I would love it if I could get some night pictures on here with a small description of how you did it.. Unfortunately, I don't have one to share and that is because I don't know how to do them.. I love night photography.. especially urban city night life but really everything after dusk.
There was great light but not enough for me to get a focused shot handheld so I set up my tripod. The camera settings were:
Exposure: 0.625 sec (10/16)
Aperture: f/6.3
ISO Speed: 3200
Focal Length: 18 mm
I played around with the exposure until I got the lighting I wanted. My in camera light meter is a little off for what I like so I tend to use it as a baseline and go from there. I forgot to change the white balance but I was getting the results I wanted so I stuck with it. I left the ISO High because I wanted a short enough exposure time that I would freeze them. They were being fairly still but it was still long enough to get some movement in some of the frames. I suppose I could have opened the f/stop up some but part of that was the lens, when I zoom in, it only allows me to have it open so far.
If you are trying to capture light trails, or just cityscape at night, leave the exposure time on longer. I would have a lower ISO so there is less noise and the colors will be more vivid. My nikon says "bulb", your canon may say something similar but this is the setting that keeps the shutter open as long as the button is pressed, either manually or by remote. A tripod, even a basic inexpensive one, is a must for most nighttime photos.
Play around and see what you get, one of the best ways to learn! I am no expert, I read some books and then tried things out, I definitely learn better by trial and error, instead of just reading up on something.
I've done a couple, but my camera has two different night time modes, so I just set it to one of those and see what happens. Do you know if your camera has such a mode?
I shot this just after sunset with my 18-55mm lens, ISO 100, handheld. Of course, being Times Square, the ambient light from all of those billboards made that possible. Ideally, the best way to get crisp night shots is to have a tripod, but that's not always possible. When I'm faced with that situation, I open up to the highest f/stop I can and often increase the ISO. Normally, I shoot with my camera set to ISO 100 to get the least amount of digital noise possible, but the noise is a tradeoff I'm willing to make to get the shot. Sometimes it can even lend to the shot, especially in a dramatically lit candid night shot converted to b&w.
This is a Star Trail picture, taken in an urban area with quite a lot of ambient lights.
How I did it: This is 120 x 30second pictures (ISO 400; F5.6) that have been combined using the (free) software found at www.startrails.de Next time I do a pic like this I will trust myself to drop the ISO down to 100 - there will be less noise. (The camera has to be on a tripod, and you need to click each pic immediately after the shutter closes from the previous pic. It's better if you have a remote, use manual focus, and turn off the image stabiliser if you have one.)
This picture was taken on ISO 100/F4.0/10secs/manual focus/tripod/remote
I use "The Photographer's Ephemeris (download from http://photoephemeris.com/) to plan these shots. You need to know when the sun/moon rise/set will happen, and be correctly positioned to get the effect you are looking for. It's rare that I am in the right place at the right time unless I have planned it! Also, the sun and moon move surprisingly fast and you sometimes have a window of less than 2 minutes to get the perfect angle.
This picture was taken during the semi-final of the 2010 Fifa World Cup last year (Cape Town). ISO100/F11/15 secs. What was important to me was to capture the huge glow coming out of the stadium - I clicked the shutter as we heard the roar of the crowd with the first goal scored. That's why the F-stop is so high - it reduced the details of the city lights around the stadium.
I love pictures of fires - and this is one of my favourites where you can see the streaks. ISO 800/F4.5/0.4secs. I chose the high ISO to reduce the motion blur of the pictures - but left enough to get the fire streaks.
I didn't realize I had so many night photos. I won't post them all. I use the Night Landscape setting, no flash, on my point-and-shoot most of the time. I've recently learned about the exposure adjustment feature which I applied to my supermoon shot. It helped tremendously with the bright light contrast and allowed more detail to come through. The main thing to remember is to keep the camera still so a tripod is recommended because any movement will show up due to the slower shutter speed.
This particular picture is using overhead light only.
Just a lucky shot after many useless ones ... my advise to you for starters - just keep trying different settings and watch the outcome and you'll learn - digital photography is luckily gratis ;-)
Night time shots are fun, but often very cold during winter. Bundle up and you won't get so cold. Tinkering is part of the process, until you get what you're looking for.
I gots lots, long exposure is my fetish!
skyfire 2011
australian war memorial
nightclubs
sparklers
Northbourne Ave
I go out frequently at night just to do photography!
I don't have too many interesting night shots yet - will probably have a lot more later in the year when there isn't much daylight and I don't have much choice.
