pictures in the dark

[hoosier40000]

hey, im a beginning photographer and i am still trying to figure out everything. my current struggle is how to take good photos at night. the last few i have tried developed too dark.

 

[hobbes28]

Long exposures and remember that the tripod is your friend.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[duelinthedeep]

i'm also a beginner and i've tried some night shots and they were
a bit blurry. i need a tripod though:|.

the problem is that the sky is well light but the ground isn't...
i guess it's trial and error from here...

 

[darin3200]

It all depends on what type of night photography you want to do. You can do it with long exposures and tripods, or B&W film pushed to iso 3200 or 6400

 

[Mumfandc]

Night photos are really something that you can only learn through experience.
ISO 3200/6400 is really more than you need.

My photography professor taught us to start at ISO 400 8sec. @ f8 for things like skylines at night as a starting point.

AAre you shooting with color film? B&W? If digital, then you just gotta tweak your manual settings if you have those features.

For film, you gotta make exposure compensation.

 

[joyride]

Yes, def get a tripod! it was one of the best purchases I bought. Also look into a cable release, as it freed me from shaking the camera when doing long exposure night shots on the bulb setting.

The best thing i can tell you is to go out and experiment. Our first night assignment helped a lot. I had to shoot a scene at a set aperture (f5.6) several times at different shutter speeds (.5 sec, 1 sec, 4 sec....ect.) When using f-22 I even had to shoot one at up to 9 minutes! We did this at 4 locations: bright (downtown), medium bright (fairly well lit), medium dark (not much light at all, needed a flashlight) and dark (middle of the woods with no lights.) As long as you can distinguish the lighting of an area, you can use the aperture and shutter that you found to be best developed during your experiment.

Just remeber to use a tripod and dont trust your meter in the dark!

 

[darin3200]

Night photos are really something that you can only learn through experience.
ISO 3200/6400 is really more than you need.

Well not for skylines, I wasn't sure if the original poster was referring to night photography as in skylines and highways, or action shooting which would need the high isos.

 

[hoosier40000]

thanks alot for all your help. your tips helped alot. im gonna just gonna go out and have some fun. one more question though, i noticed you mentioned some types of film. is there one you recommend more for me?

 

[Azuth]

People mentioned different ISO ratings, is that what you're referring to?

If so, put simply, the higher the ISO rating the faster the film reacts to light, also, the higher the rating the more 'grainy' the film will tend to appear.

Most people shoot film between 100 and 400 ISO for day to day stuff. Regardless of the ISO you have in the camera, the question you need to ask is, for this film, at this aperture, how long do I need to expose for?

Mumfandc's example is a good one

My photography professor taught us to start at ISO 400 8sec. @ f8 for things like skylines at night as a starting point.

The light meter built into your camera (I'm asuming) will probably already know what ISO film you have loaded so use it to your advantage. The key fact that has been mentioned is to expose any detail at night, you're going to have to expose for a long time (running into the seconds instead of the fractions of a second you'd use during the day). Hence the need for a tripod to avoid a blurred image from camera shake.

If you have the inclination to play, follow joyride's exercise for yourself. Set your aperture at say 5.6 and take a number of different length exposures. Do it in a few different types of night environment and write down your settings for each frame so that you can match settings to a result.

Er, the short answer - Use ISO 400, you'll be fine

 

[Leighroy1]

I have heard that the higher ISO you use the mnore noise you get.. is that true?

 

[Jaszek]

Noise you get in digital images, on film it's more referred to as grain, and grain isn't as bad as digital noise on a screen. And you still didn't tell us if you have a digital camera or a film camera, but from what Im hearing you have a film ;D.