Could use some tips for some night shots!

BBBlack · Oct 23, 2011

I just got myself a free Pentax ME Super, and I've always wanted to take serious photos, and now I have the chance. I went out last night and shot a couple rolls, had them developed today, but they certainly aren't what I was hoping for. But what can you expect? I'm going out again tonight, maybe with a bit more knowledge of what I'm doing this time.

Many of the shots I have in mind involve street lamps shining in the dead of night. I'd like to be able to capture the orange illumination and color of the lights, but still have the darkened night surroundings and background visible among that light. Will an iso of 1600 be too much for the light? Should I even mess around at all with the ISO? I'm thinking I'll keep the aperture at 5.6, maybe 8. As for shutter speed, I'm not sure where to begin. Will a shorter speed (60...maybe??) balance out the high ISO value and perhaps the contrast between the lamp and the background? Or is the bulb setting my best bet? If so, about how long should I hold it?

I have a roll of Kodak UltraMax 400, which I know isn't the best, but I do know that it is decent for the money. Will this film suffice for my needs at the moment? If there's another type of film that will improve things leaps and bounds, let me know!

Also, regarding the bulb setting - - I don't have a cable release, but I do have a tripod. If bulb is better for my needs, will it be possible to get away with holding the camera really still on the tripod and doing it "extra" manually?

This is a lot of questions, and I know most of this comes from experience, but hopefully it's specific enough to where you all can point me in the right direction!

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

BBBlack · Oct 25, 2011

Well, I went out the other night and shot a roll. Had it developed yesterday and was pleasantly surprised by the results. They certainly weren't perfect, but my use of a tripod and better understanding of how to use my camera improved things dramatically. I mainly used the bulb setting, and switched between f-stops 5.6 and 8, depending on what I felt the lighting required. The colors that resulted were very nice, and just about exactly what I was hoping for. But the one problem I encountered on just about all the photos was the overpowering brightness of the lights (street lamps, etc.) They all came out very bright and had the "starburst" effect, which isn't what I wanted for these photos. They seemed to protrude from the calm, dark surroundings and backgrounds in a very unpleasant way.

I would still like the lights to be visibly brighter than everything else, but it would be better if they could blend in more, and appear more as actual lights rather than glares, if you know what I mean. I am thinking that a smaller aperture size would improve this - maybe f11/f16? If this is the case, would I need to expose the film for longer to balance that out?

Also, about ISO - I shot most of my pictures at 400, and as I said, they came out very nicely colored. I occasionally bumped it up to 800/1600, but all of the photos that I remember doing that for weren't returned in the envelope from developing, meaning that they came out over/under. When I used a higher ISO setting, I coupled it with a 1/60 shutter speed, which obviously isn't enough for low light, even with a high ISO. So that could have just been the problem... But this brings me to something else - I was looking around online and found a bit of talk about using a low ISO like 200 or 100 for night shots, I guess to maintain sharpness. Is this advisable? Would I have to offset it with a longer exposure time?

Thank you!

DiskoJoe · Oct 25, 2011

kodak 400 means that the film can be set to a iso of 400 but not any higher. set it to f8 for about 15-20 secs at 400 iso.

gsgary · Oct 25, 2011

DiskoJoe said:
kodak 400 means that the film can be set to a iso of 400 but not any higher. set it to f8 for about 15-20 secs at 400 iso.

Wrong good film can be pushed and pulled as long as your tell where you have it developed

DiskoJoe · Oct 25, 2011

gsgary said:
DiskoJoe said:

kodak 400 means that the film can be set to a iso of 400 but not any higher. set it to f8 for about 15-20 secs at 400 iso.

Click to expand...

Wrong good film can be pushed and pulled as long as your tell where you have it developed