Question about nighscapes

I am going to be doing a lot of travelling this year, between london bejing and ecuador, and really want to take some night/cityscapes. I have tried doing long exposures at night or in very low lighting but find that my camera is metering wrong and it ends up trying to expose for everything. For example, when I try to take an exposure of a bridge at night it ends up metering for everything not just the lit up bridge. And I get 1 awful picture, with the WB off (not my biggest concern since I am shooting RAW).

Does anyone have any tips for me on how to correctly meter and exposure the nightscapes? I tried underexposing, but you all know what happens then...noise...

Thanks,
Nick

Helloooo Nick,


In my early days of photography, when I was a young smart alex, knew everything nipper barely in my teens (13)... I always found a challenge in photographs that were difficult. To this end I spent a great deal of time with time-exposures (night exposures) and high-speed (1/70,000th second). I was always fascinated by the dreamy World of night shots, as in reality the end result produced an image that wasn't there when you took the shot. It looks far nicer in the photo.

When I started I was using a Zenith B, and Pracktica LTL. The rules and advice I can give are somewhat different for light falling on that little postage stamp sized sensor as opposed to cellulose. But the principal is the same.

You asked about metering Nick, the bottom line is that nothing in a digital SLR can meter for anything over 5 seconds... and even that is when you use the Av mode to allow background light into a flash scene.

Bright lights really play havoc with night shots, the extreme contrast between the dark sky and street lights for example are a pain. Especially if that point of light happens to be in the centre weighted metering portion of the image. For a novice the best time to shoot is just before dark, after the Sun has gone down but that lovely blue glow is in the sky. This will reduce the contrast between light spots and make your metering nightmares go away.

Digital is amazing, here you have a device that in half a second you can see how the shot turned out. Such a luxury 20 years ago meant the use of an expensive Polaroid back. That wasn't even 100% accurate for if you left it "brewing" too long it was darker anyway.

For digital I keep my ISO at the lowest setting. 100 in my case for the 300D. Put the camera in Av mode and turn the dial waaaaaaaay down to the lowest aperture. F32 or F64 if you have such a luxury. What this will do is force the camera to meter for a longer period of time, but with an F32 any flare will be reduced to a minimum. You can further "fool" the camera by underexposing a bit (I know.. not too much or the beach scene with the sand appears). In film terminology this was called reciprocity failure.

If you really want to get fancy, you can compose the shot and put your finger in front of a bright spot in the frame. Watch your meter and remember how much it went down when you hid the light. Adjust your exposure accordingly, but remember to use the smallest aperture humanly possible to reduce the effect of the flare.

That's about it. Happy shooting.

Here's a couple of examples Nick of how I did it with film.

1: http://www.scotlandone​.com/galleries/large-257

1: The above shot was very difficult due to the pitch black sky and white snow on the ground. You don't get much more contrast than that LOL. With trial and error and a little help from the burn tool in Adobe... you can master the art of shooting in the dark.

2: http://www.scotlandone​.com/galleries/large-281

2: It was still snowing when I took this shot. You can see how the right edge has completely burnt out and is off the scale in a histogram.

3: https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=199321

3: And finally a previous thread in POTN. A shot of lightning strikes in the dark with my 300D. 30 seconds at F32 Av mode underexposed by maximum 2 stops.

I hope this is of some help Nick. I know others will post with their thoughts and experiences. That's the great thing about this place - folk will help you.

Cousin, who has been in the dark for years. (photographing that is)

cousin- i understand a little...but how would you go abou taking pic 1 and 2 with the light not washing out the pic?

carbonXevo8 wrote in post #2406103
cousin- i understand a little...but how would you go abou taking pic 1 and 2 with the light not washing out the pic?

Hello Tom,


One way of doing this would be to take several images at different time exposures. Some obviously under exposed for the subject matter. Lay them on top of each other in Adobe as a layer mask, and simply "rub out" the overexposed flare.

Indeed it is tricky, but once mastered nobody would know the image was a combination of two or even three shots. The terminology in Adobe is called double layer mask.

It's intimidating to read and by far the best idea would be to contact a POTN member who lives close to you that is familiar with it. It would be the best couple of pints of beer you have ever spent.

Cheers.

Cousin.

I hope you guys don't mind if I jump in on this conversation (learning curve for me) and ask a question.
Cousin, I'm curious to know,with your second shot where or what did you focus on? Does focusing 1/3 into the frame still apply when your in close proximity of your subject?

Frank_Hollahan wrote in post #2407601
I hope you guys don't mind if I jump in on this conversation (learning curve for me) and ask a question.
Cousin, I'm curious to know,with your second shot where or what did you focus on? Does focusing 1/3 into the frame still apply when your in close proximity of your subject?

Hi Frank,


This shot was taken with a 24 mm lens, 10 minutes at F8. There were no focussing issues at all with such a wide lens. (24 mm actual as this was a 35mm film camera).

You do raise a good point, a point which is often missed in the blink of an eye when the new digital SLR's do the focussing for you. Since a digital SLR has no microprism focussing screen, it is rather difficult in the dark to focus on anything. If this were the case use the depth of field function and check your nearest and furthest points. I think most folks would give preference to having the distant object in focus if that is the main theme of the shot anyway.

Good point Frank and one that has different answers with todays modern auto-focussing DSLR's.

Cheers.


Cousin.

what kinds of things are you trying to shoot a night and under what lighting conditions? could you post an example photo so we can see what's going on?

straight urban settings are fairly straight forward imo. with my xt I can shoot handheld at iso 800 at night (not my preferred method but you make due when you're without tripod). This shot is handheld, f 5.6, 1/8 sec, iso 800.

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