What am I doing wrong with my night shots ?

[Raj]

I took these shots from roof top with my 20D + sigma lens. It was very windy & I used a tripod. I used Av with f8.0, iso 100 with Noise Reduction ON. Unfortunately I used auto focus ..
I am disappointed :( these images are pretty soft as compared to the night shots which people used post here..
What am I doing wrong .. ? Shall I use higher f number for greater DOF ? or this has something to do with hyper focal ... ?
Any help & suggestions are greatly appriciated ...

[Raj]

last one

[PacAce]

I have a feeling what you're seeing is motion blur caused by the wind moving your camera.

BTW, how long was the exposure and did you use a remote release cable (or the self timer)?

[Raj]

I used timer, but you are correct, it was very very windy. Since I used a very sturdy tripod, I thought I dont have anything to worry abt. However it was not untill I came back & viewed shots & laptop I realized that shots were blurry. Actually some of them are much worse than these one's.

Exposure was quite long 2"5 or more I guess... Do you think this motion blur ?

BTW why the sky appears "reddish" on night shots ...

[pcasciola]

Did you try sharpening them? I sharpened a couple of your images in PS and they look great. I don't think there is any blur there, just aliasing.

We just had this discussion on another thread. Check it out:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=59710

[Raj]

Phil, No I didnt processed them in PS. however I shot them with in camera sharpening +2, shouldnt that matter ... ?

[pcasciola]

You got me there. I haven't played around much with in camera sharpening. I turn it off completely and do all my post processing in PS.

[cactusclay]

They don't look too bad, but there is always another night.

[Raj]

what I wonder is, are my settings correct ?
can you guys comment on that ?
I wonder if I have a DOF issue, for example in the bridge shot, some portion is sharp at the centre & then it starts getting soft towards edges or lets say away from perfact focus spot
OR
my lens is not good enough .. ?

[cosiecki]

The sky appears reddish because of the sodium vapor lights (street lamps) reflecting off the atmosphere above the town.

[roanjohn]

Try using TV mode and mirror lock up.

RO1

[Persian-Rice]

Try something like F22, and 30 sec or so exposure time(Manual). Shoot RAW, ISO 100 or 200, use lockup and cable release. If you have access to sandbags, use them as well. Focus via distance scale. I would say use multiple spot metering but.........you cant. Try using partial and meter the glow around the buildings. If it overexposes, manually compensate........

Other then that get an FL-D or FL-W. You can also get rid of some of the orange of you process RAW later.

[Ballen Photo]

I took these shots from roof top with my 20D + sigma lens. It was very windy & I used a tripod. I used Av with f8.0, iso 100 with Noise Reduction ON.

Hi Raj, Looking at your settings I see one possible cause right away. I'm thinking if you would have bumped the iso up to say 800, or at least 400, and opened your aperture to F/4, or 5.6 to speed the shutter up, your shots would have had a much better chance at sharpness. Now the high winds are another story. Can you try this again on a windless night?
-Bruce

[Raj]

Try using TV mode and mirror lock up.

RO1

Well ... sorry but what is mirror lockup .. ? & how to use it ? I know its available in 20D but I need to find out more about it ...:oops:

[Raj]

Hi Raj, Looking at your settings I see one possible cause right away. I'm thinking if you would have bumped the iso up to say 800, or at least 400, and opened your aperture to F/4, or 5.6 to speed the shutter up, your shots would have had a much better chance at sharpness. Now the high winds are another story. Can you try this again on a windless night?
-Bruce

I wont have access to same scene again for a few days I guess, I shot this from my friends home's roof top & wont visit him so soon again, however I will try something near my home.

This is a shot I did in manul mode, f 5.6, iso 100, shutter speed 2.5 sec & 26 mm. I wanted to try to stitch a panorama, however subsequent pics were blurry. This looks a bit sharp but also under exposed.

Do you guys use hyperfocal for shots like these ? or focus at some spot on subject directly ?
I guess using higher f value may make a difference, will try something tonight ....

[Raj]

Hi Raj, Looking at your settings I see one possible cause right away. I'm thinking if you would have bumped the iso up to say 800, or at least 400, and opened your aperture to F/4, or 5.6 to speed the shutter up, your shots would have had a much better chance at sharpness. Now the high winds are another story. Can you try this again on a windless night?
-Bruce

Also, wouldnt the DOF at f4 will too shallow ? or it dosent matters when subject is far ...?

Sorry for dumb questions :oops:

[Ballen Photo]

Also, wouldnt the DOF at f4 will too shallow ? or it dosent matters when subject is far ...?

