[NotMyFatDog]

I've been struggling with composing and capturing evening photos that involve lights such as Christmas lights displays in gardens and parks, streets of houses with decorations, and even during the summer light displays.

What lens/focal length would be appropriate?
ISO and aperture tips? Maybe this relates to shutter speed, but any photos I take seem to not "glow". They are small points of brightness rather than the colour wash that my eyes see.


Composition tips? This is an area I struggle with a lot, finding something moving/the right perspective is so challenging when it's not involving animals.

Thank you!

[Paul the Sunman]

You may want to pick a lens that gives good starbursts. The SMC DA 15 Limited is famous for them, but there are other good options. You need to stop down quite a bit though (depending on lens). Longish exposures on a tripod give the best results, and might even produce pleasing light trails from vehicles for added interest.

The "glow" you mention can be got by overexposing the highlights; most photographers (including me) try to avoid this.

Composition? Perhaps start off by having your main point of interest off-centre, perhaps around 1/3 of the width from the edge, with something leading your eye towards the centre.

DFA 28-105 @ 53 mm, f/11, 12 sec exposure.

[dms]

It would help if you show examples. One suggestion I would make is the exposure can be virtually impossible to measure (if you interest is just/principally the lights) so try manually setting a rough value and go from there. A good starting point is iso 400, f/1.8 and 1/15s, or the equivalent.

[ramseybuckeye]

Please show some examples so we have a base to go on, a term like glow can mean something completely different from one person to another. The lens selection should not make a difference as long as it can “fit” the scene you want to capture. The exposure can be difficult to get right without experimenting, every scene is different due to different levels of brightness and color temperatures. A tripod is the best tool you can use for this if you really want good results. Without seeing what you are doing I would suggest finding a point of view that looks pleasing to you, choose a lens that can frame what you want to see using some basic composition ideas like rule of thirds and leading lines, set up you camera on a tripod and use live view, if you can move around and look at it via different angles and viewpoints. Once you have found a composition you like, set your exposure to manual, set your ISO to 100, your aperture around f8 to f10, and try different shutter speeds to see what the results look like. Obviously you can also change aperture settings to adjust depth of field if needed, or to get a faster shutter speed if needed. Then if there are people in the scene you may also need to boost the ISO to avoid blur if that’s a problem. This is just a couple of ideas to get you going, you’re going to find what works for you best after some trial and error and success. I would also suggest going on Flickr and look at some examples, you’ll see good and bad, look at the compositions of the good ones and try to think what makes them good, look at the exif and see how they did it.

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Last edited by ramseybuckeye; 12-09-2019 at 03:35 AM.

[GUB]

I've been struggling with composing and capturing evening photos that involve lights such as Christmas lights displays in gardens and parks, streets of houses with decorations, and even during the summer light displays.

What lens/focal length would be appropriate?
ISO and aperture tips? Maybe this relates to shutter speed, but any photos I take seem to not "glow". They are small points of brightness rather than the colour wash that my eyes see.


Composition tips? This is an area I struggle with a lot, finding something moving/the right perspective is so challenging when it's not involving animals.

Thank you!

You really need to be saving in Raw.
On the presumption you have a 16megapixel or more recent camera your camera is isoinvariant. This means you can do all your shots at base iso and then draw up the shadows when editing the raw.
Expose for the effect you want from your bright areas then brighten the shadows when editing. If you overexpose the highlights you lose the colours and can't bring them back. If you unnecessarily underexpose the shadow areas will be more difficult to recover and grainy. By being at your lowest iso your camera can record the maximum dynamic range.
The art is in the editing and you will do best by mastering the histogram curves tool.
Iso invariance - PentaxForums.com

[Rondec]

The biggest problem that you run into with these sorts of shots is that you will tend to use high iso which will kill your dynamic range. If you can use iso 100 and an aperture of f8 you will have diffraction stars and decent dynamic range where you can bump exposure a bit in post. Being on a tripod is a must if you possibly can be, because hand held you won't be able to get sharp images with the shutter speeds you will get with the ideal settings.

