Best way to take photos at night??

linola_c

When i take the photos at night, the light is all running into each other...like all fuzzy..

Do i need another lens?I have a canon 45D with an 18-55 inch lens and a tamron AF70-300mm F/4-5.6di LD macro 1:2 or is it something to do with settings?

Thanks

Xiney

you need a tripod to keep the camera steady.

there is less light at night so the camera takes more time to take a picture (this is called shutter speed). Because the camera is taking the picture over more time, any movement in the camera will show up as movement in the image - hence the fuzziness.

pixbyjohn

http://www.slrphotographyguide.com/camera/settings/night-slr-settings.shtml

Julesie

Yep, the reason for the bluriness is lack of light.

At the most basic level a camera is based around the amount of light hitting the sensor. You can think of your lens as being a hole that lets light onto this sensor. There are three main variables at play:

- Aperture - How big is the hole for the light to come through
- Shutter Speed - How long does the hole stay open
- ISO - How hard does the light that does come through the hole, work

All of these combine to give what is known as an exposure.

In low light conditions you need to maximise some or all of these variables in order to get a properly exposed picture.

In relation to aperture you are really constrained by the quality of your lenses. Unfortunately neither of yours are what is known as "fast glass", they would typcially be lenses with a constant aperture of 2.8 - 4. Instead yours have a variable aperture that is a little bit higher. Basically that means that at the most zoomed out (wide end) your lens has an aperture of f4, when you fully zoom in to 300mm you have an aperture of f5.6. Between the two ends your aperture will also lie somewhere in between. All of that means that in comparison to more expensive lenses yours creates a smaller hole that lets less light hit the sensor.

To compensate you would have to look at the other two variable at your disposal. Firstly, you can increase your ISO setting, the max you'll want to go to will depend on your camera. The higher you go the "noisier"/grainier your photo will be. You could try ISO 1600 and see what you think of the results and go up or down from there.

The final piece of the puzzle is Shutter Speed. Like I said at the start, Shutter Speed measures how long the hole stays open for. It is measured in fractions of seconds. Ideally if you are going to hold the camera in your hand you would not go any lower than the reciporcal of the lens's focal length. In plain english... at 18mm don't shoot lower that 1/18th of a second, at 70mm don't shoot lower than 1/70th of a second, etc. To help reduce blur you can use a tripod on a slower shutter speed. That will help you a lot if what you are shooting is static like a building but if the subject is moving then there is a limit to its usefulness.

So if you have maxed out the settings on your camera and still can't get a decent shot one of your options would be to use flash. Ideally this would be a proper flash unit not just the little built in one. Again this is only useful in certain scenarios and the light from the flash only goes so far.

Otherwise a relatively cheap lens like a 50mm f1.8 would allow you to really improve things on the aperture side and let you take a lot more photos without needing to resort to flash.

It's a lot to take in but once you start understanding the mechanics behind the photography it becomes a lot more intuitive and you can stop just stabbing at random combinations of settings hoping that you somehow hit the jackpot.

I would absolutely recommend purchasing, Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. It opened my eyes to all this malarkey and I've never looked back.

I hope the above is of some use to you.

LeoB

Thats a great reply Julesie. Replies like that keep people like me coming back here. Very helpful. Well done.

Heebie

One tip is to use a low ISO, small aperture, a good solid tripod, and absolutely insanely slow shutter speeds. (100ISO, f32, exposure times measured in seconds or even minutes.) if you want REALLY sharp nighttime images.

A decent hand-held light-meter is an important thing. You'll probably need to use bulb mode if you want exposures more than 30 seconds..which might mean having a remote release. (preferably an IR or RF remote release.. a cabled one can cause camera shake... although so can wind.. or someone stomping around like an elephant nearby.)

If the shots are important to get...bracket, or even wide bracket. (bracket is 1 shot on what you think is the "right" exposure", one either 1/2 or 1 stop below, and one either 1/2 or 1 stop above... a wide bracket is the same, but with 5 shots total instead of 3.) Most people bracket as 1 full stop rather than a half, it seems.

If you've bracketed.. and one shot has great shadows..and another great highlights.. that's what HDR is for.

Doing good low-light photography takes a lot of time..and outdoors at night tends to be flipping cold.. so be ready for that and have fun.

I know I'm saying use a right tight aperture.. that doesn't at all negate what Julesie said about fast lenses... even at f32.. a lens capable of f1.8 or f1.4 is going to be sharper than a lens capable of f4.5 or f5. You also have a lot more "room" to play with if you want to have a depth of field other than infinity.

Good tech info above, BTW.

Chorcai

http://www.photographybb.com/PBB_Magazine/issue_10/PhotographyBB_10.pdf

Pg 24-30 all about night time photos.