[ZufaelligeFenster]

Hello!

I'm new to the forum (just joined today) and hoped to get some tips and techniques. I got my pentax a couple of months ago, a gift from my boyfriend and have had a hard time figuring it out. You see, I've only had phone cameras and terrible point and click cameras up until this point so I know literaly nil about how to operate a real camera like this. I've been able to get good photographs during the day, but I absolutely love night photography and hoping there are some techniques I have use with the equipment I have to get better photos.

Right now I have the camera, the kit lens it came with, two tripods (full legnth and a tabletop) and several filters. I'm hoping others have example photos and the settings from the photos with the kit lens as I cannot afford a low appeture lens right now. I know I'll get better photos with a different lens, but I have to work with what I have for now. Any advice you have I'd be very grateful!

Have a great day everyone!

[gifthorse]

What kind of night photography? Cityscapes? Milky Way? Moving vehicles? Star trails? The settings will depend on what you're photographing. I'd suggest that you pick up a remote shutter release also. (A cheap chinese one will cost $10 bucks or so and are a must for long exposures) Until you get a remote, you can you the self timer. I'd start at about 800 or 1600 ISO, stop the lens down 2 stops from wide open and try 10 seconds of exposure and then check the results and adjust accordingly. Leave the filters off the camera for night shooting. There are a number of night related threads on the Forums here. Just search the forums for "night" or "astrophotography". You should be able to get more specific data from the images posted on the Forums. Night photography is rather satisfying once you get the hang of it.

[ZufaelligeFenster]

Mostly cityscape, since I live just outside Orlando there is always festivals and things going on at night. But I also like star trails as well. I found the tutorial on here for that and will try it out soon. I do have a remote, I forgot to mention because I haven't used it yet! I did a search for night and didn't get almost anything, but I'll try astrophotography. Thank you for the reply!

[ramseybuckeye]

There are different type of night photos, but you have everything to make it work, a camera, a lens, and a tripod. I would suggest a wireless remote, but you can use the timer also. To start with you may just set your camera to aperture priority and ISO 100, look at the result and settings, and then switch to manual and adjust as needed. I usually shoot at ISO 100, otherwise you can get a lot of noise. I'm pretty sure your camera has focus peaking which is super at night. Since I've had the K-30 I always use live view when using a tripod and often focus manually. At night you can't always use auto focus anyway. It's a great use for manual lenses. You can usually pick up some manual primes pretty for low prices. Anyway, here's a couple of examples (I have more at my Flickr album.

This one is actually an easy one to do, it's a 13 second exposure with a manual lens at f8, ISO 100, 28mm lens. The long exposure times are why you need a tripod, that also created the flumes of steam and smoke. The dotted line near the bottom is traffic, it would have been solid but there are trees between the road and the camera. I say this is an easy one because there is light in it, and the sky is not completely dark, a little light in the sky makes exposure easier, at least I think it does.


This is one of the hardest to shoot that I have done. It was very hard to focus, the light in the background as the moon shining through some low clouds, a couple of distant lights, and stars. Shots in the country are usually more difficult, unless you get multiple neon colors, or very bright lights. This was a six second exposure at ISO 100, I don't remember the aperture, but I always shot no wider that 7.1 on that lens.


Here's one with a couple of different elements but not too hard. The building itself has multiple types of lights, including the sign with mixed neon and a much brighter plastic sign. The snow really helped here as a reflector. 10mm at F11, 4 sec, at ISO 100. I could have doen a little better here possibly by throwing a little light on the front of the awning, there's a logo there that you can't see since there is not enough light on it. If I had used 6 or 8 or 10 seconds I would have got it, but the rest of the picture would have been blown out, and I wanted to do a one exposure shot. Sometimes you may have to pick what your focal points are and sacrifice something else, part of the beauty of the night.

[othar]

I am still learning in that area but as gifthorse said your settings depend on your subject. Are you photographing moving subjects or not, if yes do you want to see the movement (e.g. star trails, trails from car lights on the street,... -> exposure time according to the desired lenght of the trails, with star trails also merging of multiple pictures possible) or not (short exposure, e.g. movement of iluminated leaves in the wind).
If you want to get starbursts you have to close your aperture otherwise keep it open (or 2 stops down as suggested, for sharpness) to get fewer noise by keeping the ISO down.
In my opinion the main advantage of digital photography, especially for night photography, is the ability to immediately check your results on the display (on my camera the pictures apear a tad brighter than on my other screens, shoot RAW to improve the adjustment possibilities in post)

I'd suggest that you pick up a remote shutter release also.

