nighttime bridge shot

pete1606 · Dec 31, 2007

I am new to nightime photography. Please critque all aspects of subject framing and techinal.

pete1606 · Dec 31, 2007

see a larger version at Peter Hamilton's Photo Galleries at pbase.com

den9 · Dec 31, 2007

out of focus and blurry

location looks like it has potential, i like how u can see the shore line and the grass.

did u use a tripod?

also turn your iso all the way down, and maybe close up the aperture a number or 2

Heck · Dec 31, 2007

That looks to be the white stone bridge from the bronx side? A tripod would have made the shot in focus.

pete1606 · Jan 1, 2008

I used a tripod. It is the whitestone bridge from The queens side. I have trouble focusing in the dark and so does my camera. Is there any tricks to focusing in the dark, my sight inst too good.

Battou · Jan 1, 2008

When focusing at night you can use the most consentrated aria of light if you need to. May I place some marks onto this to show you my suggested focusing point?

(if you want to see a couple of my night shots and see where my statements are comming from here are two:

a practice shot of a restaurant
Main street bridge around 4:00 AM)

ISO speed is a personal preferance, if you wish to use a high ISO that is a choice made by the person behind the camera, just bare in mind that as ISO goes up so too does the grain of an image.

pete1606 · Jan 1, 2008

sure!

Battou · Jan 1, 2008

It'll take a few minuets PB is acting weird tonight but....

What kind of tripod are you using, does it have the ability to turn the camera upright?

pete1606 · Jan 1, 2008

Its a cheap tripod that came with my fathers video camera years ago. I can only take landscape shots with it (no vertiacal framing) when I have to raise the camera higher i notice a litle bit of sawy if theres wind ( wasnt raised in this shot) Also i need to purchase a cable relase cause i think i cause some movement when i depress the shutter button.

Battou · Jan 1, 2008

gotchya

LaFoto · Jan 1, 2008

Pete, this is a good attempt, and I applaud everyone who ventures into the (thrilling!) area of nighttime photography. But I'm afraid, a tripod for a (lightweight) video camera does not really keep a photographic camera still (I know because the first tripod I got myself was an el-cheapo-one for videographing, and I had to exchange it fast, it just did NOT give me the results I was hoping for).

Then I personally also found out that focusing in the dark does not work automatically, you need to focus manually, otherwise there is too little for the auto-focus to rely on and go with (in cases where the lights are so far away as your bridge lights were, for example). But - hm

- if your eyesight isn't good enough and the glasses don't help you either... then things become difficult... does your viewfinder have means to change the dioptries (is that an English word?) so you can get a little picture adapted to your eyesight?

But I still appreciate the fact that you went out at night and tried to take photo in the dark!

One tip for you who you don't have a remote release: set the camera on timer and let it take its photo without you touching it in the moment the shutter opens.

Battou · Jan 1, 2008

(PB is having serious issues tonigt, I will remove the image once they have served their purpose)

I highly recomend manual focus for this stuff. From my experiance auto focus just can't find anything in the dark (wether it's bad auto focuses I have or what I don't know). My eyes are not great either, but they work thankfully.

For focusing you need contrast at the point of the subject at hand, correct? With this image the best spot I can think of is shown by the two arrows, the blue for the most consentrated aria of light in the aria of the subject and the red for the darkest spot in the same aria. That spot where the arrows point to would prolly be your best bet for getting it focused. However this will not be an easy focus it will take some time to get it spot on, don't be afraid to spend a few minutes focusing the image, it pays off in the end.

Now it's rather clear that the point I am suggesting is above the center point of the composition you have, This is easy enough to get around. If I have to correct idea about your tripod it sounds like there is a srtaight up and down extention, is this correct?

If so all you really need to do is raise the camera up and focus then bring it straight down once it is focused, I have done this several times with great results.

also, just because....
A tighter aprature (I.E. 11, 16 or 22) will give you some room to miss the focus a little bit at the price of either exposure time and/or ISO speed, but it's not a clean all.

pete1606 · Jan 1, 2008

bridge lights were, for example). But - hm

- if your eyesight isn't good enough and the glasses don't help you either... then things become difficult... does your viewfinder have means to change the dioptries (is that an English word?) so you can get a little picture adapted to your eyesight?

Im not sure what you mean?