. Even though I was using a tripod, I have a sneeky suspision that my shots are not as crisp as they could be (okay, slightly blury) because I was pressing the shutter button.

4.) Wait for the airplanes to pass. They make very "interesting" trails across the shot. ;-)

5.) Bracket all shots.

6.) Don't belive what the camera is telling you is "correct exposure." My fist shot ended up looking like daylight. Pretty cool actually. I could see things in the shot that I couldn't see while standing there.

7.) Oh, here is a good one. Don't use 400 on the G2. Actually, I probably won't use more than 100. 400 gets too much noise in it for nighttime shots. That is how it appears to me anyhow.

Those are what I have come up with right off, but I do have questions about focus. I set the camera to manual focus set to infinity, but they are not very crisp. Could be because I was pressing the shutter myself and possible JPG artifacts, but I don't know if that was the right thing to do. Remember, I was trying to shoot cityscapes.

Anyone have any suggestions to add or disagree with what I have said, please speak on up, my nightshots could use the help. ;-)

Happy shooting,
Michael

[Eric F.]

mlfrancis wrote:

1.) Shoot in RAW mode or turn the unit to super duper fine JPG. It is too easy to get JPG artifacts in the dark areas.

2.) Turn off the digital zoom. During the day I am pretty happy with the digital zoom if not used too much. At night... UGH! It will be turned off, or at least not used at all next time. I tried it on a couple just to see what it would do.

3.) Use the remote to trip the shutter. Even though I was using a tripod, I have a sneeky suspision that my shots are not as crisp as they could be (okay, slightly blury) because I was pressing the shutter button.

4.) Wait for the airplanes to pass. They make very "interesting" trails across the shot. ;-)

5.) Bracket all shots.

6.) Don't belive what the camera is telling you is "correct exposure." My fist shot ended up looking like daylight. Pretty cool actually. I could see things in the shot that I couldn't see while standing there.

7.) Oh, here is a good one. Don't use 400 on the G2. Actually, I probably won't use more than 100. 400 gets too much noise in it for nighttime shots. That is how it appears to me anyhow.

Those are what I have come up with right off, but I do have questions about focus. I set the camera to manual focus set to infinity, but they are not very crisp. Could be because I was pressing the shutter myself and possible JPG artifacts, but I don't know if that was the right thing to do. Remember, I was trying to shoot cityscapes.


Michael

Hi Michael,

I agree with most of what you have detailed here about night photography. Actually, most of it applies to any none candid shots.

100% agreement on your statements #1,3,4,5,6.

That leaves 2 and 7 for comments. I can't give you answers because these are statements not questions.

Digital zoom should NEVER be used. It is essentially an in camera cropping. It would be much better to just get closer to your subject and/or crop on the computer where you have control. As one reviewer said somewhere that "digital zoom is only a sales gimmick, which only makes a difference when it is left off of a camera". I have to agree. :)

As far as using ISO, it is agreed that your setting should be on 50 on the G1 and G2. The higher ISO's are almost like the digital zoom, except in very limited applications. Only when you have a digital SLR, can you take full advantage of the high ISO's.

Anytime you have a shutter speed below 1/60 you will need a tripod and remote or timer sutter release. If you have your finger on the trigger, your percentage of in focus shots will be low. :(

Of course, these are my humble opinions, others may differ.

Post some of your success for us to look at.

Regards

[mlfrancis]

Eric,
First of all, I love the tent shot you posted above. It is great!
Second, I would love to post some cool shots for everyone to see, but first I have to get some good ones. ;-) That list I came up with of things to do for nightshots was after my first nightime experience with the G2. I need to go back and apply some of what I learned. When I get a good one, I will be sure to post it.

After seeing you tent night shot, I realize you might be a good guy to ask this quesiton. One thing I noticed last night with the camera is what it was telling me was "correct exposure" was way wrong.
Originally, I tried setting the camera to Av and setting about f4. I knew it would be a long shot, but when I did the half press, the camera showed the red 1". Bummer that it will not pick the right time value if it is slower than one sec.
I thought, no problem. I switched to M, set it for f4, then picked 2secs just as a starting point. When i did the half press, the camera told me I was 2 3/3 underexposed. I kept bumping up the shutter until it told me I was at 0 (proper exposure). I got all the way to 13 seconds before it said it was proper. That suprised me; I was expecting about 2 to 3 second exposure.
Here is the funny part. After taking that shot, it looked like it was taken in the daylight. It was kind of funny actually. I could see things in the shot that I couldn't se while standing there. Felt like I was on a recon mission. ;-) After that, I went back to the 2ish second shutter that I expected and ignored what the camera was telling me. Those results where much better.

After all that babbling, my question is why did the camera tell me I needed a 13 second exposure? It was obviously too much. I just found it really strange.

