Denver at Night C&C

[Neiby]

This is my first night shot with a tripod and I'm thoroughly ambivalent about how it came out. It's noisier than I expected even at ISO 200. I should have lowered it to 100 and increased the exposure time. I think this is 1 second at F/4 with my 18-200mm lens. I forgot to disable IS on my lens and I also forgot to set mirror lockup, so I probably could have gotten it to be a little clearer had I remembered. I might also have switched to my 50mm prime f/1.8 lens. That might have been a little sharper than this, but it would have been as wide.

All in all....boring. I've processed it a bit and did a lot of noise reduction. The sky is so, so noisy. Other than getting better lenses and remembering to disable IS and turn on mirror lockup, what are some other things I can do to make this a better photo?


Denver at night by jneiberger2002, on Flickr

 

[RichardsTPF]

I am a newbie. I think Canon 60d should handle ISO 200 well. Your aperture is too wide. I would like to see 15s and f11.

 

[Neiby]

I did mean to tighten my aperture beforehand, but I forgot. lol So, the list of things I forgot to check is growing!

Thanks for the help.

 

[manaheim]

Don't feel too bad, you've just made some of the common night-time photography errs.

In brief, you need to do the following:

1. Shoot RAW. Always. No exceptions.
2. Expose to the right- deliberately over-expose the shot and back it down in post processing. You want to see detail on the buildings, not black boxes with pinpricks of light in 'em. Some of your noise issues are because you underexposed.
3. Shoot low ISO, use tripod.
4. Find optimum aperture on your camera for quality AND star effect. You want to stop down a bit because light refracts around the blades of your lens to form stars, but not so far down as to minimize quality. For most lenses this is somewhere between 5.6 and 11 and usually around 8ish.
5. Be sure to use remote shutter release cable, or at least timer with 20 second delay. Former is faster, latter is cheaper.
6. Focus to infinity, focus manually. Every lens is different and not all lenses are marked right, so you wanna be sure you know where infinity is. Test ahead to be sure it's spot on. Do not use AF as generally there is not enough light to focus properly.

Now if you wanna get REALLY nuts, here are the hard-core tips...

7. Lock up your shutter before you take the shot. This keeps camera shake down.
8. Sandbag your tripod for even more stability during the exposure.
9. Avoid windy days to avoid ANY camera shake and keep water clear and flat (there's more to the water part than this, but it's a start)
10. Use a high quality prime lens, shoot many shots and stitch them together in photoshop for epic detail.


Example of the star effect at pretty much optimum on a good lens...

Example of a finished product putting all of what I explained into action...

 

[Neiby]

Awesome!! Thanks for the advice! I can't wait to try again now. I only have two lenses. I'll use my 50mm prime next time. I didn't need the wide angle tonight, anyway, because I cropped a lot from the sides. The 50mm would have been a better choice. I don't want to get at least one good wide angle lens, but they're pretty expensive and I have so much stuff I want to buy: lenses, flashes, reflectors, diffusers, etc. This is one seriously expensive hobby! lol

Many, many thanks for the detailed advice. I'll make sure to let you know of my next results to see if I improved.

 

[manaheim]

My pleasure. Post your new image here so it pops up on my radar or drop me a PM. I'd love to see it.

The 50mm 1.8 and 1.4 are awesome for night photography if you can get away with the focal length, and they produce CRAZY stars. The star image I showed above was 100% crop from the 50mm 1.8.

Good luck!

BTW... bring a flashlight. Useful to look at any non-illuminated settings you have on your cam in the dark.

 

[fauzigarib]

@manaheim,

This is some good advice. Been looking for a start for some nice night time photography also... Guess I just found it.

And great pic. Where is it?

-Fauzi

 

[nntruong]

Hey I'm from Denver too! I think this shot would be better if you're closer to downtown

 

[JWellman]

Awesome shot Manaheim. Which camera and lens were you using? (Sorry if I missed it somewhere)

Jess

 

[manaheim]

@manaheim,

This is some good advice. Been looking for a start for some nice night time photography also... Guess I just found it.

And great pic. Where is it?