Sorry for dumb questions :oops:

Should be just fine at that distance Raj, With your camera on the tripod, try setting the iso to 400, set the mode dial to AV and choose F/4 or 5.6 while letting the camera choose the shutter speed and see what happens. :cool:
PS, The only dumb questions are the ones that aren't asked. ;)
-Bruce

[griff2]

The sky looks red because the small amount of atmospherically reflected light from the street lights is amplified by the long exposure. I quite like this effect, and will sometimes over expose a night shot to get this effect. It also looks good on street lighting reflected in water.

[Raj]

Thanks everybody :-) Hopefully I will produce some more pics today.
Cheers
- Raj

[snibbetsj]

You said you used noise reduction. The way that works is that after you take a shot, the camera takes another shot with the shutter closed and subtracts out the "noise". This may be the problem. Any time you use any form of noise reduction, you will lose sharpness. At ISO 100, you shouldn't have to use the noise reduction feature. (The wind may also be a factor). Try sharpening them and see how they look. My $.02 worth.

Nice photo btw.

[khiemluu]

Just a suggestion, but when dabble at long exposure photogprahy i use and f stop from around 9-10 (at ISO 100) and set exposure time to about 15-25 seconds depending on the light available, and judging by the available light from you scenes, this exposure time would be appropriate.

These settings usually give me good results.

Here are a few samples: http://photobucket.com/albums/v458/kluu/After%20Dark/

Cheers.
Khiem.

[Raj]

At ISO 100, you shouldn't have to use the noise reduction feature.


Now thats new !
I guess camera manual recommends it based on exposure time but does not direclty links turning NR on/off keeping iso in view too !

Thanks for your advice snibbets :-)
I am yet to learn all the variables :rolleyes:

Khiem, thanks to you too. You have some nice pictures there !
I just cant wait to leave office & follow you guys' guidelines :cool:

[Persian-Rice]

If you want to stitch, run full manual. Dont even bother shooting at f/5.6 the DOF is too shallow.

Here is the EXIF of the city shot done here
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=58912

EXIF Info
Focal Length: 30mm
ISO: ISO 100
Aperture: f/20
Time: 30"
Metering: Spot

Sandbags were used, as I was about 3 feet from the lake and it was fairly windy.
I locked up and I used a cable release as well.

[Raj]

I still need to know about mirror lockup... googling for it now

BTW, what white balance settings do you guys use for nigth shots like these ? just leave it to auto ?

[Raj]

OK, I understand now what mirror lockup is...

[stv737]

Depth of field s/b no issue if the subject is far away over 300 feet. I took this shot with a 50mm lens at f/1.8 15 sec. exposure.

[Redbird_xo]

I like to take cityscape type photos. Here is one that might show you some ideas about camera settings. Feel free to check out the EXIF data. Hope the JPEG artifacts didn't ruin the picture too much.

;)

[Ballen Photo]

Depth of field s/b no issue if the subject is far away over 300 feet.

I agree, and this is what I said earlier in this post. ;)
-Bruce

[stv737]

Sorry didn't pay enough attention.

[Ballen Photo]

Sorry didn't pay enough attention.

NO, Dont be. You just reinforced what I was trying to say earlier, THANKS! :D
-Bruce

[Raj]

I JUST cant wait to go out of office :mad:
While all you guys are trying to help me out, here I am wearing a tie & doing all kind of boring things.
& my camera & tripod are waiting in my bag right here :( I brought them with me so that I could shoot around my office ...

I wonder WHY Monday's are so long ??

[Ballen Photo]

I wonder WHY Monday's are so long ??

I think that's so you'll be sure to appreciate quitting time even more. :lol:
-Bruce

[Raj]

Bruce, Its giving me blues right now ... :-)

[Raj]

Guys sincere thanks to all of you.
I went out of office after dark for a few minutes & here are the results

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=59946

as per the conversation in thread, I shot them in RAW, did a bit is treatment is PS. They look quite sharp to me :lol: Please let me know how you think about them.

One more thing, Bruce I tried shooting today at ISO 100 but f4.0 to f11, exposure times were longer for f11 as expected. Tonight was not windy HOWEVER I got sharper pics for my f4.0 pics than f11. Seems like you hit the nail right :-) Thank you so much for your help :-)

[jyrgen]

What am I doing wrong with my night shots ?
You are shooting them at night :D

Actually true, not that I have much experience or anything, rather read this from books by John Shaw and others, but the best night shots are shot not at (dark) night, but after sunset, between sunset and night if I may say so. Then you can still get natural color to the sky, and the contrast between city lights, sky and buildings themselves allows all of them be within dynamic range, detailed, colored. If you shoot at night, you usually get white lights and black sky.