[robgski]

In these sort of photos, practice, and paying attention to the setting you choose and the reuslts pay off.
Use Manual exposure and Aperture, there will be some trial and error, but this is necessary.
Get a tripod or a beanbag, or a Joby flexible tripod, anything to stabilize the camera as much as possible.
Go for a lower ISO, which means a longer exposure time, results are improve by stabilizing the camera as above.
The other benefit of a tripoed is that you can stop down to f8 or f11, many lenses, DA 15, DA 21, FA 77, among them, make some awesome starbursts of lights when stopped down.

If you are interested I have an album of night shots with lighting using either a K-5 or a K-1, you can try my settings out

Good luck, I look forward to seeing your pictures.

[tokyoscape]

I've been struggling with composing and capturing evening photos that involve lights such as Christmas lights displays in gardens and parks, streets of houses with decorations, and even during the summer light displays.

What lens/focal length would be appropriate?
ISO and aperture tips? Maybe this relates to shutter speed, but any photos I take seem to not "glow". They are small points of brightness rather than the colour wash that my eyes see.


Composition tips? This is an area I struggle with a lot, finding something moving/the right perspective is so challenging when it's not involving animals.

Thank you!

What focal length is appropriate? It is depended on what you want to shoot.
Setting tips? A steady tripod, native ISO, f whatever depending on what effect you like. I like Starburst effect, so I usually use f11 - 16 if I am on a tripod and I only buy lens with good starburst effect, DA limited 15, 21, 35 SMC are good for that. A shutter release or remote control. Manual focus. Expose for the highlight. Shoot raw and learn post-processing.

This photo I do handheld (K3), and I keep ISO at 320, f1.8, 1/60. The image before post-processing was super dark. Post processing is very important for night photography, IMHO.


This one is on a tripod but I can not do it longer than 8 sec or I will lose all details in the highlight (ISO100, f11) . Again, the shadow parts are super dark before post-processing. At native iso on K3, a lot of detail in the shadow can be recovery.

[MossyRocks]

I've found that a lot of it can be trial and error. Depending on how bright things are I generally expect some things to be clipped it is more a question of how much. This shot was shot at ISO 100, f/5.6, 2.5s and while there is some clipping because the LEDs are so bright the loss of detail in the areas nearest them isn't all that important. As far a focal length, it all depends on what you are shooting. The image below I shot with a 50mm on my K-3 but it is a stitched panorama. The field of view is probably similar to that of a 12mm lens. Last year I took a similar picture but it was with the S-M-C 17mm fisheye Takumar on my K-3 and the tree barely fit in the frame and there was less horizontal space. I've also regularly, done night shots at 77mm, 135mm, 35mm, and even 300mm all depending on what I was shooting and were I was.

[david94903]

I've found that a lot of it can be trial and error.

This is very true. It really takes some practice to develop a feel for right situation. It's all manual work. When I first started shooting night scenes, I would set my camera up to bracket three exposures, (-2, 0 +2) for each shot, then I'd expose for what I thought the scene called for. Typically, two of the three exposures were useful, and one would be garbage. I would work in post with two useful exposures and would see what I could get. Often I would blend my two useful exposures in to a third image. One thing I have discovered over time, the bigger the sensor the great the dynamic range, and the greater the dynamic range, the more possibilities can be pulled out of a single image. Since getting my K-1, I rarely use exposure bracketing for night shots. I found I've done it enough, and I know I can get a lot of data out of a single image. However... if I'm out shooting and I'm unsure of the best exposure for the scene, I'll fall back to the exposure bracketing method. If nothing else, I get to go home with three potential images I can use, instead of a missed opportunity.


One item of warning... blending images can be a lot of fun but it can also lead you down the rabbit hole of luminosity masks. The possibilities are endless, LOL!