-Fauzi

Thanks. I obsessed over night photography for quite some time because I wanted to master it. I do very much love it. Truly, this shot still isn't absolutely perfect, but it's my current best. You should see the wall of shame for all the previous attempts. My god they're bad.

Awesome shot Manaheim. Which camera and lens were you using? (Sorry if I missed it somewhere)

Thanks.

Just in case Nikon_Josh happens to be watching...

I used a Sigma 10-20mm 4/5.6 on a Nikon D300.

 

[WilfordSy]

Manaheim - YOU ROCK dude! Those are awesome tips you have there. I actually came from the latest thread where you mentioned to search your name & night photography. I've recently done some New York cityscapes and it was my first time to do night photography as well (at least for lanscapes/cityscapes) and your tips would have been a big help! (Some C&C from you would also be appreciated)

I have a question though - you mentioned Prime Lenses work best for night landscape shots. Any reason why this is so? I'm just curious to understand what's the different with shooting with a prime lens since you're going to stop down your Aperture to around 5.6-8-11ish anyway. Are there significant difference with shooting with a 50mm 1.8 @f8 VS Kit lens 18-55mm @ 50mm focal range and also f8?

Great photo too by the way!

 

[Neiby]

Even though you asked Manaheim, I can say that primes are going to be a lot sharper than zooms, especially the cheap ones. Here's a comparison of the 50mm 1.8 and the 18-55:

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=105&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=5&LensComp=763&CameraComp=474&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=3

Notice how much sharper the 50mm 1.8 is at f/8. There is no comparison. And if you were to get something like the 50mm 1.4, which is absurdly sharp, you'd get even better results.

 

[WilfordSy]

Even though you asked Manaheim, I can say that primes are going to be a lot sharper than zooms, especially the cheap ones. Here's a comparison of the 50mm 1.8 and the 18-55:

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/ISO-12233-Sample-Crops.aspx?Lens=105&Camera=453&Sample=0&FLI=0&API=5&LensComp=763&CameraComp=474&SampleComp=0&FLIComp=0&APIComp=3

Notice how much sharper the 50mm 1.8 is at f/8. There is no comparison. And if you were to get something like the 50mm 1.4, which is absurdly sharp, you'd get even better results.

Holy sh!t! That's a BIG difference!!! (pardon my French)

I did not realize how sharper the prime lenses are. No wonder they're friggin expensive! LOL

Oh and also - great tool to compare different lenses! Bookmarked and saved for future use!

Lastly, I think your photo looks pretty good. It's too underexposed for my taste or just too dark. Or I guess it's because the lights aren't that bright or "twinkling" from having a longer exposure.

Oh and you mentioned you wanted to disable IS and turn on Mirror lockup. What exactly would that do? Doesn't IS actually help the image quality / make it clearer?

 

[Neiby]

I had literally no idea what I was doing when I took that pic. lol In that context, it turned out okay, but I need to try it again some day, especially since I have much better lenses available.

You want to disable IS if you're using a tripod, which you should be using for this type of shot. Mirror lock up helps to avoid the minor vibration caused by the motion of the mirror. The one time I tried using mirror lock up on a tripod, I used my crappiest lens and the pictures still came out extremely well, far better than I expected. If you can minimize movement as much as possible, your shots will surprise you with their clarity. But better lenses would produce even better results, so I definitely need to give it another try.

 

[WilfordSy]

I had literally no idea what I was doing when I took that pic. lol In that context, it turned out okay, but I need to try it again some day, especially since I have much better lenses available.

You want to disable IS if you're using a tripod, which you should be using for this type of shot. Mirror lock up helps to avoid the minor vibration caused by the motion of the mirror. The one time I tried using mirror lock up on a tripod, I used my crappiest lens and the pictures still came out extremely well, far better than I expected. If you can minimize movement as much as possible, your shots will surprise you with their clarity. But better lenses would produce even better results, so I definitely need to give it another try.

Ahh. Got it. That makes a lot of sense. *Google's where the mirror lock control for my Canon t2i is*

Thanks dude! Good luck with your next try with night photography. I also tried it just very recently, just last week and I've been impressed with my initial results so I'm starting to get more interested in night landscape/cityscape shots. Good luck!