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Shots at night
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i want to take photographs of my street, focusing on the orange hue created by the street lights and the reflective properties of the rain on the ground but whenever i take a photograph its really dark often black, i know ive to do something with ISO settings and crap but have no idea how or what,
Help please :(what camera have ya got? If it’s a SLR it should be no problem, even compacts can do the job nicely. You’ll need a tripod and a long shutter speed. the ISO doesn’t really matter once you have a good long exposure. I shot O’Connell St. at night on ISO 100 and they came out great. But yeah defo get a tripod and make sure there’s nothing moving in the scene, unless of course you want that, i.e. light trails from cars.
i have a nikon d70s, can you tll me how to change exposure settings, thanks
What mode are you taking photographs in, eg aperture, manual ?
Where are you metering from ? If the camera is metering from the lights themselves
then good change that everything else around them will be very dark.Have you got an example with EXIF data in it ? That would probably help us to work this
out for you :)ughh, you should understand that im a newbie, stricly an auto man, have tried aperture mode and manual but im not really sure what im dong, could you explain metering
Oatesy,
Possibly worth you reading this tutorial by Ciaran https://www.photographyireland.net/viewtopic.php?t=392 This explaind about metering. Your camera on auto would probably work for night-time shots in Matrix metering mode.
Have fun
Si
I’ve been experimenting with night photography over the last few months. It’s a whole new world to work with!
Traffic and light-trails were a good place to start off with, plus floodlit buildings and sky scapes. It’s great to get sharp focus in low light without compromising the graininess of a high ISO.I’m just curious if anyone has suggestions for settings in different situations.
A sea at night? A forest? The sky?I took a band out for some photos last night, using the traffic on the roads as a background to blur out all the irritating road signs/ buildings/fences etc. I set my Nikon (D200) to 320 ISO on f5.6-7.1 at about 10/sec. I used my tripod and a +1.7 flash, and asked the guys to compose themselves and stay dead still!
I’m happy with the overall effect, one out of three images were sharp and well-exposed. However, is there a way to burn more detail into the camera on a faster shutter?I think you’d be better off spending an hour or so reading up and experimrnting on metering. There is a relationshiop between ISO/Shutter and aperture that will give you the exposure you want. You can adjust one of these and then need to adjust another to reciprocate the change. There are many good articles out there. Once you understand that the camera is measuring the light in the scene, you can then “Play” with adding flash for dramatic effect or contrast control. This is the fundamental technical skill with photography and doesn’t take long to learn.
https://www.photographyireland.net/viewtopic.php?t=392
Good luck
Si
The D70S is a very good camera. Under normal conditions it should be able to give you a good exposure at night time.
Without seeing your shots I’m guessing that there might be some extra bright lights shining directly into the camera. If you don’t plan on getting to fully understand all the details of exposure in an hour :) [sorry Si :) :) ] you could try using “Exposure Compensation” to tell the camera to let more light in that it thinks is necessary.
Go to page 86 of the D70S Manual for specific instructions, but basically you can tell the camera to increase the exposure (increase the amount of light coming in) using the “+” side. And decrease the exposure (decrease the amount of light coming in) by using the “-” side. You have control of this in 1/3 Stops or 1/3 EV up to -5 stops or +5 stops on the D70S. Other cameras/makes may vary but to my knowledge all Digital SLR’s, most Bridge Cameras and many Compact Digital Cameras have this ability.
Word of warning though!!! You must set the EV back to 0.0 when you finish, otherwise all your shots will be effected by this setting,
Dave
Oatesy wrote:
ughh, you should understand that im a newbie, stricly an auto man, have tried aperture mode and manual but im not really sure what im dong, could you explain metering
Oatsey,
There is lots of help coming in here but as you say – you are a newbie. I’ll apologise for making it ‘simple and stupid’ because I believe that your level of questioning is the very best level of questioning. Hence I shall assume very limited knowledge of the D70.
On the left hand side top plate you have a circular dial – it has symbols and letters:
A – Aperture priority which allows you to set aperture (controls depth of field of the range of distance which is in focus). You will set the aperture and the camera will do the rest
S – Shutter priority where you set the shutter speed (controls your ability to freeze action) and the camera controls the rests
Auto – the camera chooses all settings – it’s a bit like pot luck and generally assumes that you are shooting in daylight and want to freeze action BUT you have not control… I personally do not use
Various programme modes that are biased toward subject matter (mountains = broad depth of field long exposure) (portrait – likely assumes a subject some 2-4m away in daylight or flash exposure) I personally do not use theseI digress….
For your night shot you are likely to require good depth of field and uninterested in shutter speed (you will need a tripod or other good support)
Set the left hand dial to A, turn the aperture ring on the lens (it has numbers on if 32, 22, 16, 8, 5.6, 4, 2.8, 1.7) to the number in red (likely to be f22) which means that the D70 electroncs go to work.
On the right hand side there is a dial wheel – now look at the D70 screen – dial in aperture 22, focus on the item you want in focus.
Now press shutter button.
Please post your images here and we will give further help
My night images are here…. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/c.puckle/LowLight/llight.htm
and here … http://homepage.ntlworld.com/c.puckle/LLight2/lowlight2.htm
Please PM me to ask about the techniques about any of the images and I will try to explain more
regards,
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