[AstroDave]

Lots of good advice above, in particular - use a tripod. Allows for longer exposures and thus low ISO.

Here are some shots from a show at the Desert Botanical Garden (in Phoenix) a few years ago. The exposures range from 2 to 15 seconds at f/5.6 to f/11 and ISOs of 100 or 200. Take your time - I went back to this show to shoot it again after learning from a lot of mistakes on my first try, and spent several hours there. I spent a moderate time at the beginning of the evening getting a feel for a good exposure and white balance.





Put objects in the foreground and background




Maybe even use some flash to light up foreground subjects




Don't be afraid to try something different/unusual - this was zoomed during shooting

[NotMyFatDog]

In very busy gardens, I'm not sure if a tripod would be possible. Would a monopod work sufficiently?
I'll practice on our neighbourhood street though, with a tripod and exposure bracketing. Thank you to the linked images and settings - I will work off those. Settings are so helpful! I keep a book of settings for various situations so I have something of reference in my camera bag while I'm learning new techniques.

Also to the shoot in RAW - that is probably my absolute biggest weakness. I don't post-process very well. The few pictures I have have been using the image software provided stock on Windows 10 computers. I only just downloaded GIMP to try with my recent whale watching and that has been a struggle and a half learning it!

[dms]

Raw is helpful to adjust exposure to lighten the very dark areas and maybe WB (probably if huge shift is wanted), but the issue of exposure to capture lights may not be helped. Capturing lights was done with slide film beautifully, and the DR with slide film was about 6 stops, or roughly 3-4 stops less than digital. Perfecting technique does not benefit from using raw. It just can help (once you have a useful image). Lots of practitioners don't use raw (you might want to look at Ken Rockwell--who goes to an extreme about not using raw--likely to be "difficult"--but his technique is clearly good, and he does lots of scenes w/ night lights), and while I would not think of not using it, I also used slide film for decades and night lights (especially from airplanes) were a major part of my photography.

[Rondec]

In very busy gardens, I'm not sure if a tripod would be possible. Would a monopod work sufficiently?
I'll practice on our neighbourhood street though, with a tripod and exposure bracketing. Thank you to the linked images and settings - I will work off those. Settings are so helpful! I keep a book of settings for various situations so I have something of reference in my camera bag while I'm learning new techniques.

Also to the shoot in RAW - that is probably my absolute biggest weakness. I don't post-process very well. The few pictures I have have been using the image software provided stock on Windows 10 computers. I only just downloaded GIMP to try with my recent whale watching and that has been a struggle and a half learning it!

You'll just have to experiment and see what you can do with a given focal length on a monopod. If you are using a 15mm lens, that might give you an extra couple of stops stability, but probably 1/2 second is still going to be about your minimum shutter speed before you get camera shake.

Try TAv mode and set your shutter to 1/4 second and aperture to f5.6 and go from there.

[GUB]

In very busy gardens, I'm not sure if a tripod would be possible. Would a monopod work sufficiently?
I'll practice on our neighbourhood street though, with a tripod and exposure bracketing. Thank you to the linked images and settings - I will work off those. Settings are so helpful! I keep a book of settings for various situations so I have something of reference in my camera bag while I'm learning new techniques.

Also to the shoot in RAW - that is probably my absolute biggest weakness. I don't post-process very well. The few pictures I have have been using the image software provided stock on Windows 10 computers. I only just downloaded GIMP to try with my recent whale watching and that has been a struggle and a half learning it!

Yes Gimp is not kind to newcomers.
Here is a set up guide I did to help it make sense to the newcomers.
Setting up Gimp for the first time. - Pentax Linux - PentaxForums.com
If you have installed the latest Gimp (2.10) then install Darktable on your computer. It is a stand alone program but in this situation it also works as a plugin for Gimp. If you "open with" Gimp then Darktable opens first . In Darktable the adjustments you need are more accessible and intuitive.