@miata2u Peggy. I didn't put any info on as I added so many, lol. Here is how I did the highway one.
Set your iso to 100. For the starburst on the street lights put your f stops to f22 or narrower if you can. To get the trail of lights use shutter speed at 30 seconds. You can do less if you don't want long trails. It was fairly light still when I took that shot, more twilight really so no black in the sky. Once you've set up just play about. Change shutter speeds and see what effects you get. You can also widen your f stops if you prefer which will take in more light but you won't get the starburst at the widest. You can also play about to get bigger starbursts than others by playing with the fstops.
I would say the major thing you really need for any night shot though is the tripod. I haven't got things spot on yet so patience and time is great if you have it so you can take numerous shots. I think i have my long exposures sussed for shooting traffic but other night shots I'm still working on like my church one.
Here are two different kind of night shots. The first I took handheld out the window of my car. Nothing special technically except for a few adjustments to adjust for being a bit underexposed and to make it black and white with some better contrast. I had the assistance of an outdoor light, though!
This was a bit more work but not too tricky. I had to pull out the tripod because it was a 30 second exposure. The hardest thing was adjusting between shots to make sure Orion stayed visible. You never know just how fast stars move until you try to photograph them over a period of time. The streak was from an airplane I waited to fly over during the long exposure.
@kole This doesn't really show the whole night lights idea, but it WAS taken at very dark o'clock at the local train station! It's an HDR created from 3 images (-2, 0, +2) using Photomatix, then brought into Photoshop with a b/w layer added with a little sepia tone. I warped the sides using Transform/Warp then finished with a slight curves adjustment for contrast.
Here are some of my night photographs from my point-and-shoot using the Day Time/No Flash (DT/NF), Day Time/Flash DT/F), and Night Time/No Flash (NT/NF) settings. Regardless of which settings I have used, I have had to hold my camera very still. Next purchase, a tripod.
I actually did this with two shots composited together in PS
I wanted to get the mountains to show up in the shot w/o completely blowing out all the lights. I prob could have gotten more out of them if i had taken the time to paint maskings but i was satisfied with this result enough not to worry about it
I don't know if this counts as night:
Sunset shots are even more beautiful if you increase highlights and shadows but if you overdo it, it looks artificial.
This was obviously done with flash. The night adds an ominous background but luckily the sky wasn't completely dark, yet.
Here is a place in Syracuse, NY. And I prefer night photography too, just trying to get better at it, but I think its a whole new world when the sun goes down.
@kole - Have you learnt much Brandy? While some have offered some info, the majority have just stuck there night time shot up.... a pity they did not read your original post???
Terrible shot but it was 11pm and I had no photo yet.
This was shot at f2.8 to get more light in, ISO 200 (could've pushed this a bit higher and stopped down the aperature), 13 sec exposure. Not your typical moon shot as I was tyring to get the reflection in the water as opposed to the details of the moon. Probably not the ideal settings but I was fairly rushed a bit over it!
With most night photography you'll need use a tripod (or rest the camera on something stable) as a lot of the time you'll use longer exposures, but it really depends on what type of shot you are going for.
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You get the idea :P
Exposure: 0.625 sec (10/16)
Aperture: f/6.3
ISO Speed: 3200
Focal Length: 18 mm
I played around with the exposure until I got the lighting I wanted. My in camera light meter is a little off for what I like so I tend to use it as a baseline and go from there. I forgot to change the white balance but I was getting the results I wanted so I stuck with it. I left the ISO High because I wanted a short enough exposure time that I would freeze them. They were being fairly still but it was still long enough to get some movement in some of the frames. I suppose I could have opened the f/stop up some but part of that was the lens, when I zoom in, it only allows me to have it open so far.
If you are trying to capture light trails, or just cityscape at night, leave the exposure time on longer. I would have a lower ISO so there is less noise and the colors will be more vivid. My nikon says "bulb", your canon may say something similar but this is the setting that keeps the shutter open as long as the button is pressed, either manually or by remote. A tripod, even a basic inexpensive one, is a must for most nighttime photos.
Play around and see what you get, one of the best ways to learn! I am no expert, I read some books and then tried things out, I definitely learn better by trial and error, instead of just reading up on something.
Man I have a LOT!! I guess I'll stop there. lol
Sorry for overtaking this thread!
How I did it: This is 120 x 30second pictures (ISO 400; F5.6) that have been combined using the (free) software found at www.startrails.de Next time I do a pic like this I will trust myself to drop the ISO down to 100 - there will be less noise. (The camera has to be on a tripod, and you need to click each pic immediately after the shutter closes from the previous pic. It's better if you have a remote, use manual focus, and turn off the image stabiliser if you have one.)
