night photography

[mwood]

Sorry, the link didn't work.

try: 0904_FireTruck_001 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

thanks

 

[JerryPH]

I'm a Nikon shooter....do you think an SB800 will be enought to light the whole engine?

You are going to laugh but yes it very likely can.

- Place the flash a bit further away than you normally would... I am talking about 40-60 feet or so away (those that understand the inverse square law will understand why)

- set the SB-800 to shoot the widest beam of light it can

- set the SB-800 to full power

- set the camera to a nice high ISO (ISO 800 should not be too much)

- set the aperture to as fast as you can, just enough to give you the minimum depth of field that you need

- set the camera on a tripod at an angle of about 50 degrees toward the long side of the truck (standing at the front, if you know what I mean), and use the fastest shutter speed you can. You will be able to play with shutter speed to produce different effects on a truck that is standing still with the lights turned on.

 

[Dwig]

...The image shows everything sharp, but the emergency lights are trailing (mostly blurred, some lighter spot strobes in the line of motion).
How do I do this????

Without seeing it I can only guess, but you've left a clue. The trailing lights, somehwhat blurred along with everything else crisp points to a very skillfully balanced shot dominately light be a large powerful flash or set of flashes.

As someone else mentioned, shooting at twilight can lead to great looking "night" shots. In fact, most such night shots are taken when its still bright enough to read a newspaper. If you use a modest shutter speed, preferably with "second curtain sync" activated you will get a shot where the flash component is frozen and crisp and the moving objects blur only from their ambient light component.

The trick is to carefully balance the exposure (flash intensity, ambient light level, f/stop chosen, along with resulting shutter speed) so that the ambient exposure on the fire truck along doesn't expose anything significantly except the lights. The flash component is the primary lighting component for exposing the truck.

 

[Dwig]

Sorry, the link didn't work.

try: 0904_FireTruck_001 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

thanks

Whoops, I overlooked this one before a posted...

This was very definitely shot with several flashes, large powerful ones. The primary exposure is flash, but the shutter speed was set to a rather slow speed (hard to say without knowing the speed of the truck, but likely in the 1/2sec to 1/8 sec range) and the flahs sync was set to "second curtain sync". Care was taken so that the ambient lighting in the garage balanced well, in terms of exposure, with the flash lit truck.

 

[teneighty23]

according to that shot you will want a nice powerful flash and have your camera set to take a second curtain sync shot. a longer exposure, maybe 1/2 second, and if its set on second curtain sync the flash will fire right before the shutter closes, leaving the light trail behind the vehicle rather than in front.

 

[WillEpps]

For what you want I'mg going to suggest ...

1. Tripod
2. Low ISO
3. Manual mode
4. Twilight

You want the truck lit and sharp .. but then you want light trails driving away

Heres one example ...

30 sec exposure ... smallish aperture to get the truck and surroundings exposed right
Leave truck stationary for 25 secs
and in the last 5 secs drive off for the trail
It should pick up the lights
but not the rest of the truck (being dark)

try that ?

 

[Primo]

A tri-pod and a flash is all I would need to pull this off.

I would use a LOW ISO and f-stop with probly a 20 second shutter speed with the camera on a tripod and a flash in hand... literally. Have the truck turn on the lights as it starts to move and take the pic, let it roll till the point where you want it to stop and stay in focus, with lights that bright and the already exposed picture, you've already created your exposure lights trailing behind it and killed about 15 seconds probly, then I'd hold the flash just above the camera and point it in a general middle of everything and hit the test button a second or 2 before the shutter releases, it will sharpen everthing that was still pretty well and add some nice lighting.