need help on taking night shots

[gail]

Hi,
I was wondering if someone can tell me what setting to use to take shots of Christmas lights? I have took a few shots of houses decorated with lights and they don't come out right.

What am I doing wrong. I put it on the night shot mode.
But the pictures came out very badly like in a blur and running lines to where the light is, it will have a long streak of color.

[pradeep1]

This is what I do:

1. Mount the camera on a tripod.
2. Turn off the flash.
3. Flip the dial to "P" mode and try some shots.
4. If you are not satisfied, turn the dial over to "Tv" for shutter priority. Here you can play with your shutter speed by using the wheel by the shutter release. Night shots, depending on the light will take anywhere from 1 second (shown as 1" on your screen) to 15 seconds (15") to capture. Try out different shutter speeds. One of them will give you a proper exposure that keeps the lights in detail without making them a fuzzy mess.

The blur you are getting is due to the camera automatically selecting a slow shutter speed. When you hand hold the camera, it moves and causes the image to be blurry and streaky.

Hope this helps.

[PeterS45]

You definitely need to use a tripod, because the shutter will be about 1/2 second and thats too long to take pictures by hand.

[Susan S.]

If you don't have a tripod (yet - it's definitely a worthwhile purchase) you can improvise by resting the camera on a step or a ledge - shots of Christmas lights (unless it's pretty impressive!) will need a pretty long shutter speed as the previous posters have said - and any moving lights, passing cars etc will trace a long streak of light. The night shot mode will fire the flash so that objects in the foreground that would otherwise be to dark are correctly exposed, but keeps a long shutterspeed - you could use this settting to do something like getting a close up of a child looking at the lights with the lights in the background. For just the lights you are better off using one of the other settings with the flash off. And either way you are going to need something to hold the camera steady - I can manage handheld down to 1/15 on a good day, and 1/8,1/4 with my hand braced against a wall - but the success rate of sharp pictures is probably less than fifty percent. A tripod is your best bet. And for very long exposures if the tripod is not too heavy it is best to use the remote control or the delayed shutter release, as otherwise the downward pressure on the camera and tripod can wobble it enough to fuzz up the image.

Susan S

[gail]

Thanks you all for the help I will try that. See what I get hope this works well for me anyway. I'm not good at taking very good pictures. I'm still learning alot.
But thanks for the advice. Hugs Gail, :-)

[sdommin]

Quick tips:

- DON'T use the nightshot mode in this case. Its designed for something different.

- Use manual mode. Start at 1/2 second at f4 (at ISO50). Take a shot and review it on the LCD. If its too dark, take a 1 second exposure. If its too light, use a 1/4 sec. exposure. Experiment with the shutter speed until you get what you want.

- Use a tripod. While on the tripod, use your remote control to take the picture. Or, you can also use the 2 or 10 second self timer. Either one helps you reduce camera shake.

- Its best to use manual focus. If your subject is more than 10 feet away (like the shot below), just use infinity. Or you can visually estimate the distance. If you use f4, you don't need to get the distance exactly. The DOF of the camera will take care of the rest.

http://www.pbase.com/image/8882132.jpg

[pradeep1]

Listen to sdommin's advice. He is a master at this stuff. Read his other posts, he's got some good stuff and helpful advice.

Wonderful photo Scott, the people seem as ephemeral as the angels flying away.

[gail]

Thanks Scott, And all the others for the help I appreciate it very much. I follow the advice you gave,

Took a test shot tonight and for a first time shot guess it turn out pretty good. It was so cold out couldn't stand to stay long. But I played around with the settings a bit and here is one I got that was OK looking I guess for me. Better than the light blur with strekes I was getting in before pictures.

I still got some learning to do. I will try and get some more tomorrow night maybe I can get better shot.
But just wanted to thank you all for all the great help you give here on this forum.

Oh! Scott, by the way beautiful picture of the christmas lights it's really pretty. Hope one day I can take a shot like that.

Hugs Gail,


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http://members.aol.com/gail4ev/xmas.jpg

[pedlaruk]

Hi,

I think that you have captured the shot reasonably well but there is too much orange 'glow' thrown onto the walls and floor by the lights.
I'm not sure what camera you are using but I would suggest setting it to tungsten lighting for the white balance as this will remove the orange glow a bit and make it look a bit more natural like in Scott's photo.

I haven't attempted Xmas lights yet but have had some good results with night shots of well lit buildings which works on the same principle. See my portfolio in the link below for examples (IMAX series).

I hope this helps.


Roy

[gail]

Hi Roy,
And thanks for the comments. I to thought there was to much orange may self. I will try what you said and see if It takes some of the orange, out. Looked at you portfolio Boy! what some beautiful photos. You do a GREAT, job.

Gail,

[Andy_T]

Scott,

I looked at your 'favourites' and find them truly inspiring and impressive.

It awes me to see what a good photographer can do with a 'humble' G2 ... maybe I should spend more time out taking photos with mine than looking at the DRebel in the shop windows :)

Regards,
Andy

[sdommin]

andythaler wrote:
Scott,

I looked at your 'favourites' and find them truly inspiring and impressive.

It awes me to see what a good photographer can do with a 'humble' G2 ... maybe I should spend more time out taking photos with mine than looking at the DRebel in the shop windows :)

Regards,
Andy

Hey Andy, thank you very much! Don't forget, though, that my photos were taken with many different cameras, not just the G2. But I do get your main point (and it is a valid one) - we should all spend more time taking pictures than worrying about a camera that we don't have yet!

[Andy_T]

My problem at the moment...

I can think of another camera I'd like when at work ...

... but I can't leave to take photos :)

Regards,
Andy