Digital pictures in the near Dark ?

Grumpypants

Im hoping someone can help me I have picked up a Cannon 250D second hand as my beginner camera. Everything has been going fine during the nice bright days.

Last week i was trying to take a pic of the city sky line as it got dark but the camera shutter kept staying open for ages sometimes up to 20 seconds. Im presuming this is to do with the poor light but as my hand shakes it ruins the pic. Ive tried looking up on other sites about changing the settings but they get complicated very quickly.

Ive tried messing with the options but all ive been able to do is get the time down to about 6 seconds and i dont want to mess too much in case i can change them back.

Does anyone know a idiots guide to taking pictures in the dark or maybe some one who could explain it in simple enough terms how to change the settings so the camera just takes a pic of what i point at.

Its a real pain as ive missed some really good pictures lately because of it.

sineadw

It's difficult to take good pictures hand held in dark conditions to be honest. Try putting your iso on it's highest setting (1600?) and switch the camera to aperture mode (AV), and then change the aperture to its widest (smallest number - depending on your lens, it's probably about 2.8 or 3.5 or something like that). That's the best you're going to get, and putting the ISO up and the aperture wide like that can degrade the image and focus.

Best bet is to pick up a cheap tripod if it's landscapes/static views you're after, or use a flash

kjt

Hey Grumpy,
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head. The darker it is, the longer the shutter needs to stay open to get the appropriate light in.

There are a few things you can do (in simpleton terms):
- Bump up the ISO of your camera, this changes the sensivity of the sensor (if you want to get into the nitty gritty)

- Change your aperture (if you shoot at f5.6 over f16, you're letting in FAR more light)

- Get a tripod, if you have a tripod and shoot, this alleviates camera shake and you can take shots of 20seconds to minutes if it suits your subjects

- Buy a flash...

There's a few quick ideas for you :-)
Kyle

Grumpypants

Thanks guys i have a tripod that i picked up in Aldi for 15 euro but i normally dont have it on me when i spot a nice pic (isn't that always the way) but i must stick it in the boot for future. Also have a flash but it always ruins the pic lighting up the stuff i don't want to see in the foreground and darkening the stuff i want in the in the back ground.

Ive the ISO set to 1600, there is a AV button but it doesn't seem to do anything ill keep looking.

Thanks

melekalikimaka

flash....

CabanSail

A flash is only going to illuminate things close to the camera and not those far away. The camera will also adjust it's exposure settings in Auto to use the flash and so your background will seem darker.

The human eye has a huge dynamic range and so you can see things that are very bright and also very dim as if they were almost identical. The difference in light levels is enormous.

To take Photos of the city lights you will probably be best doing a long exposure. This involves keeping the camera very steady for a long time, normally using a tripod.

To really get to grips with what you are doing you need to understand exposure and the properties of light.

Fitzerb

Any photo below a shutter speed of 60 -80 will need a tripod.

The higher ISO will help but will cause a lot of grain (dots) in the picture.

The scene would also need to be static

Thecageyone

<SNIP>

I'd suggest a tripod, don't know why the flash suggestions?? if you're trying to get city night shots, you actually need those long exposures, it's just strange auto would take you to 20 seconds!

Ok, tripod, with a remote shutter release. Let your camera do it's 20 seconds and all will be fine

blackbird98

Grumpypants wrote: »

there is a AV button but it doesn't seem to do anything ill keep looking.

the AV button is you Aperture Priority mode. Select AV, then using the control dial (possibly while holding another button - I don't use Canon so I'm not sure which one) and select the lowest number you can - depending on the lens and zoom range, this could be 2.8 / 3.3 / 4.5 / 5.6 etc. These can be seen on your lcd display, or under your screen in the viewfinder. The lower the number, the wider the aperture, allowing the most light onto your sensor.

Effects

Grumpypants wrote: »

Im hoping someone can help me I have picked up a Cannon 250D second hand as my beginner camera.

That's a very exclusive camera you've got.

Grumpypants

Thecageyone wrote: »

<SNIP>

I'd suggest a tripod, don't know why the flash suggestions?? if you're trying to get city night shots, you actually need those long exposures, it's just strange auto would take you to 20 seconds!

Ok, tripod, with a remote shutter release. Let your camera do it's 20 seconds and all will be fine

I know i pressed the button waited ....waited ... stopped looked at the camera then it took a pic of my face after 20 seconds

I will have the tripod with me in future it was just on that 1 day it looked so good, it was a really bright red sun set glow off the city and on a clear night. So the city was glowing really bright but then you had the contrast of the pitch black ground and the different shades of blue above the city all with a really low crescent moon just behind the castle.

I have a very old camera that has no mechanics to help it and it would just take a pic of what i wanted and they would turn out brilliant, i was hoping the digital ones had a setting to turn off all the over rides so i could take similar pictures (a manual setting i guess). As the pic in questions wasnt a night time pic it was almost 5 o clock so it wasnt pitch dark the picture looked really good but it was of course shakey and too bright due to the over expoosure.

