How to shoot Christmas at night

tunguska

Hi
You can consider me a complete beginner so apologies if I'm asking a question thats so basic everybody knows the answer to. I love the lights at christmas and Ive seen some great scenes over the years that Id love to photograph. I dont have a digital camera, its completely manual, so I was just wondering how you take shots of lit up streets etc at night? Do I need a tri-pod and shutter release thingy? What speed of film should I use?
Cheers

PCPhoto

tunguska wrote: »

Hi
You can consider me a complete beginner so apologies if I'm asking a question thats so basic everybody knows the answer to. I love the lights at christmas and Ive seen some great scenes over the years that Id love to photograph. I dont have a digital camera, its completely manual, so I was just wondering how you take shots of lit up streets etc at night? Do I need a tri-pod and shutter release thingy? What speed of film should I use?
Cheers

its quite difficult for any of us to give you settings - you need to assess the ambient/available light on each occasion and choose the settings accordingly.

most night scenes would recommend a tripod - instead of the shutter release - you could just put the camera on a timer.....unless you are doing manual shutter releases (Bulb on my canon).

depending on the type of effects you are trying to get from the "street scenes" ..... you could use filters to create a starry effect from the lights, or create light trails from moving cars/traffic/people - while the buildings and christmas lights are static.

it all comes down to what you want - and learning (through trial and error) what settings are best.

unfortunately the trial and error part of photography is reduced with digital - with film its very much take a pic - record your settings (on paper) and the general scene settings (cloudy, bright etc) ...in time you will understand what the correct exposure you require for a specific scene.

for example - if you were taking a pic of a lovely cobblestone street - with christmas lights hanging from the buildings on either side of the street.... would use different settings in the daytime, in the afternoon, in the evening - to get the same (or similar pic) ...... in the daytime if you didn't want to blur the people a high shutter speed is required, in the night-time you may not be able to create the same effect - as night-time exposures require more light into the camera thus a longer exposure....which would cause any movement to be blurred (unless flash was added to artificially add light)

tunguska

PCPhoto wrote: »

its quite difficult for any of us to give you settings - you need to assess the ambient/available light on each occasion and choose the settings accordingly.

most night scenes would recommend a tripod - instead of the shutter release - you could just put the camera on a timer.....unless you are doing manual shutter releases (Bulb on my canon).

depending on the type of effects you are trying to get from the "street scenes" ..... you could use filters to create a starry effect from the lights, or create light trails from moving cars/traffic/people - while the buildings and christmas lights are static.

it all comes down to what you want - and learning (through trial and error) what settings are best.

unfortunately the trial and error part of photography is reduced with digital - with film its very much take a pic - record your settings (on paper) and the general scene settings (cloudy, bright etc) ...in time you will understand what the correct exposure you require for a specific scene.

for example - if you were taking a pic of a lovely cobblestone street - with christmas lights hanging from the buildings on either side of the street.... would use different settings in the daytime, in the afternoon, in the evening - to get the same (or similar pic) ...... in the daytime if you didn't want to blur the people a high shutter speed is required, in the night-time you may not be able to create the same effect - as night-time exposures require more light into the camera thus a longer exposure....which would cause any movement to be blurred (unless flash was added to artificially add light)

So are you syaing I need one of those light meters in order to assess the ambient light at that moment?
Would I be better off just buying a digital camera and letting that do the work for me? That just doesnt right for some reason, like the art is taken out of the whole exercise.

PopeBuckfastXVI

tunguska wrote: »

So are you syaing I need one of those light meters in order to assess the ambient light at that moment?
Would I be better off just buying a digital camera and letting that do the work for me? That just doesnt right for some reason, like the art is taken out of the whole exercise.

Yikes! How is it any different letting a camera pick the settings than asking other people to pick them for you!?

That aside, you camera probably does have a light meter to give you an indication of when you are making a correct exposure. It meters the light based on the settings you provide, such as film speed, aperture and shutter, and lets you know if you are going to have a well exposed photo.

Otherwise you can try to asses it yourself using the 'sunny 16' rule (google it). One thing to remember is that you probably want to underexpose a little as the lights will be quite bright and everything else quite dark, which would throw off the meter a bit.

Another tip is to go in the evening just after sunset as opposed to at night, when the sky will be more of a deep blue, than pure black, which is more pleasing to look at (imo).

Edit:

If you are going above 1/30s shutter time, use a tripod and remote release/self timer if you can.

charybdis

What camera are you using?

tunguska

charybdis wrote: »

What camera are you using?

Its a nikon something or other. I#ll have to check the specs and get back to you. Thanks for the replies so far folks.

PCPhoto

tunguska wrote: »

So are you syaing I need one of those light meters in order to assess the ambient light at that moment?
Would I be better off just buying a digital camera and letting that do the work for me? That just doesnt right for some reason, like the art is taken out of the whole exercise.

No - I'm saying - that using a film camera you are better off with "trial and error" .... using different settings on the same scene (writing the settings down for each click) - then when you get it developed have a look at which worked best..... then remember this setting for next time you come across a similar scene.

you need to understand how your camera works with relation to exposing in different scenes before you take pics - of course - you could always go out and get a digital camera ...and point it at a scene and press the button - but that isnt going to teach you anything about what settings to use.