Quick night settings question...

[Sirashley]

Alright, going for a boring drive tonight and I'll have my camera with me. I was just curious, what are the correct settings to shoot from the interior of the car so that the dash is in focus but outside the windows is streaky. Obviously a longer exposure is required, but I figured I'd ask what is preferred, as well as what aperture and other settings will work well. Lastly, can this be done with a study hand, or is a tripod necessary? and if so, how the heck would you balance that in the car...LOL... Thanks in advance guys

 

[floppydisque]

I tried doing that type of shot. I just set my camera to shutter priority for a 30 second exposure. I put the camera on a tripod and put in my backseat. I just adjusted the legs so that they would be secure on whatever level they were (what I mean is that I had one tripod leg on the actual seat, one on the backseat floor and the other somewhere in between). I had a friend sit in the back to watch the tripod in case it fell.

You can see some of the shots I did in this post:
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=136120

As you can see the dashboard is relatively sharp, but my hands were moving. Some people recommended that you should use a flash to freeze you hands at the beginning of the exposure. Anyways hope that helps.