5uspect

250D, you surely mean 350D?

If you're getting a 20 second exposure you're doing something wrong.
The camera's metering system tries to set the exposure based on assumptions about ambient level of light. If you're shooting in the dark you need to underexpose by several stops.

Put the camera in Tv mode. This lets you set the exposure time and the camera handles everything else. On the 350D there is a small LCD above the main one.

This tells your your exposure time, f-number and on the scale your exposure compensation. You'll notice that the scale goes from -2,-1 to 1 2.
This means that you can make the image twice as bright by moving to a higher number and half as bright by going to a lower number. The small marks represent 1/3 stops.

If you hold the Av button (note this is not the same as the Av mode on the mode selector dial) and move the dial beside the shutter release. You can position the exp comp at any value in this scale. The camera always defaults to 1 but if you're shooting in the dark you need to tell the camera.

In Manual mode you have direct control over exposure time and aperture. Here you balance the two by using the dial to set exposure and Av button plus the dial to set aperture. The exp comp scale will give you a reading of the current measured brightness for the settings you've dialed in. If it's too far to the right you'll get a bright possibly over exposed image and too far to the left a dark image.

When shooting in low light you need to underexpose.

The Av mode on the mode selector dial unlike Tv mode allows you to set the aperture and the camera manages the exposure. If you shoot with Av mode in low light with no exp comp the camera by default will select a very long exposure. The came also applies to shooting with a flash in Av mode.

Dare I say it but you should read the manual for your camera...

challengemaster

kjt wrote: »

- Buy a flash...

melekalikimaka wrote: »

flash....

Jaysus lads, that's some mighty flash that can light up the entire city skyline. Any chance of pointing me in the direction of one of those? :pac:

OP, first thing's first - in the bright, get your camera out of auto mode and play with the other modes, see what they do, if you need to - read the manual. You didn't buy a dSLR to leave it on auto mode.

Once you know how to control your camera - get a tripod. Really, really necessary for night time / dark photography, especially of the landscape variety.

If you're shooting night landscapes / city skylines / etc, you DONT want to set your ISO to 1600. Honestly, ISO 1600 on a 350D will make bits of any images. Not a good camera for high ISO shooting. If you've got a tripod, you don't need to either. Just set the shutter time for longer and you're sorted.

whyulittle

challengemaster wrote: »

Jaysus lads, that's some mighty flash that can light up the entire city skyline. Any chance of pointing me in the direction of one of those? :pac:

Sure that's nothing, try using it to expose the moon!

heeheehee

Grumpypants

5uspect wrote: »

250D, you surely mean 350D?

If you're getting a 20 second exposure you're doing something wrong.
The camera's metering system tries to set the exposure based on assumptions about ambient level of light. If you're shooting in the dark you need to underexpose by several stops.

Put the camera in Tv mode. This lets you set the exposure time and the camera handles everything else. On the 350D there is a small LCD above the main one.

This tells your your exposure time, f-number and on the scale your exposure compensation. You'll notice that the scale goes from -2,-1 to 1 2.
This means that you can make the image twice as bright by moving to a higher number and half as bright by going to a lower number. The small marks represent 1/3 stops.

If you hold the Av button (note this is not the same as the Av mode on the mode selector dial) and move the dial beside the shutter release. You can position the exp comp at any value in this scale. The camera always defaults to 1 but if you're shooting in the dark you need to tell the camera.

In Manual mode you have direct control over exposure time and aperture. Here you balance the two by using the dial to set exposure and Av button plus the dial to set aperture. The exp comp scale will give you a reading of the current measured brightness for the settings you've dialed in. If it's too far to the right you'll get a bright possibly over exposed image and too far to the left a dark image.

When shooting in low light you need to underexpose.

The Av mode on the mode selector dial unlike Tv mode allows you to set the aperture and the camera manages the exposure. If you shoot with Av mode in low light with no exp comp the camera by default will select a very long exposure. The came also applies to shooting with a flash in Av mode.

Dare I say it but you should read the manual for your camera...

Perfect post cheers just what i needed, i have gone through the manual but im not used to all the terminology so got a little lost. I was able to figure it out from your post cheers.

Heebie

Someone said "If you're getting a 20-second exposure you're doing something wrong".. and they're not quite right.

If you have a good tripod, and a good, solid footing to rest it on, then a 20-second exposure MIGHT be exactly what you want, depending on what you're going for. (I've used exposures of several minutes before.)

A lower ISO with longer exposure can give you a better image than a short exposure at a higher ISO, as long as the camera is rock-solid stable.

If you're hand-holding then 20 seconds is WAYYYY too long. If you have image-stabilised lenses or a camera body that does shake-reduction, then you should be able to get away with something down to about 1/60th or 1/30th of a second. (I've done 1/15th before, but I had myself steadied against something so I was kinda cheating a bit.)