night pics...

[1sicv8]

i need some tips on night shooting. all these were mostly with 15 sec shutters and everything else in auto,
im going downtown this week and want to get some cool night shots of the city and the lil things that i think are cool. any tips











mainly ill be taking pics of neon signs and stuff like that. old buildings. etc

[pacmktg]

The biggest need for night shooting is a tripod. The second is a cable release to remotely release the shutter.

Bob

[pacmktg]

I posted before I had looked at your photos. Why are you asking for help? Those look great.

Bob

[1sicv8]

thanks! well theres always room for improvement. i was mainly worried about to much grain in the pics . and wondering if i should be adjusting ISO and such.

[1sicv8]

oh and yes i use a tripod. but no sutter cable. that would be sweet, i usually just put it on a 1 sec dely so if i do move the camera. itll be good by the time it starts taking the pic

[pacmktg]

I didn't know if you used film or digital. I am guessing digital. The term in digital is noise which looks the same as grain in film. On my monitor I do not see any of either. You might want to try some with a longer exposure allowing for streaks of light from movement of cars etc.

Bob

[1sicv8]

sorry lol. then i meant noise.

those are all at my maxed out shutter of 15 seconds. cant go any longer.

[rush_law]

This forum will provide you with good information, advice and feedback:


http://photography-on-the.net/forum/

[Rifleman]

The one addition I have, to the suggested tri-pod, is a hand-held light meter, and then average out your readings between reflected and incident..........based on where you are set up and the scene which you are shooting..........

[corndog]

A tripod and remote shutter switch are good tools for night shooting. The reason we use them is to keep our images nice and sharp, you have no troubles here, so whatever you are doing is working well for you.

There is no question these shots would benefit from a lower iso setting, they are a little noisy, most noticeable in the sky of numbers 1, 2, 3, and 5. The most important thing in photography is to be lucky enough to have a creative eye, I think you're all set there. To make these shots cleaner, you just need to make a minor adjustment on your camera. Shoot in manual mode, try the lowest number iso setting, try the lowest number iso setting, and use the longest shutter setting. If the images are too bright, raise the aperture number until they are properly exposed. I don't know how the S2 works, but if it has aperture priority also try using that. Raise the aperture number until the shutter just hits the max. Really you just need an understanding of how everything effects each other, and you wont need my above tips.

I'll do my best here do describe the three main adjustments, and how they effect each other:

1. Shutter. Think of it like a human eye, the longer you leave it open the more light it takes in. When shooting sports, you want the shutter to open and close really fast, this should help "freeze" the action. For a night shot when there is not much light, you want the "eye" to stay open longer to take in enough light. On a camera, the shutter setting refers to time, how long it's open. To prevent blur, a general rule is that you don't want the shutter open any longer than the length of your lens. This means if you're zoomed to 300mm, you should have a shutter speed of 1/300 of a second, or faster.

2. Aperture. Think of this as your pupil. The biggier your pupil is open, the more light it takes in. A side effect of this, is that it effects background focus. If you are taking a photo of a person, and your aperture is set to a low number like 2.8, the person will be in focus, and the background will be blurred. It will only be blurred if the background and person have some distance between them. So if you person is standing against a fence, the fence will probably be IN focus. If the background is some trees about 20 feet further back, it will probably be OUT of focus. As you raise the aperture number, it's like making the pupil smaller, so you need more light, which means you need to have you shutter open longer, in order to have a properly expose image. Another side effect is that the background becomes more IN focus. This also translates to sharper images, to a certain point.

3. ISO. Even though this is a digital camera, this works just like film. The higher the iso, the less light is required to properly expose an image. This is great for low light sporting events. the downside is grainy/noisy images. For low noise images, you always shoot at the lowest iso setting needed to properly expose an image. If you are shooting a 15 second exposure, you should be at the lowest iso setting. If you have your aperture(pupil) wide open taking in as much light as you can, and the shutter isn't fast enough to keep the images from being blurred, raise the iso number until the shutter is fast enough to stop the action.

There's really more to be said, but once you understand these three functions, your camera will be INSTANTLY easier to use.

Not sure if I said it, but these are great shots, with number 5 standing out as my favorite. You might consider printing that one. Costco uses high end equipment, and 12x18's only run $3 each.

Happy shooting!