Advice on people skills...

I will be going to an event in a few days and it'll require some night shots with individuals posing in the foreground. I was just wondering which mode is best appropriate to obtain the best results. I want the people to be clear with the right amount of exposure, but at the same time have a bright enough background of the landscape. TV mode is great for night shots, but will require a tripod and a fairly long shutter speed. AV mode is bright enough, but I will want a f stop of 10 which also require a longer shutter speed. M mode is usually brighter on the foreground but darkens in the back. I should also inform you guys that I'm just an amateur. So any tips or word of wisdom would really help at this point. Thanks in advance!

SamuelYCWang wrote in post #5762413
I will be going to an event in a few days and it'll require some night shots with individuals posing in the foreground. I was just wondering which mode is best appropriate to obtain the best results. I want the people to be clear with the right amount of exposure, but at the same time have a bright enough background of the landscape. TV mode is great for night shots, but will require a tripod and a fairly long shutter speed. AV mode is bright enough, but I will want a f stop of 10 which also require a longer shutter speed. M mode is usually brighter on the foreground but darkens in the back. I should also inform you guys that I'm just an amateur. So any tips or word of wisdom would really help at this point. Thanks in advance!

Brightness of the photo has nothing to do with the mode; exposure is exposure, your going to need a high ISO, and/or a low aperture, and/or a long shutter speed to get the background bright at dusk. When night comes around any unlit background will probally come out black.

My advice to you would be to use a flash, play around with different combinations of ISO, shutter speed and aperture, play around w/ flash exposure compensation, and shoot in manual mode.

I would start out a dark shoot with a higher ISO and a larger aperture and then work from there, but then again I'm no expert on the subject of flash photography.

SamuelYCWang wrote in post #5762413
I will be going to an event in a few days and it'll require some night shots with individuals posing in the foreground. I was just wondering which mode is best appropriate to obtain the best results. I want the people to be clear with the right amount of exposure, but at the same time have a bright enough background of the landscape. TV mode is great for night shots, but will require a tripod and a fairly long shutter speed. AV mode is bright enough, but I will want a f stop of 10 which also require a longer shutter speed. M mode is usually brighter on the foreground but darkens in the back. I should also inform you guys that I'm just an amateur. So any tips or word of wisdom would really help at this point. Thanks in advance!

Buy some L primes...b/c they have night vision abilities

first off... if you want a shot with the result youre looking for forget about the modes... put it on manual and choose the settings according to what youre looking for.,

SamuelYCWang wrote in post #5762413
I will be going to an event in a few days and it'll require some night shots with individuals posing in the foreground.

Now for a correct answer. The background must receive the same amount of light as what is on the subject if you want the background to show up well.

Benji

Sometimes I wonder how these posts get bumped.

SamuelYCWang wrote in post #5762413
I will be going to an event in a few days and it'll require some night shots with individuals posing in the foreground. I was just wondering which mode is best appropriate to obtain the best results. I want the people to be clear with the right amount of exposure, but at the same time have a bright enough background of the landscape. TV mode is great for night shots, but will require a tripod and a fairly long shutter speed. AV mode is bright enough, but I will want a f stop of 10 which also require a longer shutter speed. M mode is usually brighter on the foreground but darkens in the back. I should also inform you guys that I'm just an amateur. So any tips or word of wisdom would really help at this point. Thanks in advance!

hey sorry for my original response, I kinda stopped reading after you started mentioning modes.

M mode doesnt do anything m is for manual. Meaning you choose all the settings.

You want a nice background and the subject well exposed.

First expose for the background. Set your camera to m, pum up your iso as far as you you think your camera can handle, lower your f stop and then set up your shutter speed untill you get a nice exposure (using your little meter that the camera has)

Now you have a good exposure for BG you add light to the subject with a small flash, now all these flashes nowadays have ettl which works amazingly so you dont need to set up anything manual, if you do think the subject is a bit too bright which happens sometimes you can set the flash to minu 1/3.. also always use some sort of bounce or diffuser so the light on the subject is a bit softer.

This is all very very basic.

If you want to seriosuly use your camera you should read your manual, print out what all the settings are and what affects what (shutter speed, aperture, iso and so on) and pracvtice in manual mode, once youre great at that than the other modes are a shortcut, but you know what you are doing when youre using them.

Hi Samuel,

I'm far from being an expert (read - far far away), but I believe that what you would be looking for is a technique called "dragging the shutter". Basically it means to set your camera to Manual mode, and selecting a shutter speed that is slower than your sync speed, that will result in letting more of the ambient light in rather than relying solely on the flash.

For an overview have a read of http://www.planetneil.​com …s/3-dragging-the-shutter/ .

So for example, if you had a flash on your camera, setting it to P mode and it metered the flash as 1/125th @ f/8, then you set the camera to M mode with settings of say 1/15th @ f/8. The flash will still provide you with the fill light on your subjects at a poofteenth of a second (for which the 1/125th is known as the most common sync speed, or the time allowed for the flash to sense, trigger and deliver the stored energy to the flashtube), but at 1/15th you are effectively allowing a heap more ambient light into the camera in addition to the fill light than you would at 1/125th.

So for now, have a google for "dragging the shutter", find some willing subjects at the time of evening that you expect to shoot at, and have some fun practicing!!!

Hooroo,

Ken.

Are you able to go to the location with a friend a couple nights beforehand? It would help immeasurably if you were able to go shoot a friend in the same location and the same lighting and then you can experiment a bit, come home and download the images, and see what worked and what didn't. That way you'll have some idea of what to do differently when you go back and shoot the event "for real".

This thread is from 08...