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Night time pictures


Matt Demers

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Winter is coming soon and the PM rush hour (when all the good buses come out!) will fall in dark hours. I always used automatic for night time shots that are pretty good lit, but sometimes they are not. I realize I need to learn night time photohtaphy better. I already gotten one advice from one person who told me to use Night Scene Mode with ISO 80 and Aperture at F2.8. This was the result of his settings:

http://mymontreal.fotopic.net/p34169437.html

I read some online tutorials, they always reccomend low ISO's and apertures around 2.8 too. My Canon can't have custom ISO and Aperture settings while using NSM. :blink:

What are your personal advice for digicam owners who want to start out besides using a tripod? Got another good setting others can use?

Best pictures of night time buses and trains could be posted here too to show off, but it would be appreciated if the settings for ISO, Aperture, shutter speed, etc are posted along with it.

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What are your personal advice for digicam owners who want to start out besides using a tripod? Got another good setting others can use?

You are limited to what you can do with a point and shoot digital camera. Simple as that. I would say go for a higher ISO setting. I don't know why a relatively slow one was recommended to you, other than it is an attempt to reduce noise in the image... as noise would probably become rather apparent at higher ISO settings, especially within in the dark (black) areas of an image.

Using the higher ISO setting will allow for a quicker shutter speed and less change of blurring/ increased chance of a proper exposure.

You image didn't want to display for me, BTW.

For good night time photography, pick up an SLR... Get an F1.8 or larger lens... Or just invest in a tripod, even just a small portable one.

Edit: Made the image work by changing the extension from .htm to .html.

The image you posted isn't bad, apart from the pole. I can only assume you maybe meant another image that displays on the page as a thumbnail... it is a victim of camera shake. Only way to correct that is to hold your camera steadier, use a tripod, or use a short exposure.

Don't use the bloody night mode.... Go to TV or manual and manually set the shutter speed. Apperature of course needs to be as large as possible (smaller number). TV will automatically set this. Get closer to the bus so you are zoomed all the way out... zooming in will reduce your largest apperature.

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I think I tried that, but I will give it another try to be sure. Thanks!

Also, I am interested in getting a tripod. I'd like something portable in a backpack that is height adjustable and can also pivot the camera so it takes vertical pictures at night (is there such thing as that?). Any specific brands you reccomend?

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I shoot with a Canon 300D D-SLR. I can adjust my ISO, focus, aperature and shutter speed in full manual mode. Even then, it can sometimes be very dificult to get a decently crisp shot at night.

It depends on how street lighting there is. Of course the more the better. There is a limit to which you can only rely on a slower shutter speed to get a nice shot when doing handheld shots. For example if you try shoting at half a second hand held, chances are its going to blur a lot. So when there is quite a bit of street lighting, I have managed to do some really nice hand held shots usually going off with shutter speeds between 1/8-1/30 second.

Whenever I want a shot where slow shutter speeds that I can't hand hold are required, I find a stable object such as a bench or newspaper box to rest my camera on. A psuedo tripod basically.

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One big problem is cleaning up noise. I use NeatImage (www.neatimage.com) which is quite good. There is a free version that may suit your needs, but even the pay versions aren't that expensive. It works wonders on cleaning up high ISO noise.

Given that you have a point-and-shoot, noise is *much* more of a problem than on SLRs due to the smaller sensor, so noise reduction is a very useful tool to have in your toolkit.

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My opinion would be.................use a tripod, and set to 2-seconds count-down. If the time is allowing, use the count-down to take the photo, of course let go of your camera and tripod, so you can be sure to know your photo will turn out awesome! Not using a tripod is pretty difficult, not only your camera, but you in person must focus and avoid any movement that may be done to your camera. (ie: hand shaking, body shaking etc.) Also turning up the ISO speed tends to create "grains" for the picture and make things rough, so I would strongly suggest to use a tripod.

Most recent nightshots that I've got:

http://www.trans-vancouver.fotopic.net/p35126419.html

http://www.trans-vancouver.fotopic.net/p35205580.html

http://www.trans-vancouver.fotopic.net/p35205449.html

Some of my favourites:

http://www.trans-vancouver.fotopic.net/p30882323.html

http://www.trans-vancouver.fotopic.net/p24197966.html

http://www.trans-vancouver.fotopic.net/p28727988.html

As a matter of fact, I like to use my old tiny little Canon point-and-shoot camera for nightshots over my current S2 IS, which is a little bit big and clumsy IMO! :lol:

Dave

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Interesting edit there!

What settings make the blue lights like that, because I always get stars on lights in nightshots...

I am not sure about that really. I only adjusted the ISO and the EV Compensation for the shot.

Night shots:

YRT 214

http://felix-poon.fotopic.net/p35426128.html

YRT 613

http://felix-poon.fotopic.net/p35426126.html

http://felix-poon.fotopic.net/p35426127.html

VIVA 5160

http://felix-poon.fotopic.net/p35426129.html

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Flash is bad. :P

I had my flash go off once, by accident, at York Mills TTC bus terminal (which is underground) and I had the driver and three passengers screaming at me ;) I explained to them that I didn't realize that my flash would go off, and they were, suprisingly, understanding.

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I had my flash go off once, by accident, at York Mills TTC bus terminal (which is underground) and I had the driver and three passengers screaming at me ;) I explained to them that I didn't realize that my flash would go off, and they were, suprisingly, understanding.

I had my flash go off once by accident while I was taking an interior shot of 2269, there was about 3-4 passengers plus my mom and brother and when it went off the only people who noticed were my brother and mom. Here's the picture:

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/wil...69_interior.jpg

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I had my flash go off once by accident while I was taking an interior shot of 2269, there was about 3-4 passengers plus my mom and brother and when it went off the only people who noticed were my brother and mom. Here's the picture:

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/wil...69_interior.jpg

Flash for interior shots isn't so bad, in my opinion - at least if the bus is empty and there's nobody in the way who's going to be startled by the flash going off. I always use flash for my interior shots in that context, here's my interior shot of 2316:

ttc2316intym4.jpg

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Here's another accidental flash picture. It's interesting solely because it's not at all obvious that the flash was used. Of course, it's not a great picture anyway...

It's not a bad picture, (you got the ropes being playful), but then that's coming from someone who takes a lot of rear shots. I find that getting backs and sides of buses is not going to offend someone who would rather not be photographed. Besides, interesting angles make for interesting photos than just the head-on shot. But hey, they're all good.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's my first ever night picture. I took this today about 2-2 1/2 hours ago. It kinda sucks since I've never taken night shots before. What should I do in the future to impove?

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a359/wil...CI/6230side.jpg

Not too bad as your first-time nightshot! What camera are you using? Did you use a tripod for it? To get nightshots, I always turn up my exposure by 2/3 to 1, and set my ISO to 100 and use a 2-sec timer (and a tripod of course) to get night photos.............but nowdays you can always perfect a photo with photoshop.

Here's a photo of mine.........taken at Granville Mall in last winter............a Flyer E901A at one of the "red-light districts" of Vancouver! :lol: (Hot and sexy trolleybus............anyone? :lol: )

http://www.trans-vancouver.fotopic.net/p35876678.html

Dave

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