so since it was nice out tonight i thought id give some night time long exposures a shot ....a lot harder than i anticipated!!! like how do you focus in the dark? i used a flashlight and tried to zoom in on what i could see. how long of an exposure? tried multiple and heres what i have ......
not sure if they are worth spending time on but it was more of a learning experience since i have never shot at night before
cold of the night
Joseph, I'm enjoying seeing the way you're experimenting with new things and learning new techniques. You're second shot is intriguing and suggests some interesting possibilities. Wonder if you could capture a decently exposed and sharp image of a car or semi on that road and blend it into the long exposure lights streaking across the scene? Might really make your photo pop - have to admit that I haven't tried this myself - so just throwing it out there as an idea.
thanks Geoff i figure if i don't try things I'm not gonna learn anything so I'm trying to do as much as i can
You got the right idea in #2 and #3, shoot car trails, but find curves. And watch the moon it is easily the brightest thing in the sky, I'd blend a long exposure with at short exposure here.
Here are 2 shots that I took a while ago which I'm still fond of and one of the total eclipse of the moon earlier this year.
Very nice, i think i may try and go down to Philadelphia and get some shots like these maybe one of the bridges or around the art museum would be a great location
Focusing in the dark is tricky.... a large flashlight or spotlight definitely helps.
First step, just test out compositions first. Crank the iso up really high so you can do short exposures to test comps, when you get one you like, go to live view and zoom in on whatever you want your point of focus to be and illuminate it with a flashlight. Or, see what your camera's hyperfocal distance is and start with that and make minor adjustments upon further inspection of the test shots. Having a real point of interest and object of focus is extremely important in night photography.
When everything is in focus and ready to go, drop the iso back down to a usable number and just play around with settings from there. How long of an exposure you need etc all kinda just depends on what effect you want to go for. Night photography can be extremely tedious if you don't already have a plan, so having a shot/effect in mind beforehand can be helpful!
Slightly related advice, if you want to shoot the stars, my #1 first advice would be to only shoot during the new moon phase. You don't want the moon to be anywhere in the sky if you're trying to shoot astro. To focus on the stars, do the same ISO crank test shot process I mentioned before, then when you're ready to focus, zoom in as far as you can on the sky and find a star. Manually focus until the star is the smallest dot it can be. Put your ISO back down to a usable number, and start off exposure by using the 500 rule. The 500 rule is how to avoid star trails from the earth's rotation and keep your stars tack sharp. How it works is, you divide your focal length by 500. Assuming you're shooting on a full frame sensor, if your focal length is 24mm, then 500/24 = 20.83. This means you want to have the rest of your settings set up so you can do an exposure of 20 seconds or less to maintain sharp stars. If you're shooting on a 4/3 or ASP-C sensor etc, you've got some extra math to do. But you get the idea!
Back to the main topic of focus, here's a shot I took when i was first learning how to do night photos when I was posted up in Alaska. My friend I had with me had a wildly bright flashlight i used to not only light paint the tower, but to use as my focus point. I had him walk closer to the tower with the light so i could zoom in and focus on the tower, then when I was ready for the shot, had him step further back and lightly light paint it for me during the exposure. I didn't make this a very long exposure, because I wanted to freeze the aurora as much as I could, so that's why the stars aren't that bright. (I also at the time did not know how to composite, oh well!). But it fits the narrative of this post on how to find focus in low light!
Awesome advice thanks a ton. great pic. does the lens matter in these instances? I'm still on kit lenses and yes i have a crop sensor so i guess ill be doing extra math but definitely wanna get out and experiment some more our sky's are clearer in winter guess i just need to get bundled up a bit more. Alaska must have been a cold night!!
Yeah, the lower your F stop the easier it is because you won't have to crank your iso as high. You can get really cheap low f stop lenses that are pristine quality from the company Rokinon though! I shoot a lot of low light photos with my Rokinon 24mm f1.4 and it's tack sharp, great dynamic range and colors, and only runs about $400 new. Rokinon lenses are manual focus only, but you're usually manual focusing when you do night time and/or landscape shots anyway. Here's are a couple of shots I've shot with that lens! There's also one in my profile on here, the self portrait of me in oregon.
Yeah, I was posted up in a town called Ester a tad northwest of fairbanks. Definitely cold, was probably around -20F when i took that aurora shot. I miss it though!
Awesome I was considering that lens actually I was in between that and another I'm still saving for a better camera though for now it will be kit lenses
I agree it is good seeing you trying demanding things and you will learn a lot. But I have learned that composition and trying to predict your outcome is key. Ie leading lines, curves, and making sure you have an interesting background foreground from the source of your interest - same principles as in a daytime shot, but easily forgotten with night time shooting (as I have learned).
yeah this was on a whim, and quite literally a shot in the dark!!