I use "The Photographer's Ephemeris (download from http://photoephemeris.com/) to plan these shots. You need to know when the sun/moon rise/set will happen, and be correctly positioned to get the effect you are looking for. It's rare that I am in the right place at the right time unless I have planned it! Also, the sun and moon move surprisingly fast and you sometimes have a window of less than 2 minutes to get the perfect angle.
This particular picture is using overhead light only.
Also 10 minutes @ f/8, ISO 100, 10mm. Illuminated by very little & heavily tweaked in ACR to bring the detail back.
This one is shot with high ISO
High ISO.
ISO 500, f/2.8, 1/15 exposure
ISO 320, 1/8 exposure
My camera doesn't take very good night photos and without a tripod (which I don't even have) any motion blurs - it worked for this one though :-)
I dunno if you'd consider the last one night time, but it basically was at the time. It was at least pretty dark. hahaha
i didnt really do anything different for these shots...its just hard to keep them from getting blurry so i would definently use a tripod :) haha
Camera balanced on a railing! The only trick you need to know is to keep the camera still. Shutter speed priority and play around with exposure times.
The Forum had to do a bracketed exposure and an HDR Merge in photoshop
And part of a sculpture set on the theme of thought
There are some gorgeous night shots here. Inspiring!
Oops, didn't realise I had so many
How many do you want? lol
Its not to hard... all you need is a decent tripod and a remote (ebay $6 - I do everything on a budget lol)
skyfire 2011
australian war memorial
nightclubs
sparklers
Northbourne Ave
I go out frequently at night just to do photography!
tripod with 5 second exposure
tripod with 3 second exposure
It's the only one I have for this project.
Slow shutter speed plus highway traffic:
Using the "Dusk/Dawn" setting on my camera, which gives everything a pinkish-purple glow:
I was going for creepy....
Set your iso to 100. For the starburst on the street lights put your f stops to f22 or narrower if you can. To get the trail of lights use shutter speed at 30 seconds. You can do less if you don't want long trails. It was fairly light still when I took that shot, more twilight really so no black in the sky. Once you've set up just play about. Change shutter speeds and see what effects you get. You can also widen your f stops if you prefer which will take in more light but you won't get the starburst at the widest. You can also play about to get bigger starbursts than others by playing with the fstops.
I would say the major thing you really need for any night shot though is the tripod. I haven't got things spot on yet so patience and time is great if you have it so you can take numerous shots. I think i have my long exposures sussed for shooting traffic but other night shots I'm still working on like my church one.
Hope this helps.
Except for the moon- these are all Disneyland shots.
And a shot of my beautiful city, Bristol
Here is a picture I took last night.
One I just took recently & love!
exposure - 11.7 sec.
ISO Speed - 100
Focal length - 50mm
This was a bit more work but not too tricky. I had to pull out the tripod because it was a 30 second exposure. The hardest thing was adjusting between shots to make sure Orion stayed visible. You never know just how fast stars move until you try to photograph them over a period of time. The streak was from an airplane I waited to fly over during the long exposure.
DT/NF
DT/F
DT/NF
DT/NF
My last one :-) NT/NF
I wanted to get the mountains to show up in the shot w/o completely blowing out all the lights. I prob could have gotten more out of them if i had taken the time to paint maskings but i was satisfied with this result enough not to worry about it
Sunset shots are even more beautiful if you increase highlights and shadows but if you overdo it, it looks artificial.
This was obviously done with flash. The night adds an ominous background but luckily the sky wasn't completely dark, yet.
This one's a more tweaked-out HDR... 3 photos again... and tripod... and long exposure.
Here is a place in Syracuse, NY. And I prefer night photography too, just trying to get better at it, but I think its a whole new world when the sun goes down.
One of my Fav's took the boys for icecream
So many great photos on this thread. Really cool to see what everyone is doing.
And a few others:
ISO 200, f/2.8, 15 secs. Can't remember where I threw the focus. Camera is mounted to guard-railing with a slik ball head on a manfroto super-clamp.
This was shot at f2.8 to get more light in, ISO 200 (could've pushed this a bit higher and stopped down the aperature), 13 sec exposure. Not your typical moon shot as I was tyring to get the reflection in the water as opposed to the details of the moon. Probably not the ideal settings but I was fairly rushed a bit over it!
With most night photography you'll need use a tripod (or rest the camera on something stable) as a lot of the time you'll use longer exposures, but it really depends on what type of shot you are going for.