Night city photo

[manaheim]

Most of the time you are taking night shots, your aperture will not affect your DOF much because you will be far enough away from your subject that your DOF will be quite deep regardless of your aperture selection.

In night photography in most circumstances (again, unless your subject is close) your aperture is going to be used mainly to control starburst formations around lights and how long you have to run your exposure to get your shot.

I will AGAIN stress that you DO NOT WANT TO UNDEREXPOSE A NIGHT SHOT. You must shoot raw and DELIBERATELY over-expose it... basically expose for the shadows. The BEST WAY to expose a night shot is to take the shot at whatever you think appropriate and check your histogram and then adjust. You want your exposure mostly in the righthand portion of your histogram, but with very little of it clipped/lost. You can then back it down in post-processing. This will reduce noise in the darker areas, increase detail in the darker areas, and give eye-popping detail in the brighter areas.

Bulb is almost NEVER necessary with night photography. More often than not, I'll shoot around F8 at 30 seconds or less with perfect results.

Example...

 

[rutherford]

Ok. varying opinions! I guess I'll try both - over and under exposing and see which I can work best with back on my computer.

That cityscape above does look very nice.

Thanks for the reply, sorry about the delay, been busy. Would I need photoshop to mix them or can you accomplish something like that in Lightroom?

You could use this plug-in for Lightroom:
LR/Enfuse - Blend Multiple Exposures Together in Adobe Lightroom

That looks useful thanks.

 

[manaheim]

It's really not varying opinions. It's right vs. wrong. Yeah, I know that sounds pompous but I really couldn't possibly care less.

 

[John27]

On your question with the stars, most of the time when you see sharp, bright stars, the milky way, planets, etc., a couple things are happening;

1) The photographer is in a very rural area with less light polution

2) They are using what's called a 'tracker' which moves the camera. The earth is constantly moving, quite fast actually, which is why the stars 'move' at night. They do these bright night shots with several exposures, stacked together. But the exposures are over such a long period of time, they can actually get motion blur, from stars! So a tracker is used. Google 'barn door trackers' for some info on a cheaper way to build one. It's a lot of fun to take star shots! But it's also fairly complicated.

 

[bratkinson]

Most of the time you are taking night shots, your aperture will not affect your DOF much because you will be far enough away from your subject that your DOF will be quite deep regardless of your aperture selection.

In night photography in most circumstances (again, unless your subject is close) your aperture is going to be used mainly to control starburst formations around lights and how long you have to run your exposure to get your shot.

I will AGAIN stress that you DO NOT WANT TO UNDEREXPOSE A NIGHT SHOT. You must shoot raw and DELIBERATELY over-expose it... basically expose for the shadows. The BEST WAY to expose a night shot is to take the shot at whatever you think appropriate and check your histogram and then adjust. You want your exposure mostly in the righthand portion of your histogram, but with very little of it clipped/lost. You can then back it down in post-processing. This will reduce noise in the darker areas, increase detail in the darker areas, and give eye-popping detail in the brighter areas.

Bulb is almost NEVER necessary with night photography. More often than not, I'll shoot around F8 at 30 seconds or less with perfect results.

Example...

Absolutely beautiful shot.

Boston?

 

[manaheim]

Yessir, and thank you.

 

[rutherford]

Why would you say the other school of thought developed then that says night images should be underexposed?

 

[manaheim]

Why would you say the other school of thought developed then that says night images should be underexposed?

Because the world is full of wrong-minded misinformed people who band together en masse to give their completely incorrect conclusions some sort of thin vestige of credibility?

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Ok. varying opinions! I guess I'll try both - over and under exposing and see which I can work best with back on my computer.

That cityscape above does look very nice.

Thanks for the reply, sorry about the delay, been busy. Would I need photoshop to mix them or can you accomplish something like that in Lightroom?

You could use this plug-in for Lightroom:
LR/Enfuse - Blend Multiple Exposures Together in Adobe Lightroom

That looks useful thanks.

If you underexpose, and then bring that exposure back up in post, you will bring out the noise. That's the problem.

 

[Bmalt]

I echo what's already been said. You should use a tripod because it will allow you to set a long exposure, which in turn lets you avoid using a high ISO. You would avoid using a high ISO because they're grainy. Long exposures get even more grainy because the sensor heats up and adds additional noise. Just stick with ISO 100. Use the widest aperture that will still still give a good composition so that you can keep your exposure time down, which as stated, limits noise. Note, I didn't say to use a wide aperture, just the widest you can get away with.

I wouldn't worry about showing up knowing what shutter speed to use because even for pros, it's an experiment, with a few test shots needed before the keeper is made. Make the first shot using the exposure that your camera meter tells you to use. It's going to be wrong, but then look at your histogram and preview image to decide the correct shutter speed.

 

[manaheim]

Beautiful shot.

Btw, I understand that sensor heat problem is only on certain sensor types though I've never confirmed that.

 

[photoloverpp]

I just wonder that whether a tripod is available for you sinceyou're on vacation, will you take your tripod with you all the trip? maybe you have to think another way to replace the use of tripod, like to find a car to help hold your camera...

 

[manaheim]

You can get a nice compact, but you can also use a backpack or other bag. Cars work ok but be mindful of slipping. Same with railings and such. Just be mindful of the security of the camera.

 

[helim404]

Hi Guys, my pleasure to be here. This is what is big issue that I am looking for the solution. Hope get good idea from here. I like this forum.

 

[JustinL]

If you're shooting stars a good tip is the rule of 600 where you divided your focal length by 600 (400 with crop sensor) to get the longest exposure without star movement. For example if you're shoot at 17mm you would do 600 divided by 17 to get a total exposure of 35 secs before star movement.

And definitely dont underexpose it, it's a little trial and error to get it perfect. I usually crank my iso up pretty high to get my shot just how I want it at first, you don't want to wait 5 mins for a shot at 100 iso to find out its crooked or not framed right.