A remote shutter or a cable release is certainly a good idea, especially if you are planing on exposure times over 30 seconds (longest time for self timer)

edit:

I do have a remote

Saw it too late

[ZufaelligeFenster]

The last photo example is the sort of thing I'm looking for, cityscapes and neons. I've always loved photos like that, I can't explain why. Thanks everyone for the replies! I've gotten the manual out and been going over how to change the settings you pointed out here, and when I get out of lab tomorrow at 1am I can just the back lot film sets as practice! (I got to Full Sail for computer animation)

[Sagitta]

The last photo example is the sort of thing I'm looking for, cityscapes and neons. I've always loved photos like that, I can't explain why. Thanks everyone for the replies! I've gotten the manual out and been going over how to change the settings you pointed out here, and when I get out of lab tomorrow at 1am I can just the back lot film sets as practice! (I got to Full Sail for computer animation)

If you're shooting neon lighting or just night lighting in general and letting the camera expose for you, you're going to actually want to *under* expose to one degree or another. Alternatively, use spot metering and just meter off whatever light it is you're using as the subject.

If you just let the camera do its thing on its own, its going to try to expose for all those shadows and you'll wind up blowing out all the lighting (which is what your subject is).

The bonus here is that by doing so you'll be increasing your shutter speeds, which means less chance of blur going on and/or the ability to drop your ISO a bit.

Don't be afraid of higher ISO's either! Unless your camera is very old. you should be able to use it upwards of 1600 without any real issues kicking in.

One thing I would do if you can afford it, is to hunt down a few cheap, fast(ish) primes. Get a 50mm f/1.7 and / or a 28mm f/2.8. The wider the lens, the more forgiving shots will be at night as you can shoot with slower shutter speeds. I can actually handhold my 10-20mm f/3.5 at night provided I have enough ambient light going on.

The real trick with night shooting though is what settings work on one night and one location can totally fail you on another due to the changing amount of light around. Even something as simple as having a full moon as opposed to a new moon, or a clear night opposed to cloudy can change things.

Finally, I'd suggest shooting as PEF/DNG and post processing your shots. Left to its own devices, your camera is going to probably give you very 'flat' JPG images straight out of the camera. You'd be amazed how much color and detail is hiding in your night shots which at first glance will look horrible.

In the end though, it really is all going to boil down to just practicing. After a while you'll get used to how the camera behaves with which lenses, and you'll start to get a feel for what may or may not work when you spot something worth shooting.

Here are some 18-55mm kit lens night shots I've done over the years. Almost all were semi-long exposures shot off a tripod. The lightning was actually shot off a bag of dried peas off my car door with the window down

[ramseybuckeye]

A couple of posters mentioned using raw, very very important. In this particular particular photo raw helped me draw the dock out. Beside the distotion at 10mm, the Tamron 10-24 is prone to some flare, caused here by some street lights off camera to the left that were shining onto the lens , that is magnified a little with a longer exposure, something to consider with some lenses.


There are some cool things you can do with motion, if you don't want to show motion boost your ISO up to get a faster shutter speed. This shot was made a f13, to get a longer exposure, during most of the exposure the cars were sitting at a red light, then they took of near the end, so you have what looks like headlight beams. I found that out by accident and can't wait to try it again. There are a lot of fun things to do with moving light.


These are a lot of fun:

[gifthorse]

Cityscapes it is. Your kit lenses will work fine. You could also consider (since you're in Florida) lightning photography like sagitta posted. It's not hard to do but keep in mind the safety aspects! ramsetbuckeye's last image is a long exposure of a carnival ride. This can give you some wonderful abstract like images. If you want night images, carnivals are a great place for photograhy. All these were taken with the DAL 18-55 so I think you have everything you need except experience. Go to it.

Ferris wheel. 30 sec ISO 100 f32 zoomed while shutter is open.




'Tilt-o-wheel' 30 sec ISO 100 f32






'Rampage' 30 sec ISO 100 f32

[ZufaelligeFenster]

Hey everyone! I went to a local shopping centre last night and took a ton of test photos to try out some of the things you suggested (Thanks for all the replies also!). The problem I seem to be having (besides the blur, accidently left the remote at home) is that I'm either losing colour, or I'm losing the bounced light. I can't seem to find the middle ground. These are just a few of the photos (I took about 200 or so, just changing the settings every time), I'm just not really sure what I'm doing wrong. I know it just takes practice, and I did my fair share last night but I just can't figure it out. Let me know what you think. I was using the camera in manual mode, seemed the best to really get it when everything is done manually.

