Night HDR

[carlcosby]

Hi all,

I am relatively newish to HDR, actually, I'm new to photography, but I have learned quite a bit over the 6 months. The questions I would like to ask are, what is meant by metering a scene? I've been told holding down the shutter button half way down can achieve this, I don't quite understand this because I don't know what it's supposed to tell me about the scene and where to start my bracketed shots from or how many I would need. Hopefully somebody can help me out in this department. I've also been told to look at the histogram but I can't get it to appear unless the picture has been taken? When bracketing shots I always thought 0 EV was the normal exposure, so why meter?

My other question is, when doing night HDR, how do I find out my normal exposure and then bracket my shots from that point? I've read books and see people use bulb mode and use 3rd party technology to allow for a longer exposure than 30 seconds.

Also, what is a good way to reduce noise with these long exposures?

Any books for this sort of thing would be cool if you could direct me to any?

Thanks a lot and I have a canon 7d

Regards

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[480sparky]

..............Any books for this sort of thing would be cool if you could direct me to any?................

Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. Make sure you get the (current) 3rd edition.

 

[carlcosby]

Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. Make sure you get the (current) 3rd edition.

Thank you

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[SlickSalmon]

A while back I took a whole bunch of night-time HDRs just for the technical challenge. I learned pretty quickly to always carry a tripod, a remote shutter release and a flashlight. The dynamic range of these scenes is often enormous, because they frequently contain the image of a light source (street lamp, moon, etc.). So, they don't usually respond to the standard HDR formula of -2,0+2 bracketing. More shots are needed over a longer range. Increasingly, I found myself not metering at all and taking an extended series from 30 seconds to 1/30 sec in either one or two stop jumps. In there somewhere was an acceptable series I could use for HDR. For me, the far bigger problem was focus. My particular camera couldn't be trusted to autofocus long exposures, so I had to focus manually. That meant finding something to focus on in low light...often not an easy task. The issue of grain was less of a problem, because my camera has a long-exposure noise reduction routine. That turned out to be essential. When that feature was turned off, the photos were unacceptably grainy. So, I ended up using ISO 200, a tripod (essential), long exposure noise reduction, and a standard set of exposures. As long as the world held still, I usually got what I wanted.

 

[carlcosby]

taking an extended series from 30 seconds to 1/30 sec in either one or two stop jumps.

Thank you so much for your input, I'm just a bit confused with the statement above. Why would you move stops when the longer the exposure, the brighter the scene? I need to read more I know . What's the flash light for as well? Would that be for light painting or for focusing? I'm with you on the rest of your reply though 

Regards

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[480sparky]

.......... I learned pretty quickly to always ..........a flashlight.............. .

Forget a flashlight. Get a headlight. Far more convenient. Get one that either has red LEDs or a red filter..... this way you don't ruin your 'night vision'.

 

[carlcosby]

Forget a flashlight. Get a headlight. Far more convenient. Get one that either has red LEDs or a red filter..... this way you don't ruin your 'night vision'.

Cool I will look into it. Although you could use a flash light for light painting

Regards

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[480sparky]

Forget a flashlight. Get a headlight. Far more convenient. Get one that either has red LEDs or a red filter..... this way you don't ruin your 'night vision'.

Cool I will look into it. Although you could use a flash light for light painting

Regards

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Try at a place that sells either sporting goods or astronomy gear. Petzl is a good brand.

You can still use them for light painting.

 

[SlickSalmon]

The flashlight was so I could find my remote shutter release after I dropped it in the dark.