Anybody good at taking night shots?

[k-swiss]

I'm having issues perfecting the art....
All my photos look like this or worse...


Any tips? tricks? Walkthroughs? Anybody else a insomniac like me?

[crunk3]

tripod, lower iso then longer shutter speed

[Mr. Red]

bigger flash would help too

[applecran]

what kind of camera are you using? point and shoot? You need a good lense to get decent night shots.

[ClassicScot]

that picture sucks kirin, lol.. learn to take pictures buddy.

[320Colin]

lolz Andy's so mean Kirin just ignore him i think ur car looks hot at night

[ClassicScot]

dont get me wrong car is hot but picture not so good still hot car!

[Slammed80]

Originally Posted by Mr. Red bigger flash would help too

lol, you dont want a flash for night shots. as crunk said, low iso setting and a long exposure.

The pic below was a 16sec exposure, iso set at 100. Taken with my d40x

[320Colin]

noice but wheres the e30's ???

[Weeman83]

Originally Posted by 320Colin i think ur car looks hot at night

haa

[k-swiss]

Just put out the redlight...

[woods]

Originally Posted by k-swiss I'm having issues perfecting the art.... All my photos look like this or worse... Any tips? tricks? Walkthroughs? Anybody else a insomniac like me?

First - put your camera in manual mode then you have to play a bit with the aperature size vs shutter speed. Set the camera to ISO 100. A good tripod is an absolute must... A few seconds of exposure (shutter speed of 1 to 5 seconds) will be needed... Set the aperature as large as possible since you're likely not going to be worried about focal length...

Google all of this terminology and you'll find lots of good info on what effect each of these settings - shutter, aperature and ISO - has on the final picture quality. I don't even know half the time so I just snap away till I get it right

[Slammed80]

Originally Posted by 320Colin noice but wheres the e30's ???

Fine, here is my car in winter mode. Taken with my d40x, 13 sec exposure.



And my old jetta, taken with my old olympus point and shoot with a 2 sec exp.

[steinbachphoto]

Originally Posted by Slammed80 Fine, here is my car in winter mode. Taken with my d40x, 13 sec exposure. And my old jetta, taken with my old olympus point and shoot with a 2 sec exp.

hey man no need to lie, that photo is a 6 second exposure, not a 13 second

[MrE]

My two cents...

Night photos are pretty tricky, especially with a point & shoot, but with a tripod and a little bit of effort you can be tricky back. If its a picture of the car you're after, rather than a whole scene, then you need to try and take the pictures without streetlights in the shot, or at least well back in the distance because they mostly just screw up the focus & exposure and tend to flare out and distract from the main image. If you've got a DSLR with a starburst lens or something then the streetlights can really add to the shot, but a basic point & shoot lens just stuffs it all up. If you want the car to be basically visible you need to try and park it in the light being cast from a nearby streetlight, so the car is illuminated.

The tricky part is photoshop, and the tripod is pretty much essential to make this method work best. Set the shutter on a two-second delay so you reduce vibration when you press the shutter release button, then take a number of separate shots of the same scene but adjust (brighten & darken) the exposure each time. That way you'll end up with a series of images of exactly the same scene which you can then layer in photoshop, and then bring out whichever of the darker or brighter sections you want to highlight from each layer. Some digital cameras have an 'exposure bracketing' mode which you can set to automatically take a series of shots at brighter and darker exposure settings.

Also have a play with the night-mode setting on the camera while using the tripod. Most point & shoot cameras don't have a very long shutter speed, but most point & shoots do have a night mode, this will significantly lengthen the shutter speed which can bring out a lot of colour and detail in an otherwise dark location. You may be able to use some of these shots in the photoshop layer technique.

I also reckon having the headlights and sometimes the driving lights on can really add to a night time shot (depending on the effect you're going for). But this also really screws up your exposure and focus. Again, I'd take a series of photos using the tripod - one with parkers on, one with headlights on, one with headlights & driving lights on, one with just driving lights on and one with no headlights. Combining some or all of these versions and adjusting their opacity in the final image will allow you to include illuminated headlights in the shot without them flaring and drowning out the whole image.

It all sounds like a lot of effort, and at first it is, but once you get the hang of it and suss out what works and what doesn't it'll all make sense and you'll be able to manipulate just the right shots to get the image you're after. If you're serious about getting some decent night time shots it just takes a little bit of practice.

I've tried a variety of different ways to get night time shots, and the results of most of them suck. Most of my photos are with a point & shoot, and I find that these night time shots with a point & shoot really only work if you're pretty close to the car - too far back and the detail just disappears.

This one is made up of about four or five separate layers - the car is parked directly under a streetlight, I took a stack of shots with headlights on/off and a stack at different exposures, so I was able to soften the brightness of the flared headlights and also bring out the detail in the sky and the clarity of the building. I guess its the point & shoot version of HDR photography.




Most of my night pictures suck because using a streetlight for illumination tends to give that yellowish tinge, so I decided to try night time shots in an open air parking garage with white fluorescent lighting. So although its not really the type of night time shots you're referring to, the results are much much better because this artificial lighting is much easier to work with.

2 second exposure



Then, one day, I borrowed a DSLR, and I tried some sunrise shots. DSLRs are 100 times better than a point & shoot when it comes to capturing low-light images. It was a lot darker than it appears when I took these, but the camera pretty much did all the work for me.

6 second exposure



2 second exposure



Keep going and show us what you come up with.

Best thing is practice, practice, practice, reflect, repeat. Nothing will teach you more than that.