Steve in bris wrote:
1. Is it best to use a high iso and a flash. Obvioulsy a long exposure will not work?? The high iso and flash will allow for a shoter more workable exposure time will it not????
2. Also am i right in saying that just after sunset is best??
3. As for focussing a small aperature to allow both Famil and cityscape to be in focus?? Is this achievable???
1. Actually, if you use a flash, you really don't need high ISO (a moderate ISO of about 400 will probably be fine) - but, you will need a tripod and a long exposure. What you need to do is balance the ambient lighting of the cityscape in the background with the flash to illuminate the subject in the foreground. To do this, your camera needs to be on a tripod to accomodate the long exposure needed for the background. To accomplish this balance you're going to use AV mode on your camera and set your flash to E-TTL and probably about -1/3 to -1 FEC. You may need to take several shots with various FEC's to get this right.
2. Actually, just before sunset is best. That's the time when the sky will have it's richest color, and the cityscape with be bathed in soft golden light (if you compose it correctly).Others will probably argue that just after sunset is best, but each to their own.
3. Yes, you'll want to use a fairly small aperture for maxium depth of field (if you want the cityscape to be completely in focus). But you may want to play around with this and try some larger apertures to get some blurring of the background.
Hope this helps.
