Setting exposure for shooting at night

2Charlie · Feb 3, 2011

I wanted to take some night shots. I read somewhere that the exposure has to be long e.g. 8 seconds to one or two minutes. I have the D300, where do I set the exposure? I'm a newbie at photography and just trying things out. In the past, I have always use the auto. I like to learn some manual work with this camera.

Many thanks in advance.

Boomn4x4 · Feb 3, 2011

http://www.nikonusa.com/pdf/manuals/dslr/D300_en.pdf

Page 16

Trever1t · Feb 3, 2011

It's going to depend on how much ambient light you have, your aperture and ISO settings eh? Nobody can give you an answer.

2Charlie · Feb 3, 2011

Boomn4x4,

Thank you so much! I bought my camera used from eBay and I do not have the manual. I'll take some reading and definitely save the PDF file.

2Charlie · Feb 3, 2011

Trever1t said:
It's going to depend on how much ambient light you have, your aperture and ISO settings eh? Nobody can give you an answer.

Thanks! I'll have to experiment with it. I just need to know how to set to exposure first and I'll go from there.

2Charlie · Feb 3, 2011

Okay, so page 16 shows how to set the different exposure mode. To set the time (say, 2 or 8 seconds) is call exposure increments, correct?

Big Mike · Feb 3, 2011

The 'time' is called the shutter speed.

Shutter speed, aperture and ISO are the three things that control exposure.

'exposure increments' are the 'ticks' on the scale that you see in the viewfinder. You can set it for 1/2 or 1/3 increments.

2Charlie · Feb 3, 2011

Big Mike, big thanks for the explanation. I used shutter speed all the time but didn't know it was part of controlling "exposure". I thought there is a separate menu/setting that I need to set for the exposure. I kept seeing people said they set their exposure at 3 seconds or 8 seconds, basically, they're referring to the shutter speed, correct?

Village Idiot · Feb 3, 2011

Look for the book, Understanding Exposure.

Buy it. Read it. Shoot.

Tight Knot · Feb 3, 2011

2Charlie said:
Big Mike, big thanks for the explanation. I used shutter speed all the time but didn't know it was part of controlling "exposure". I thought there is a separate menu/setting that I need to set for the exposure. I kept seeing people said they set their exposure at 3 seconds or 8 seconds, basically, they're referring to the shutter speed, correct?

People use the word "exposure" in quite a few different ways, one of them gets you arrested

.

In photography, the general term "exposure" is the relationship between shutter speed, aperture and iso. Changing any of these on their own changes the exposure. The brighter it is (day or night) the faster your shutter speed can be to capture the scene properly, and the darker it is, the slower your shutter speed can be to capture the scene (not getting into why or when you want to change your settings to attain different effects). The term "exposure" that you are mentioning is just a long shutter speed to be able to collect the correct amount of light based upon the iso and the aperture. In this case, just change the word "exposure" for "shutter speed".
Hope this helps, and DEFINITELY get the book "Understanding exposure", it is invaluable for beginning photographers.

2Charlie · Feb 3, 2011

Thank you so much for the information/suggestion. I new what shutter speed, ISO, and aperture means. I just didn't know what they're talking about when they said "8 seconds exposure" mean. Well, now I know.