moggey wrote:
Hi guys.
I am thinking about doing my first night shoot, for example star trails and light painting, long exposures on the coast, has anybody got any decent tips please, I have a Nikon D7000.
Many main concern is how can I properly focus at night when its pitch black, what is the best ISO and F number.
I have a large number of lenses covering from 10mm to 300 and ranging from f2.5 to 4.5.
Any tips would be much appreciated.
Best regards
Moggey
This is from a tips card I made for myself.
Night Photography
Nighttime formula. Tripod. Use the M setting on the camera, low ISO, f/8, 1" (1 sec). Experiment with shutter speed.
Blue Hour. Within an hour before sunrise and after sunset - nautical twilight. After sunset, the sky will turn gray.
Then it will turn deep blue. The camera will detect the blue before your eye, so click away. Point camera 90 - 180
degrees away from the sun. Low ISO, f/8, 3 or 4 seconds. Experiment. Small aperture is good for landscape. Go to
www.photoephemeris.comto get sunrise/sunset/twilight times.
Fireworks. Arrive early. Have a small falshlight handy. Low ISO, auto white balance, f/8 and expose for 2 seconds
and up. Focus on infinity, or prefocus manually and leave it that way. Try totally unfocusing. Try tapping a tripod
leg during exposure.
Histogram. left - dark; right - light. Lots of bars to the right - washed out; bars to the left - totally black.
Lightning. ISO 400, f/8, 6 seconds. Or try ISO 200, f/11, 10 seconds.
Lit-up Building. If a building is lit by some kind of light, make a longer exposure, 8 sec, with a small aperture, f/11.
This will expose for the building, rather than the bright lights. If the scene has incandescent lights, set the WB to
tungsten.
Moon. Best to shoot it the night before it is full, when the moon rises before sunset. Low ISO, f/16 or f/22, 1/100 -
1/25. Experiment. Use a longer lens, over 100mm. For a full moon alone in the sky, try f/11 at 1/100. For a smaller
moon, use a slower shutter.
Moon - Eclipse. Low ISO, f/11, 1/100, 1/125. As the moon gets darker, vary shutter speed, then open up lens a stop
or two.
Painting with Flash. This should be done with as little ambient light as possible. Set the camera to a moderate lens opening, say f/5.6. Set the shutter to Bulb and open it. Using a handheld flash, approach the subject and fire the
flash from different positions.
Painting with Light. Turn off noise reduction. Low ISO, f/16, several minutes, as you move the light around. If you
are shining the light directly at the camera, a small light will do. If you are lighting an object with light, you will
need a bright light. Use all sizes and colors of lights. Try a combination of streaks of light and straight illumination.
Shutter Activation. Use the camera's timer, a wireless remote, or a wired remote.
Starburst effect. Use the smallest aperture. Number of star lines depends on shutter construction.
Stars. Low ISO, f/5.6 - f/4, 5 seconds and up. This will result in some blur. 1/15 is about as low as you can go for
star photography without showing star movement. Using an ISO of 6400 will allow for a shutter speed of 1/15.
Exposing for ten minutes or more will result in star trails. A 20 minute exposure including the North star will result
in concentric circles with the North star in the center.
Traffic, etc. In an area with moving lights, expose for maybe 30 sec, with a small aperture.
Experiment. Vary everything. Try very high shutter speeds for lights, drive at night in a car with camera pointed
ahead, unfocus, change perspective, change lenses, change ISO.