first attempt at night photography...

Beth81 · Jan 15, 2009

Well I'll continue to play with it as well and if you learn anything please inform me and I will with you. Good luck clicking away.

Mgw189 · Jan 15, 2009

The smaller the aperture the more your lights will get that star look. You can get a starlight filter which will create that effect. Beth you could use a graduated ND filter to tone down those lights but it would also tone down anything else at the same level. You could also try a wide aperture and shorter shutter speed.

Mgw189 · Jan 15, 2009

A word of advice for night photography play with everything. The advantage of digital photography is that you can take 100s of photos and all of the tech info is saved as well. When photogs used film they would have to write down their settings for a particular image. With digital all that info is save as soon as you push the shutter button. Play with your camera and its settings as much as possible. When first starting out never delete an image off of the camera. That way when you upload them you can see the results and the effect the settings had on your images. Also when you find an image you like look at those settings and see what they were. If you use the same settings in the future you should get similar results.

Mongoos3 · Jan 15, 2009

If you are looking for cooler night shots, set up a tripod on an overpass. Have the exposure time for dunno 28 secs? you get some very cool pics

AlexColeman · Jan 15, 2009

It is pretty good. Next you have to try light painting.

rhall54 · Jan 16, 2009

AlexColeman said:
It is pretty good. Next you have to try light painting.

How do you do light painting?

Beth81 · Jan 16, 2009

AlexColeman said:
It is pretty good. Next you have to try light painting.

What is light painting?

Mgw189 · Jan 16, 2009

Light painting is when you take a light source such as a flash light or glow stick and move it around while the shutter is open. The results will look like streaks of lights through the picture. You can also use light painting to expose an area of a photograph with strobes/flash/flashlight what have you.

manaheim · Jan 16, 2009

I gotta say congrats. Nearly every person who tries this initially posts very underexposed pictures, and these really are not. You've already got one of the tricks down.

You also have stars on your light sources because you used a small aperature, which is another trick most people don't manage to get (not sure if that was intentional).

From a purely technical perspective, this was a very good first attempt. Congrats!

I know what you mean about being nervous about being out at night. I usually try to bring a couple friends with me and we all shoot together. Keep it up and just keep an eye on the people around you.

Clancyz · Jan 19, 2009

I like the first, has an eery brightness sense to it.

rhall54 · Jan 20, 2009

manaheim said:
I gotta say congrats. Nearly every person who tries this initially posts very underexposed pictures, and these really are not. You've already got one of the tricks down.

You also have stars on your light sources because you used a small aperature, which is another trick most people don't manage to get (not sure if that was intentional).

From a purely technical perspective, this was a very good first attempt. Congrats!

I know what you mean about being nervous about being out at night. I usually try to bring a couple friends with me and we all shoot together. Keep it up and just keep an eye on the people around you.

Thank you!!

I live really close to Atlanta and would love to get pictures down there at night.. but that's a little scary. One day I'll talk some friends into coming with me.. I hope

And no.. the stars were not intentional at first.. I had very little idea what I was doing. I just continued adjusting settings until I saw what was working.

TreeofLifeStairs · Dec 24, 2014

Mgw189 said:
The smaller the aperture the more your lights will get that star look. You can get a starlight filter which will create that effect. Beth you could use a graduated ND filter to tone down those lights but it would also tone down anything else at the same level. You could also try a wide aperture and shorter shutter speed.

Instead of an ND or GND filter I would do a composite or simply compose the shot so there wasn't the light shining directly at the camera.