Existing Light

[Uncle Albert]

I'm working on taking outdoor pictures at night. This is a store down the street.

 

[spike5003]

i learned my lesson about night shots the hard way... so im not gonna tell you the secret im vindictive like that... However this is a good start

heres a couple hints

1) make sure your camera is on spot metering
2) use bulb mode a tripod and a cable release
3) the rest is up to you

 

[Uncle Albert]

Golly, I knew this was a good place to be. Can you really tell I handheld it using matrix metering?

 

[spike5003]

the lights are bright and the center is dark, that says matrix metering all over it... as for hand held if you were on a tripod you could use a longer shutter and the picture wouldnt be so dark....

and cuz im a nice guy ill tell you how to do it

in bulb mode your shutter stays open as long as you hold that cable release... now get a stopwatch cuz youre gonna need it for this

Take an initial reading off the scene (make sure to spot meter off a dark part of the scene i usually go with something that is a little darker than the midtone but thats up to you)lets say for example it is f/4 at 1/15th of a second

Now do the equivalent exposure to get that to f/22 or so (every time you move one f stop higher double the shutter time 1/15-1/8-1/4-1/2-1-2-4-8 etc.)

that gives you a resulting exposure of f/22 at 2 second

With anything over one second on a shutter speed you have to double it in order to avoid reciprocity failure... you dont need to know what it is just know that it screws up your shot and makes it too dark.

so now you have f/22 at 4 seconds

put the f stop on f/22 and put the camera in bulb mode

Push and hold the cable release for 4 seconds

use a stop watch and be as exact as possible... a few 10ths either way shouldnt matter much

Do a few shots of each scene and try one at each 2 and 8 seconds just to make sure.... good luck