Also, what is raw? I've seen the button n my camera but not sure what it is.

[othar]

The problem I seem to be having (besides the blur, accidently left the remote at home) is that I'm either losing colour, or I'm losing the bounced light. I can't seem to find the middle ground.

without a remote the 2 or 12 seconds self timer is your best friend to avoid motion blur.
if i am understanding you right you want some details in the darker areas without blowing out the bright areas. if you want to use jpeg files you have to make a HDR picture (multiple pictures with different settings merged into one image) this can be done imediately by choosing the HDR option in the camera or later by software on your pc.
HDR in camera is quicker but by software later gives you more controll of how the picture will look like.
you also can safe your pictures in raw format, with this option you have more options to bring some details back in post processing (there are limits of what the sensor of the camera is capable of, so HDR might be needed here too).
the RAW formats PEF or DNG (i suggest DNG for better compatibility with picture editing softwares) in your camera produces biger files but safes all informations the sensor registers, the other disadvantage beside the file size of RAW is that you need special software to develop the files (e.g. software that came with the camera, or lightroom,... there are also free softwares but i don't remember their names yet)

edit: you can see RAW files (PEF/DNG) like the negativ of your picture that has to be developed (white balance, contrast, saturation,...) and then you save the result as jpeg.

[gifthorse]

You aren't doing anything wrong, you've just run up against a limitation. A camera can only process a certain range of light. When you expose for the neon colors, (your first image) the shadows and bounced light from the pavement are just too dark. When you expose for the shadows, (the third image) the highlights over-expose and you lose the rich colors. It's just a function of photography. Your eyes do the same thing (think driving into or out of a tunnel on a bright sunny day). As othar mentioned, HDR will help with that. When you select HDR, the camera will do what you did, take three exposures at different settings, and then the camera will combine the exposures so that you get the highlights, the mid- ranges and the shadows in one image. For more reflections, try photographing right after a rain shower when the pavement is still wet. Finally, if you have the time and money, a digital photo course and a course in digital photo software (Elements, Lightroom, etc) can be a tremendous help. Check with your local community college. They're usually inexpensive, you get immediate feedback, and you get to meet other people with an interest in photography.

[mattb123]

Yeah, the camera can only handle so much dynamic range (the difference between the lightest and darkest parts of the shot) so what I do is try to avoid blowing out the highlights and then try to brighten the shadows afterward. Shooting in RAW helps preserve shadow detail. Or as someone mentioned you can make a HDR combining shots that are properly exposed for different parts of the scene.

If possible I try to avoid the extra overhead of HDR and just try to balance the exposure as much as I can and then use editing tools like Lightroom to put the final touches on. That is probably easier to do in the darkness of the country since there are fewer bright lights and everything else is mostly just dark (unless the moon is out).

Here's a recent one of our small town downtown. I took it before it got really dark so the sky still has a little color in it. I also brightened the shadows to balance it out.
10s f/8 ISO 100

[ZufaelligeFenster]

Thank you everyone for the responses, I really have felt very welcomed here I will try using raw as well, but that was one of my concerns that it was just a limitation due to the equiment I have. Someday I'll get a lens geared more towards low light settings, just for now this is just a hobby and I don't have the resources to really invest in it. I'll try doing photos before its really dark, more duskish and see if I can get what I'm looking for. But my night photos are already 1000% better than I was getting before! Again, thank you for being patiant and understanding for me! I will post up some more when I can try HDR.

[Sagitta]

Thank you everyone for the responses, I really have felt very welcomed here I will try using raw as well, but that was one of my concerns that it was just a limitation due to the equiment I have. Someday I'll get a lens geared more towards low light settings, just for now this is just a hobby and I don't have the resources to really invest in it. I'll try doing photos before its really dark, more duskish and see if I can get what I'm looking for. But my night photos are already 1000% better than I was getting before! Again, thank you for being patiant and understanding for me! I will post up some more when I can try HDR.

If you don't mind learning manual focus, prowl eBay or the local pawn shops or whatever for a fast 50.

I cut my teeth on night photography with a 50mm f/1.7 I picked up for $12 off eBay. I think they go for a touch more these days (people adapt the things to 4/3 so demand went up a hair) but they should still can easily be had for under $20.