Have a great one,
Michael

[Leighow]

I do not know the answer to this last question, however I thought that you might be interested in the
“Jiffy Calculator for Night Light Exposures”(author S.P. Martin) published in Popular Photography in 1964. The Jiffy Calculator is basically a cardboard slide rule that asks you to;

(1) First pick your ISO (let’s say ISO = 50). Note
that in 1964 films were offered up to ISO 8000
and night photographers worried about
reciprocity failure !
(2) Next you select from 1 of 26 night-light scenes,
(1 being the best lite and 24 the worst).
(3) Given 1 and 2 the slide rule tells you your f/stop
and shutter speed options.
(4) You bracket all shots one stop under & over.
(5) Exposures longer than 1/ 25 can benefit
from selective use of fill-in flash
in certain after-dusk scenes
(7) Include moon if exposure is faster than
1/25. Otherwise superimpose moon.
(8) Expose 2 stops longer if rain, 2 shorter if snow

*********************************************
G2 implications...assuming ISO 50 and f/stop at 2:
*********************************************

#1 Ice shows - 1/250
#2 Burning buildings - a bit slower than (BST) 1/250
#3 Brightly lighted stage theater acts – 1/125
#4 Neon electrin signs - (BST) 1/125
#5 Campfire groups, Bright TV – 1/60
#6 Brightly illuminated store displays – (BST) 1/60
#7 Indoor lighted Xmas tree – 1/30
#8 Broadway type brightly lighted
main street – (BST) 1/30
#9 Fireworks, lightning bolts, ferris wheels – 1/15
#10 Gymnasiums, basketball games, boat shows
(portraits by 150 watt table lamp – (BST) 1/15
#11 Floodlighted water fountains, dimly lighted
gas stations – 1/8
#12 Medium bright artificially lighted interiors of homes – (BST)1/8
#13 Outdoor lighted Xmas trees, candlelight
close-ups – 1/4
#14 Medium bright artificially lighted interiors of
subway trains, busses, airlines – (BST) 1/4
#15 Medium bright street corner lamps, side streets,
big city “night moonscapes’ at dusk only – 1/2
#16 Niagara Falls in white lights – (BST) 1/2
#17 Dimly light subway stations – 1 sec
#18 Dimly light night clubs - 1.5 sec
#19 Railroad stations, freight yards – 2 sec
#20 Niagara Falls in colored lights – 3 secs
#21 Manhattan –type “skylines” with scattering
of window lights and other minute
illuminations – 4 secs
#22 Dimly lighted boat yards - 6 secs
#23 Dimly lighted small towns, with a scattering
of faint window lights and street lamps – 8 secs
#24 Full moonscape and icescape – 12 secs
#25 Full moon seascape and sandscape – 15 secs
#26 Full moon landscape – 22 secs

[2ndGear]

Hey wow, that sliding rule thingamajiggie is great!
Thanks for the tip.

Little tip for all of you. I carry a scrunched up aluminium foil sheet with me in my tripod bag at all times. It came in handy quite a few times in funny lighting conditions where I need a small amount of light to bounce off of it. It's great because you can bend it any way you want and it's dirt cheap.


Other silly tips:

-for moon shots, I find it makes a really nice effect to fog up the lense before taking the shot. The moon looks scarier and everything around looks like it's in fog.

- If you have any of those large and cheap glasses, just break off the lense and use it to make cool effects. You can do this simply by putting it at the tip of your lense. See one time I was walking around in the summertime thinking "aw man, this beach looks great!". I had blue-tinted glasses. Well, I just put it at the end of my lense and took the shot..looked awesome! Usually the best thing to do is to take your reading without the lense, then just add it on for the shot..that way you get the real "sunglass" feel to it. No need for expensive filters...

[mlfrancis]

Leighow,
Thanks for the post. That is some really good stuff to keep in mind. I copied it to my handy dandy pocket PC so I will have it handy.

[shoot123]

If you're interested in a guide like the "Jiffy" guide mentioned above, FotoSharp sells something like it called the "Existing Light Exposure Calculator". Their web page is at www.fotosharp.com

[jterlecki]

In days of old when film was king, there was a factor that had to be considered called reciprocity failure. Those familiar with photography know that 1/60th second at F8 is equal in exposure to 1/30th second at F11 and 1/125th second at F5.6. When you get below 1 second, most films failed in one color layer or another and the direct relationships no longer worked. Tables were invented however one simply determined what f-stop they wanted and bracketed with various shutter speeds. My limited experiments in digital photography show that while not as marked as with film, there is still some reciprocity failure within the photos. I recently took pictures at a night event and in some cases, the sky was unrealistically bright while in others the exposure was balanced. Try using the camera on manual exposure settings and alter the shutter speeds while maintaining a nominal F-stop (4 or so). Also, keep the ISO setting at 50 if your camera is capable of this as it helps to control noise.

[Leighow]

ONLINE COURSE in NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY

You might like to glance at the School of Photography's
free online course:

http://www.schoolofphotography.com/night/night.html

HOWIE

PS: There is a terrific night shot of the WTC floating around (photographer notr passed with image). But I will not post in case it is illeagal to do so.