Night time photography

.blitz

I was riding through Tackeroo last night and I thought how cool it would be to take some 'artsy' pictures of my bike with its lights on. Rugeley power station looks pretty good in the distance all lit up and although it's not exactly Battersea, it's the best we've got.

mrs.blitz's TZ6 has programmable shutter speed, film speed, exposure, flash etc so if I put it on a tripod, what kind of settings should I use?

Feel free to respond with 'rofl' or 'pmsl' comments if this kind of thing is impossible with a digital compact

sampras38

.blitz wrote:

I was riding through Tackeroo last night and I thought how cool it would be to take some 'artsy' pictures of my bike with its lights on. Rugeley power station looks pretty good in the distance all lit up and although it's not exactly Battersea, it's the best we've got.

mrs.blitz's TZ6 has programmable shutter speed, film speed, exposure, flash etc so if I put it on a tripod, what kind of settings should I use?

Feel free to respond with 'rofl' or 'pmsl' comments if this kind of thing is impossible with a digital compact

I'm a bit of an amatuer photographer but don't tend to do too much at night. But to answer your question it depends on what sort of pic you are going for. Is the area well lit or pitch black? You'll most likely need a flash and a high ISO. I'd go for something like 800 or so, particualrly if the area isn't lit very well. As you have a tripod you don't need to worry so much about shutter speed, but personally I'd go with something at least as fast as 1/30th or 1/60th. How much light do you want to let in? You'll also need a fast aperture too, but again, it depends on what look you're going after and DOF. If you want to have the bike in sharp focus but the background blurred, you'll need something like F2 or f4.

Give me some more info..;-)

bomberesque

TZ6 has full manual control I think so you'll be fine.

I have an FZ18 and night time shots are definitely do-able, although getting funky with the flash isn't so great as it's a bit pants.

I'm no expert but a few ideas;

• Set the ISO manually to 80 or 100. You're going to get long shutter speeds anyway so take all the quality you can get
• Fully manual or Aperture priority exposure. Set the aperture to 5.6 or 8 and see what shutter speed you get. Not sure of the metering limits on the TZ cameras.
• Use a tripod or find something to solidly support the camera. Tree trunk/rock etc is OK and free but a tripod really gives you the most flexibility
• Experiment with the same shot till you get it right. Digital film is free. Yay
• for composition play around but remember the rule of thirds (look it up, it's simple and your camera may even be able to overlay a guideline for you)
• remember to post the results for our viewing pleasure

.blitz

Thanks for your replies fellas. The location is very dark apart from just a little light pollution in the sky. Presumably if I use flash, it will only illuminate the bike and the rest of the picture will be black?

I was hoping to get a picture of the bike 'as I see it' with the illuminated power station in the distance. Something like this: but with a bike instead of a boat and Rugeley instead of Dusseldorf

sampras38

To be honest I'm not familiar with your particular camera as I use a Nikon D200 with an SB-600 flash, and I shoot everything manually. I tend to experiment a lot until I get what I'm after, and as you're using a tripod you won't need to worry so much about shutter speeds etc. I also agree with the previous poster about having low ISO, because otherwise the shot will be incredibly grainy.

If I want to light up a particular area I sometimes use my flash wirelessly, but you don't have that option.

I'll also agree with the F5.6 or f8, even though I originally suggested a faster aperture. F5.8 to f8 should yeild very sharp results on most lenses. I only suggested F2/f4 because I thought you might want to highlight the bike with a blurred background.

Just muck about and try different things.

mac_man

Try flash combined with a long exposure. If there is no lighting around your bike then it just won't show up in the pic. With a very long exposure you might see the bike but the lights in teh distance will be too bright and burn out (possibly)

As already mentioned a high F stop will keep static items sharp. Anything moving will obviously blur.

You can play around with the flash by softening the light with some thin material such as tracing paper. This will have the effect of reducing the harshness that flash usually brings. or you could mess about with trying to deflect the light by putting your hand/finger in front of the flash when it goes off.

If you have a car then use your headlights to illuminate the bike (assuming that's possible from where you want to take the pic).

You can get some cool ghost effects by moving around in front of the camera whilst the exposure is still running.

MacAndCheese

Hi blitz,

Bit of a amateur photographer myself. I went to the LeMans 24 hour race and was trying to get similar shots of the cars a night, I just found playing with setting was the best.

I think I ended up with speed setting of approx 1/2 second, ISO100 ( I let the camera work everything else out)...but that was cars going around 100mph so probably different for a bike.

Two tips that found helpful:

1.make sure the tripod is nice and secure
2. put a slight delay on the button pressing to the camera taking a picture (so your hand is away from the camera by the time the shot goes off) or, even better, use a remote if available.

.blitz

Thanks again fellas. My idea of hopping off mid-ride to take a quick pic seems flawed so I will take a hot drink and be prepared to spend some time in the woods. At night. On my own :shock:

The Northern Monkey

hmm... if it was me, i'd use AUTO settings

.blitz

bigbenj_08 wrote:

hmm... if it was me, i'd use AUTO settings

MacAndCheese

bigbenj_08 wrote:

hmm... if it was me, i'd use AUTO settings

This is also true, I used to have a old mini digital which just had "Night mode" and it took some cool pics.

