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View Full Version : What settings for a night shot like this?

paulhillion
26th of November 2004 (Fri), 15:06
It was such a beautiful night last night here in Guernsey that I decided to drive up to a high vantage point over the harbour & take a few shots. This one was about the best but to me the various lights seem to be too bright & have no detail? It was shot using my 17-40L at the widest setting, f4 @ 30 secs. It was tripod mounted & mirror lock-up.

Any hints on improving on this would be a great help, thanks!

Paul.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v116/hillion/Nightview.jpg
Vegas Poboy
26th of November 2004 (Fri), 15:59
Try a smaller aperture F/8 or F/11 and keep the iso @ 100. See if that helps.
Steveo31
26th of November 2004 (Fri), 16:18
^ gotta bump the ss to buLb
Tom W
26th of November 2004 (Fri), 16:19
As well, try to take the same shot when the sky is not quite fully dark. You'll get a much better balance between the sky (which will be a deep blue) and the city lights. This way, the city lights won't overpower the overall dark image.

Odds are that you'll need considerably less exposure that way.

Also, shoot it RAW so that you can adjust the image more afterwards.
steven
26th of November 2004 (Fri), 18:16
Looking at the picture you have two areas with very different light.
The sky is fairly dark, though in you picture you have done a good job and exposing it.
The lights are bright, sounds dumb to point this out but your light meter will try to average out the bright from the lights with the dark from the sky.

There is no simply solution to your problem.

Frist you could use a ND filter to drop the brightness of the lights.
Other than that the difference in brightness between the sky and the lights is too great to capture in a single picture.

If you are just looking for a good picture of the lights and are not worried about the sky then just set the shutter speed and apature the same as if you were standing in the lighted area taking a picture. (This is a situation where spot metering also works well)

You could also have taken two pictures, one exposed for the sky and the other exposed for the lights and then PS them together. This is a common technique and you can find example of how to on the web.