[Ballen Photo]

I got sharper pics for my f4.0 pics than f11. Seems like you hit the nail right :) Thank you so much for your help :)

Raj, You're more than welcome! I used to shoot a lot of night scenes with film, but that is a slightly different formula as digital seems to like faster shutter speeds for sharpness than film, and digital sensors also seem to have greater DOF than film due to their smaller size.
Now that you're in the "Ball Park", you can experiment and fine tune your night photography. Enjoy. :D
-Bruce

[Andy_T]

Another thing ... for night shots, you might want to take any kind of filter (UV, sky, ...) from your lens that might create reflections and ghostings.

Best regards,
Andy

[Raj]

You are shooting them at night :D

Actually true, not that I have much experience or anything, rather read this from books by John Shaw and others, but the best night shots are shot not at (dark) night, but after sunset, between sunset and night if I may say so. Then you can still get natural color to the sky, and the contrast between city lights, sky and buildings themselves allows all of them be within dynamic range, detailed, colored. If you shoot at night, you usually get white lights and black sky.

True, I read similiar strategy from some other more experienced members too.... I guess timing has to do a lot here ...

[Raj]

Raj, You're more than welcome! I used to shoot a lot of night scenes with film, but that is a slightly different formula as digital seems to like faster shutter speeds for sharpness than film, and digital sensors also seem to have greater DOF than film due to their smaller size.
Now that you're in the "Ball Park", you can experiment and fine tune your night photography. Enjoy. :D
-Bruce

Thanks Bruce.
Although I have a second thought here.
Lower f number like I used yesterday is no issue when shooting object far away. However when my compostion had stuff close to long distance, I used a higher f number. The last image in my post with stairs in foreground & a tall building in back-ground was shot like that.
So my conclusion:

Use high f number & longer exposure for compostion containing combo of near & far subjects
Use lowest f number & short exposure for distant objects

Sounds reasonable ? :-)

However fact remains in place that at both days I got soft pictures for longer exposures, so try to limit this to minimum.

[Raj]

Another thing ... for night shots, you might want to take any kind of filter (UV, sky, ...) from your lens that might create reflections and ghostings.

Best regards,
Andy
Andy, I just use a MC protector, guess that should no be a issue, I will try next time without it.

Thanks for the guidance :-)

[pcasciola]

I was just working with Raj a little through PMs regarding some simple Photoshop techniques that I figured I'd share since Raj seemed to like the results.

All I did here was USM 300/0.3/0, another USM of about 150/0.3/0, and the color balance of about 0/-20/+20. Took about 30 seconds to transform this into a usable shot. Starting with the originals rather than these recompressed JPEGs would produce a much nicer result, too, plus tweaking the values to your own personal preferences.

Before:
http://www.casciola.com/pics/raj2Before.jpg

After:
http://www.casciola.com/pics/raj2.jpg

[Ballen Photo]

I was just working with Raj a little through PMs regarding some simple Photoshop techniques that I figured I'd share since Raj seemed to like the results.

All I did here was USM 300/0.3/0, another USM of about 150/0.3/0, and the color balance of about 0/-20/+20. Took about 30 seconds to transform this into a usable shot. Starting with the originals rather than these recompressed JPEGs would produce a much nicer result, too, plus tweaking the values to your own personal preferences.



Nicely done Phil! :D
-Bruce

[Raj]

Nicely done Phil! :D
-Bruce

When I first saw Phil's work I couldnt beleive its the same picture which disappointed me so much.

Thanks for the nice tution today Phil :-)

[Raj]

Following Phil's guidelines I quicky retouched some of my photos which I rejected at first sight earlier. Not as good as Phil's processed one, however they look much better now.

Here you go :-)
I am only posting the processed one's !

(PS: Full size images are at
http://www14.plala.or.jp/rajkaori/IMG_01.jpg
http://www14.plala.or.jp/rajkaori/IMG_03.jpg

[pcasciola]

Looks good, Raj. Nice job.

[Ballen Photo]

Following Phil's guidelines I quicky retouched some of my photos which I rejected at first sight earlier. Not as good as Phil's processed one, however they look much better now.

Here you go :)
I am only posting the processed one's !


LOOKING GOOD! ;)
-Bruce