Struggling with night time shots

Phil2k · Nov 13, 2011

Hello all,

I have been struggling with cityscape night time shots. Below is a picture of the Empire State Building that I took last night, this is pretty much my best effort but it is well short of what I would like it to be. I shot this using a Canon s95 and a tripod. I have tried taking this same picture at a range of ISO and exposure settings in different combinations.

What kind of settings should I be using for a picture like this?

Thanks,

Phil

cgipson1 · Nov 13, 2011

Exif shows you shot it at F2... which should be fine for DOF at that distance, BUT.. most lenses are not at their sharpest when wide open. I would shoot around F8.... that would give you greater clarity and IQ. I would also shoot at a much lower ISO.. 1600 IQ isn't bad.. but 100 is much better. It isn't like you have a moving subject!!

Compositionally, I would maybe put the edge of the building on the 3rds vertical.. and try to balance it with something else in the frame.

EDIT: I just now noticed Exif also says you used a 6mm lens...

I would still try to set the controls manually and use a lower ISO, smaller aperture.... even on a PnS...

SituationNormal · Nov 13, 2011

Alos consider taking two exposures, and stack them. The first exposure being under-exposed, and the second exposure being set normal. The under-exposure will help eliminate the washed out look from all of the lights on top of the building and give it some detail while the normal exposure will still give the photo the light that it needs.

Phil2k · Nov 13, 2011

Hmm, the camera manual recommends ISO of 1000, 1250, 1600, 2000, 2500 and 3200 for night scapes.

I will try some at 100 though.

cgipson1 · Nov 13, 2011

Phil2k said:
Hmm, the camera manual recommends ISO of 1000, 1250, 1600, 2000, 2500 and 3200 for night scapes.

I will try some at 100 though.

with tripod... and if your PnS will handle it, lower ISO's will give you better detail. If you were shooting by hand, yes.. the higher ISO's would be what you want. Also close up that aperture if possible.. will give better clarity.

Phil2k · Nov 13, 2011

Ok, so I just shot these below:
F8, ISO 100

The picture seemed too dark so I took two more increasing the ISO slightly each time.

Finally...

Krazy · Nov 13, 2011

For get the night setting on the camera. Goto manual and seek out the bulb setting. Shoot at 100 with a f4 for roughly 90 seconds. See where that takes you.I love taking nigh city scape shots and just let the camera do the work. Layering pictures is cool and all, but I just love the look of a one layer picture.

thereyougo! · Nov 13, 2011

Krazy said:
For get the night setting on the camera. Goto manual and seek out the bulb setting. Shoot at 100 with a f4 for roughly 90 seconds. See where that takes you.I love taking nigh city scape shots and just let the camera do the work. Layering pictures is cool and all, but I just love the look of a one layer picture.

If I'm guessing right, the s95 is a premium point and shoot so I very much doubt it has a bulb setting.

Phil2k · Nov 13, 2011

Krazy said:
For get the night setting on the camera. Goto manual and seek out the bulb setting. Shoot at 100 with a f4 for roughly 90 seconds. See where that takes you.I love taking nigh city scape shots and just let the camera do the work. Layering pictures is cool and all, but I just love the look of a one layer picture.

Hi Krazy, so I did several shots with your recommended settings (I'm assuming by bulb you mean shooting in Tungsten, which does add a nice colour effect for night time city shots). The difference between these three is shutter speed. One question I have, and this is a newb question I am sure, what do you mean when you say "Shoot for 90 seconds" ?

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

These are probably the best yet in terms of clarity and sharpness, but I would still hope to improve on them further. I'm guessing I may have to try the image layering a poster described earlier?

paulanton · Nov 13, 2011

With my e3 I've had very good results setting my ap from f10-f14 with iso at 100-400 and letting the camera decide exposure time. of course it was on a tripod with either a remote trigger or delayed trigger.

Zenfolio | Paulanton

MTVision · Nov 13, 2011

Phil2k said:
Hi Krazy, so I did several shots with your recommended settings (I'm assuming by bulb you mean shooting in Tungsten, which does add a nice colour effect for night time city shots). The difference between these three is shutter speed. One question I have, and this is a newb question I am sure, what do you mean when you say "Shoot for 90 seconds" ?

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

These are probably the best yet in terms of clarity and sharpness, but I would still hope to improve on them further. I'm guessing I may have to try the image layering a poster described earlier?

I don't think Krazy meant tungsten. I may be wrong....bulb mode lets you take photos with a shutter speed longer than 30 seconds. Tungsten is just a white balance option

thereyougo! · Nov 13, 2011

By bulb, Krazy means a setting where you release the shutter (usually) with a remote release holding the shutter open until you end the exposure by pressing the button a second time. I don't think you have this feature as it is generally only available on DSLRs.
The third one looks the best to me, but the lights are blown out at the top. Are you using the same aperture for all of these? If so you might be able to combine all three exposures.

Phil2k · Nov 13, 2011

thereyougo! said:
By bulb, Krazy means a setting where you release the shutter (usually) with a remote release holding the shutter open until you end the exposure by pressing the button a second time. I don't think you have this feature as it is generally only available on DSLRs.
The third one looks the best to me, but the lights are blown out at the top. Are you using the same aperture for all of these? If so you might be able to combine all three exposures.

Yes aperture was F4 and ISO 100 for all 3, the only variable is shutter speed. I can combine the images using the software that came with the camera I would assume.

thereyougo! · Nov 13, 2011

Phil2k said:
thereyougo! said:

By bulb, Krazy means a setting where you release the shutter (usually) with a remote release holding the shutter open until you end the exposure by pressing the button a second time. I don't think you have this feature as it is generally only available on DSLRs.
The third one looks the best to me, but the lights are blown out at the top. Are you using the same aperture for all of these? If so you might be able to combine all three exposures.

Click to expand...

Yes aperture was F4 and ISO 100 for all 3, the only variable is shutter speed. I can combine the images using the software that came with the camera I would assume.

you may be able to. You can also download specific HDR software. Photomatix pro is very good and you can download a free trial (which will put a watermark through the image, but will allow you to play around with it)

cgipson1 · Nov 13, 2011

Phil2k said:
Ok, so I just shot these below:
F8, ISO 100

The picture seemed too dark so I took two more increasing the ISO slightly each time.

Finally...

as I said... if your PnS can handle it... you will need full manual control... not let the camera make your decisions for you.

EDIT:.. I see in later posts that you did use F4, ISO 100.. and just varied the shutter speed. And they do look better! good!

You really should consider a DSLR if you want to do this kind of shooting.. it really would give you a lot more creative capability. And with access to subjects like that.. you could really do some nice work.

if you were to combine the last three you shot in Photomatix as suggested.. and get the lights up top somwhere in between the first and second shots exposure wise, it would be a really nice shot!