NIGHT TIME PHOTO'S

I am going to take some photo's at night. There will be fireworks and other shots of buildings and boats lit up by coloured lighting. What settings will get the best results? Any tips would be much appreciated. Thanks

i am going to assume that you will be using a tripod because thats the only way to get good night shots. as for the settings, it all depends on what you are going to shoot and how you like your image to be. for buildings, you can use between f8-10 to get max sharpness and depth of field and you don't have to worry about the shutter speed because they are not going to move. for fireworks, you can use fast shutter to freeze them or slow shutter speed o show their movement. as for boats on the water, i recommand fast shutter speed (around 1/250) because there is always movement in the water which will make the boats blurry if you use slow shutter speed.

I've tried this before (the pictures stunk, so take this with a grain of salt). I set focus manually to infinity. Then played with the different shutter speeds to get the fireworks how I wanted them to look (some trails but not *too* much). Lastly I set the f-stop to what seemed appropriate to keep things from being over or underexposed.

Fireworks were a lot harder than I expected, about the time I started thinking I maybe had things set right, the show was over.

Last time I did fireworks I had setup a tripod, set the camera to "bulb" in the manual mode at f/11 and focused at infinity. some of the shots were at 1 minute exposure or more and quite a few of them turned out great.

Thanks for the replies. I hadnt thought of a tripod but must get one sorted today. I have a mini tripod but isnt the best as the camera can move if there is any wind. Hopefully get some good shots. Cheers

Shooting fireworks can be tricky but with enough patience you'll get a great shot and keep shooting.

How do you set the focus to infinity? The 4th is right around the corner and I might be headed into Boston for the most watched July 4th fireworks display in the country - maybe the world - so it would be nice to get some tips. I'm finding that the tri-pod is a must and that a shutter release remote is also critical. However, some say they shoot handheld with the 70-200 f 2.8 and get great results.

There are some excellent tips and suggestions for photographing fireworks here.

Got a tripod and a remote. Now I hope I can put all this good advise into practise and get some good shots. Thanks for all the advise by the way.

what about focusing to infinity? How do you do it? Anyone...anyone...?

Focussing to infinity... first switch your lens to manual focus. (There should be a switch on it somewhere with "AF" and "M" - or something like that - as the options.) Then rotate the focus ring until the symbol for infinity, which looks like an 8 on its side, is lined up with the mark. It might be a good idea to tape the focus ring in position so that you don't accidentally move it when you're adjusting the zoom ring.

EDIT:Tell me you're not serious. You've got all that gear and you don't know how to focus to infinity?

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That's a Nikon mount lens.

You need to be aware that on many Canon lenses you can focus past infinity. This is to allow for thermal expansion and the use of infra-red filters. One way around this is to autofocus on a object in the far distance that's high contrast, then switch to M.

David

Shooting Fireworks....

Nope...didn't know. Now I do. I don't do much long exposure type stuff. It's mostly sports and events. Having all that gear is a product of a paying job that feeds my hobby, which as turned into a nice side job. So the list of gear is in no way representative of my photography skills. However, I'm a MUCH better photog today than I was a year ago...that's for damn sure. For example, taking shots like these (while not jaw dropping) never cross my mind until I totally dove into this forum.

Sorry to doubt you, Don. It all makes sense now. And I'm really glad to see that you're enjoying learning about photography. (We're all learning...)

The issue about focussing was specifically in the context of photographing fireworks displays, which the Original Poster wanted to do. His autofocus won't be able to cope because fireworks are so transient. But fortunately he'll be a reasonable distance from them, so if he sets the focus on infinity then the depth of field will include the fireworks and they'll be in focus.

Hope that makes sense!

(PS I really like the photo of the football.)