1st post, few ?.

[willsmom]

So, my mother-in-law's business burned on Monday night. I went out to see her and take a few pictures. I know that they are blurry because I didnt have a tripod and was just shooting snapshots. So, my question is, what setting would you take night pictures in? (I know this is a rare shot) I also saw the thred where some of you said you ALWAYS soot with the flash, well, at night that makes it dark so all these were with no flash.
1.

2.

3.

4.

FYI- I have a Canon T2i, all these were taken with the 18-55 is lens. Any suggestions are welcome, just know they were snap shots! Thanks!!!

 

[puyjapin]

Hello and welcome. shot 2 is best for me. There must have been quite a bit of ambient light about for you to have gotten away with a fast enough shutter speed so that the firemen arent particularly blurry.
there is no real specific settings for shooting at night. id personally use a tripod and if its buildings around f11, iso 200 and then just adjust shutter till you get a nice exposure or meter it and you should get firly close first time. the only issue with this is if there are people or moving objects, because any slower shutter speeds, will men the people are motion blurred. not necessarily a bad thing as that could look good, esp in the shots here. just bear in mind if the shutter speed is too slow, the ppl have a tendancy to vanish!

 

[Big Mike]

Blur is caused by movement and slower shutter speeds. Movement of the camera and/or things in the photo. To get a faster shutter speed, you will want to use a large aperture (low F number) and maybe a higher ISO. But you are still dependent on the light that you have. If the light is low (at night), you may run out of options, leaving you with slowing down the shutter speed...and thus blur.

Flash does not make it darker, it's just that when you are in any of the auto modes and using flash, the camera limits it's shutter speed to about 1/60, which probably isn't enough to get the ambient exposure you want...and the flash itself isn't powerful enough to light the whole scene, and it also lights objects closer to it, more brightly than objects further away. So on-camera flash usually isn't a good option, but adding flash doesn't "make it darker".

 

[Stradawhovious]

Also, flash + reflective safety gear = bright blinding overexposed portions of your photograph from the reflection.

 

[knightracersi]

I agree with BIG Mike. Don't be afraid to bump up the ISO and practice in the backyard. That is the best thing about digital you can take the card to a computer and see what it looks like. What were your settings for this shoot? I loved the cloud of smoke in the first one. Even though there was a truck in the way of the fourth one I think its #1. It shows the smoke and fire along with the firefighters putting out the fire and entering. Sorry to hear about that being your building.