Nightshots handheld... Possible ???

Merry Christmas everyone

I'll be flying over to NYC next year.

I had great success in shooting in daylight on my last trip.

With my new 350D I'd like to tackle some Cityscape and closer up nightshots.

I'd really like to get away with trawling a tripod around with me everywhere, everyday as knowing me spontaneous shots will be a plenty.

The fastest lens I'll have will be the EF 50mm 1.8 II (on order so haven't tested)

I know this lens copes well in low light but would it cope with nightshots eg Brooklyn Bridge at night ?

Would an IS lens cope with handheld nightshots ?

Excuse my lack of knowledge as I'm new to the DSLR scene and learning loads from this forum daily.

Thanks

BB

You can certainly get handheld shots at night put they'l probably be a pile of c**p.

Do yourself a favour and smuggle along the smallish tripod.

You'll be kicking yourself afterwards if not

Greg

Yes, but you'd still be at a high ISO.

With a tripod, and some are fairly small enough to travel around with, you can put it on a lower ISO and still get clean shots that you can blow up without a problem of picking up all the noise.

Thanks for that Guys

I have a tripod, not overly expensive, not overly compact.

Can anyone suggest a smallish tripod that would suffice.

Other than one of those contraptions that are about the size of beer cans

Those the size of beer cans may suffice. I have a small Cullmann tabletop thing that supports a 10D/20D/5D body plus a prime or zoom not more than 10cm long, approximately. Weight wise it might support a bit more, but with longer lens it falls over because of shortish legs. I hold it's leg usually while shooting, to be sure.

Usually it is possible to find some flat place to set this thing up. If nothing else, then to the ground like the attached shoot I took in Budapest from the ground of the quay with 10D and 18-50@50mm:

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Yes, you can do handheld, and yes they will either be at a high ISO or a small DoF. However, I don't think they'll look like crap.

Handheld, ISO 3200:

I have a mini tripod too and it works pretty good. But, you can use something as simple as a bean bag too. Put it under the body and lens or just the lens on a table or wide railing/ledge etc... It works great in a pinch!

Jon.

With the 50mm F1.8 you have very shallow DOF at F1.8 - not ideal for cityscapes... I second the mini tripod suggestion...

How well does the in-camera noise reduction work? On that note why not just leave it on for sports / action shots at 800 or higher ISO?

Because it only kicks in on exposures over 1 second (I think it is one second)
Hence the name ' Long Exposure Noise Reduction'

It cannot cancel out ISO noise, just noise that comes through with long exposures