Screature...one thing I need to improve on is my sharpness when doing long exposures at night. First of all, I'm shooting with my 7D in bulb mode with a cable release. Setting the lens at infinity and turning AF off. The picture I posted I shot at f4, but I'm considering stopping down to f8 to see how well that helps the sharpness.
Location: Aylmer (Gatineau) across the river from Ottawa
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jellotor
Screature...one thing I need to improve on is my sharpness when doing long exposures at night. First of all, I'm shooting with my 7D in bulb mode with a cable release. Setting the lens at infinity and turning AF off. The picture I posted I shot at f4, but I'm considering stopping down to f8 to see how well that helps the sharpness.
Any tips?
What ISO are you shooting at?
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Location: Aylmer (Gatineau) across the river from Ottawa
Posts: 16,065
Ok, well you probably could go as high as ISO 1600. I shoot with Nikon but I suspect that you have the same of sort setting on your Canon where you can set the amount of high ISO noise reduction to low medium or high so I would definitely set it to high. Also you should have a setting for long exposure noise reduction and you should have that on as well.
Long exposures and high ISO are going to produce "noisy" images no matter what you do relative to lower ISOs and shorter exposures. This can be compensated for quite a bit in Lightroom or Aperture. Do you use either?
The other thing is I wouldn't set your focus to infinity unless your subject is that far away. Depending on your lens you should still have have focal distance indication on the lens and would use that as a relative guide, you can usually get pretty close by estimating or pacing it out or if you want want to get really accurate a long tape measure can come in handy. The other thing is to try is to use AF and see what focal distance you get and then manually set it to that after turn AF off.
I would definitely try stopping to to F8 and see the results you achieve. Quite frankly it really is a trial and error type of photography. Luckily with digital you get your results instantaneously without burning film and you can make adjustments quickly and try again.
Good luck and I look forward to seeing more experiments.
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Last edited by screature; Jul 7th, 2012 at 02:41 PM.
I think you're right about setting the focus to infinity. I can't remember where I read that; I'll give AF a try as a guide. I've also tried focusing manual through Live View but it doesn't always give me a bright enough image.
Perhaps tonight I'll convince my wife to give me a hand and we'll see what we can come up with!
Location: Aylmer (Gatineau) across the river from Ottawa
Posts: 16,065
Quote:
Originally Posted by jellotor
Yep, Aperture 3.
I think you're right about setting the focus to infinity. I can't remember where I read that; I'll give AF a try as a guide. I've also tried focusing manual through Live View but it doesn't always give me a bright enough image.
Perhaps tonight I'll convince my wife to give me a hand and we'll see what we can come up with!
Thanks!
I know this isn't what you are trying to do but there is another type of nighttime photography that I enjoy experimenting with... rather than light drawing I refer to it as light "painting". Highlighting elements within a photo and a long exposure. I actually tend to go for an exposure of around 30 seconds rather than using bulb.
I plan out what I want to highlight (just relatively quickly in my head) and then using a "pen" light I shine the light on various portions of the scene for a period in that 30 seconds staying longer with the light on areas I want to bring out more and less on areas that I want more subdued.
I count out the 30 seconds in my head as I quickly move about so I won't be visible in the photo. In this case I used a combination of front lighting as well as back lighting, shinning the light from underneath and behind the flowers to achieve a glowing effect.
Nighttime photography has so many possibilities and it is a lot of fun to play with.
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Location: Aylmer (Gatineau) across the river from Ottawa
Posts: 16,065
Quote:
Originally Posted by jellotor
That is very cool! A very organic look.
Thanks!
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Bit of a dodgy light but liked the Ent introducing the old house.
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Merci. I took day shots and night shots and haven't been able to decide which I like better. What bothers me about all of them is that I wasn't paying attention to the geometry of the room & lens distortion so there's some odd angles here & there. If I go back at the end of July I might take more using a tripod.
No biggie on the geometry and I like the daytime image better...feels more inviting.
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Linear Mode
