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06-04-2010, 08:25 PM   #1
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Night photography and noise

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I wanted to try and venture into doing some night landscapes and whatnot. I do not have the remote for my K-x but was hoping there was a way to make a homemade shutter release cable. If so can someone please link me?

Anywho...

I tried a shot at a local lake that I fish at...wasn't really going for artistic or really anything else...more or less just wanted to see what time of shutter speed I would need in these lighting conditions...I did this shot with a 30 second shutter....it's a little dark...but I didn't want to fool with bulb without the remote or a cable. I tried bringing up the exposure in the raw program I use but it made a crazy amount of noise appear. I used ISO 800...not really sure why. But here is the result. I'd like tips from anyone experienced with this.

Yes I am aware the horizon is off axis...but as I said I'm not posting this to win any awards...just a test shot.



06-04-2010, 11:58 PM   #2
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some quick tips from someone who's done medium amount of night photography.

1. Lowest ISO possible. You want a long shutter speed at night and low noise. Use the lowest ISO you can.

2. Stable tripod. This is more important than you think. Cars driving by can make odd shapes in your picture.

3. Balance. As I do most of my photography in an urban setting, its hard to not have unbalanced light. What I mean by this is street lights vs the sky. It makes for some very uneven feeling photos. My best advice is to find a feature you like thats lit only by moon light and try a very long exposure to see what you get.

I love night photography, its like uncovering what darkness hides. Just takes some work and willingness to make a 4 min long mistake =)

ps. just ebay a shutter release. I don't really like the remote because you have to sit and hold it (at least on the k20d) get a wired shutter release that clicks into place so you don't have to sit at the camera the whole time.
06-05-2010, 04:16 AM   #3
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I got a remote IR clicker on ebay for under $6USD delivered. It works well.
IR Remote Shutter Release for Pentax/K200D/K110D/Kx/K-M - eBay (item 250577817705 end time Jun-09-10

Be sure Dark Frame subtraction is on to compensate for camera produced noise.
06-05-2010, 12:48 PM   #4
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concerning the homemade shutter release cable, check out this how to Homebrew Wired Remote for Canon EOS 350D Camera
it says it´s for a canon, but it works just the same for pentax. (im pretty sure i have seen some instructions on these forums, but can´t find them now)

i built one myself. i used two buttons (1 for shutter and 1 for focus) and one switch (hooked up the same as the shutter button - for bulb)

[edit]
argh, didn't know, that the k-x has no jack for a cable...that sucks. thanks for making that clear, marc!


Last edited by shadeless; 06-05-2010 at 12:56 PM.
06-05-2010, 12:50 PM   #5
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You can make all the homemade cables you want, but the problem is the K-x has no jack for them. It's IR or nothing.
06-05-2010, 02:39 PM   #6
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I would emphasise the suggestion to use low ISO (100 if possible) for any exposures greater than a couple of seconds - the longer, the more need to keep ISO low. Night images have lots of negative space, which makes noise much more obvious.

ISO 800 is too high when you can extend the shutter speed, or even open the lens aperture (if you have room to move here) to get the right exposure. Using a remote would give you that flexibility with shutter speed, now all you'd need is a stopwatch or watch with second hand to indicate the time elapsed in the exposure.
06-05-2010, 04:01 PM   #7
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Back to your original question, long exposures multiply sensor noise, so lower ISO gives you cleaner pictures. Since you need to use a remote for anything over 30 seconds, you'll be using an IR one. Those can be somewhat of a pain, as you have to keep the thing pointed at the sensor for the entire exposure. Multiple minute exposures are especially annoying, so you often have a choice between using a higher ISO or keeping the remote down for a long count. It's just the nature of the beast.

If you find that you like night photography, you'll eventually want a camera that takes a wired remote, especially a remote with a built in intervalometer, which lets you pre-program long exposure times.

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06-05-2010, 04:28 PM   #8
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QuoteOriginally posted by mysticcowboy Quote
Those can be somewhat of a pain, as you have to keep the thing pointed at the sensor for the entire exposure.
Not true for the K-x - in bulb mode, it allows you to click once to open the shutter, click again to close.
06-05-2010, 04:34 PM   #9
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IMHO, some of the advice given is misleading for a person being at the beginning of the leanring curve. So, let's try to clarify a few things ...

QuoteOriginally posted by timstone Quote
I tried bringing up the exposure in the raw program I use but it made a crazy amount of noise appear. I used ISO 800...not really sure why.
You may first want to understand three things or so ...

1. bringing up the exposure in raw by one EV (one stop) and doubling the ISO at the time the exposure was taken (aperture and exposure time being constant) is almost exactly the same. 4 stops (the max. in LR) and your ISO 800 becomes ISO 12800.

2. Reducing the image size by 50% (25% #pixels) is like halfing the ISO setting. Which is why the noise in your web sized images is invisible.

3. Use the highest possible exposure time and ISO setting without overexposing, with priority on exposure time.

4. You can take multiple images and stack them. Stacking N images reduces ISO to 1/N. This allows for night photography w/o a tripod.

QuoteOriginally posted by Ash Quote
I would emphasise the suggestion to use low ISO (100 if possible) for any exposures greater than a couple of seconds - the longer, the more need to keep ISO low.
I claim the opposite. Use the highest ISO w/o overexposing. With the K-x, it doesn't matter much either way though.

But of course, capture as much light as possible, i.e., use longest possible exposure time and largest aperture.

Stacking can be a great means to deal with the high dynamic range you find in many night scenes.
06-05-2010, 09:39 PM   #10
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I forgot to post this and this probably isn't even the correct place to post it but I noticed last night after doing a bulb exposure I couldn't get the image to pop up on the LCD on back for a review and couldn't get any other buttons to work at all...not even the red LED on back that shows you something is being written to the card was going. Anyone else ever experience this?
06-06-2010, 05:05 AM   #11
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QuoteOriginally posted by timstone Quote
Anyone else ever experience this?
You mean not reading the manual? Of course, that's quite common

.... it is called DFS (dark frame subtraction) and long exposure noise reduction in the user manual. You can't switch it off for bulb. The camera will "freeze" for about the same amount of time the original photo took. During this time, the camera takes a dark photo (shutter closed) and the photo you obtain in the end is the difference of the two images.
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