Night time, the right time...post your late hours photos here.

a_roadbiker wrote in post #11565308
Great shot!

gcmj45acp wrote in post #11570523
Nice conversion! Isn't that one of "Niko's" hideouts in the GTA4?

LSU wrote in post #11570536
Without reposting the image for the third time on a page......awesome.

Todd Lambert wrote in post #11569200
No sweat, I understand. I only mentioned it because you have one element that's letting more light in (ISO) bumped up... and then you have another element that’s letting less light in (ƒstop). You're kind of counteracting each other a bit.

You should be able to still get star effects with a larger aperture setting, and you won't be degrading the quality of your image by using such a small aperture.

Basically, in a shot like that, you're going to get the frame exposed no matter what (unless you have just ridiculous shutter speeds, etc..) so what you're really going for is determining the least amount of exposure time to get the trails that you're after. Too long, and you get the trails, but you get too much light for the rest of the frame. Too little, and your trails aren't as long as you want. Start with ISO 100 (unless you're really trying to pull in light, like stars or inside a dark barn or something) and then pick you're aperture. You'd be amazed out how sharp stuff is, no matter what the aperture is, because of the nature of long exposures.


Here's a shot that's actually at ƒ2.8, which you'd think would cause only the focal point to be in focus. Here, the DOF extends all the way, even at ƒ2.8. In this case, I wanted to get the cars in the left to trail all the way through the shot, so I knew I needed at least 10 seconds for the cars to enter the frame and then go over the hill and out of sight. But, because of the stars, I didn't want a shutter speed that was too long, in order for the stars to stay put and not start to move.

So, I got 14 seconds, which was enough time for the cars, with a few extra seconds to pull in the light from the stars.

Anyways, probably more than you wanted or needed to hear, but I started typing and well...

Anyways, keep at it. Night stuff is great fun and quite a challenge.

jald3rd wrote in post #11577312
this picture is neat. you can see how green the grass is even at night. did you do some editing on the picture? what do you usually adjust when you do the editing?

Todd Lambert wrote in post #11577784
Thank you! This shot was pretty close to SOC other than sharpening, a bit of levels and a WB adjustment. I also cloned out some pieces of trash on the ground since it was pitch black and I didn't see them when I was shooting (I'll usually go through a scene and clean things up first before shooting, but in this case, it was too dark to really see) The white light that was lighting the scene behind me camera right, really contributed to the green fields. This was shot about 8pm, so there was still some blue light in the skies which helped a bit too.

Here's the SOC shot:

jetta-the-hut wrote in post #11578119
how long was the exposer on the truck pic? I've really got to get out and so some night shots!