Anonymous

Tripods, Tripods, Tripods.

Basically the main issue in photography is light. To get more light in the camera you need bigger apertures and/or longer shutters (think of it like filling a bucket). At night, even more so.

You can increase the aperture as much as possible but that won't generally be enough at night so you'll end up having to use longer shutters. A longer shutter means picking up vibrations is inevitable. Hence, stabilise the camera with a good sturdy (perhaps weighted down) tripod.

Flash isn't much use for distance shots except to illuminate the foreground, but if you're taking action shots then you'll need a flash to get the shutter speed down to catch the action. A good external flash may get you great action shots in the dark without much need for a tripod (but again, not much use for distance). You may still be lucky with an on-camera flash and a steady hand.

And yeah, some of the compacts are surprisingly better in their 'auto' and 'night' modes. Mainly because their manual modes are not much good and they are designed for point & click.

v23

What you'll need to use is a long exposure with a flash at the start/end. Often referred to as slow synchro flash. This will illuminate the foreground to get your detail, but should also allow light from a distance to accumulate on the sensor. Try a google images search for slow synchro to see the sort of result you could expect with a bit of practice.

A tripod will ensure that the background remains sharp

v23

Here's a good example. Top image, just a flash, bottom image, slow syncro.

.blitz

The bottom picture is what I'm aiming for. Can you please explain 'slow syncro' ?

bomberesque

good example V23

what you see in the bottom image is that he's actually taking 2 pictures in one. the background is naturally lit so the first thing to do is work out the correct exposure for that. The second image is the bike itself, which is flash lit. once you've got the background sorted, you can usually just switch the flash onto "fill" and it'll light the foreground for you sounds simple but it takes a while to get a feel for it and the easiest approach I have found is to shoot the background forst, till I have the exposure settings right for that, then set this as a fully manual exposure and shoot the scene again with the fill flash on

x-isle

I have a night time cheat sheet that I refer to when taking night shots.

I'll dig it out and post the recommended settings on here.

Basically, the darker it is, the longer you need to keep the shutter open for. You will need a tripod or a bean bag as the shot similar to the Dussledorf one you have shown would of been open for quite a few seconds so has to be very still.

Not sure on the model you've got, but having manual overide on the shutter is always good, but you have to manually close the shutter, but you have to do it remotely because you can't touch the camera. This is where the big boys (SLR) cameras come into their own. I live right on the edge of the chase but have never been there with the snapper as yet.

Good luck with getting the shots you need and you might want to refer to the excellent www.photo.net website for more ideas.

x-isle

I have a night time cheat sheet that I refer to when taking night shots.

I'll dig it out and post the recommended settings on here.

Basically, the darker it is, the longer you need to keep the shutter open for. You will need a tripod or a bean bag as the shot similar to the Dussledorf one you have shown would of been open for quite a few seconds so has to be very still.

Not sure on the model you've got, but having manual overide on the shutter is always good, but you have to manually close the shutter, but you have to do it remotely because you can't touch the camera. This is where the big boys (SLR) cameras come into their own. I live right on the edge of the chase but have never been there with the snapper as yet.

Good luck with getting the shots you need and you might want to refer to the excellent www.photo.net website for more ideas.

.blitz

Cheers bomberesque & x-isle, that makes a lot of sense.

bomberesque

the thing to remember is that the light from the flash will only have any effect at all on stuff pretty close-to (unless you have an SLR and big bolt on job). Plus, if there's natural (or street) light on your background but not your foreground then you really do have 2 separate shots. While setting up the background exposure, you'll be able to see how much of the foreground comes out without the flash. If the scene is evenly lit, you may not even need the flash, but it's unlikely. A really nice thing to have is a manually adjustable flash (so you preset the flash strength) then you play with that to get the foreground right and you have even more control. Sadly most compacts can't do this.

v23

bomberesque wrote:

what you see in the bottom image is that he's actually taking 2 pictures in one.

That's the thing, it's ONE image using a slow syncro mode. If your camera has FULL manual settings this setting should exist in your flash option.

x-isle

Two Images was a "virtual" perspective.

What he's saying is that there are 2 different things to photograph. Worry about the background and let the SlowSync to take care of the "other" image, which is the foreground.

dunker

can make your own beanie bag, flannel filled with dry rice then zip tie the top. then just find a wall to rest it and your camera onto, no need to lug a tripod around in your camelbak then.

Anonymous

SlowSync I think can be found on some compacts these days, maybe slr-likes. Most SLRs should have it, and certainly if you use an external flash.

Being a slow shutter shot with flash, then stability is again important. v23's first shot just lighting the bike could be done handheld with flash. The second really needs a tripod or similar (in the thick of woods I have wedged the camera in a tree before ). Timer and/or remote makes things easier and avoids vibrations caused by your finger on the shutter.

As said, you can do funky tricks in the foreground by having things moving.

All that said as if I'm some expert, I'm not and I'm no master of night photos. I really need to practice more. .