Nightshot of streetlamp

ADF · Jul 23, 2007

Does anybody have tips for shooting an empty street at night?
I want to capture the orangey glow of the streetlamp.
So far all I've got is a yellow flashy light when i shoot at the required settings (to obtain detail in the rest of the photo), or I can get the orange glow but only when the rest of the picture is underexposed and dark.

My best shot is with ISO400, "sunny" WB, 1" shutter speed, 50% exposure
and "Chrome" colour saturation.

Garbz · Jul 23, 2007

Welcome to the limits of photography. Sometimes we can use this to our advantage sometimes it bites us and prevents us from taking the picture the way we want.

Basically photography is limited to a range of 5-7 stops of dynamic range depending if you are using film digital negatives slide etc. The scene which you are describing probably contains far more dynamic range than can be captured. You have a few options though.
1) pick your desired exposure and live with the fact that you'll either blow out the street light or loose the dark shadow detail.
2) take multiple exposures and create a HDR image (search the forum for HDR and you'll find countless threads on it).
3) use some way to control the light before it gets in the camera. Kind of like sunglasses for the streetlight only to bring it's dynamic range down.

Also for future reference if you post details about your image we need to know the lens Aperture too.

usayit · Jul 23, 2007

Garbz said:
Welcome to the limits of photography.

I just realized that there have been a few threads in recent times concerning a situtation in which we hit the "limits of photography"... just makes you realize just how advanced and flexible human sight really is...

Paul Ron · Jul 23, 2007

There is a trick to doing this and maintaining details n control without loosing any hair on your head.

Shoot the street lamp shots just before dawn or a bit after twilight. THis allows you to keep the details in the darks as well as in the highs. You can control the amount of darkness you want by the time you choose to shoot the shot and how long the exposure is for the lamps.

Also by doing this, you have the options of bringing up the front by using a flash to give it some more depth and still bhave beautiful shades of darkness in the background.

ADF · Jul 24, 2007

Thanks for the help, guys!

Sorry about the lack of aperture details, I just recalled the rest of the info of the top of my head, couldn't remember all of it.

I tried taking the picture in "magic hour" like Paul Ron said, and got my best image yet.. nice dark blue sky in the back ground.

http://www.imagefap.com/gallery.php?gid=729746

Any criticism would be appreciated.

The_Traveler · Jul 24, 2007

ADF said:
Thanks for the help, guys!

Sorry about the lack of aperture details, I just recalled the rest of the info of the top of my head, couldn't remember all of it.

I tried taking the picture in "magic hour" like Paul Ron said, and got my best image yet.. nice dark blue sky in the back ground.

http://www.imagefap.com/gallery.php?gid=729746

Any criticism would be appreciated.

The site you linked us to has mainly erotic/porno images.

WDodd · Jul 24, 2007

I've seen someone use a GND to control the flare from the light.

kundalini · Jul 24, 2007

Unable to access your photo due to site content. Using company computer and it puts up a big red stop sign.

ADF · Jul 25, 2007

The_Traveler said:
The site you linked us to has mainly erotic/porno images.

Well maybe it's an erotic/porno image of a streetlamp

Garbz · Jul 25, 2007

Beside the point. If a link contains anything explicit even if it's not the image itself it should be marked not safe for work. I suggest looking at alternative photo storage sites like photobucket, imageshack, flickr etc