zuzanne Loc: Crawfordville, FL

I will be attempting to photograph holiday lights in a park setting next weekend. Weather report is saying showers ending early leaving rain slick streets. Since I will be dealing with the lights, the dark and glare from wet paths in park and streets how do I set camera for those conditions. Flash, no flash? Should I use the night setting on cameras or try manual settings? I will be shooting in RAW & JPEG with both cameras. PP will be done in Photoshop CC 2014 or Light Room 5?

I will be using my Canon T3i, Sigma 18-250MM lens along with my Canon SX 50 HS. I'll also have the Tokina 11-16 wide angle lens with me. Would appreciate any ones help with this. This will be my first time shooting in these conditions.

zuzanne

BassmanBruce Loc: Middle of the Mitten

I would take a tripod for the low light shots and try for some reflections of lights in the wet roads and puddles. W/A and medium range zoom for most but maybe also a tele to get real selective on your subject.
Good luck and be sure to post some!

Ps, myself I would have to experiment with settings with my eye on the histogram and checking the replay for blinkies.

Edit, oops, sorry, see you're all set on lenses.

larryjphoto Loc: Phoenix

Great comments from BassmanBruce! I would also play with White Balance. Nite shots of lights can tend to be a bit warm... you might want to try moving down the Kelvin scale to bring out the colors. HDR can be a cool tool to try as well. Look forward to seeing some of your shots!

rpavich Loc: West Virginia

Take the Tokina, get close and get into interesting angles and leave the long zoom home.

Expose for the lights and let everything else go dark, shoot manually.


1.) Set your aperture to f/2.8 and leave it there.

2.) Set your shutter speed to 1/125 and (if you are comfortable with it there and have no blur/shake), leave it there.

3.) Turn your ISO all of the way down to 100 and take a test shot. Check the LCD; you are looking for lights properly exposed and not burned out into featureless blobs. You are looking for reflections that look the same way. Much of the rest of the images will be in shadow...that's life.

If the ISO is making too dark an image, crank it to 400 with your settings the same for shutter speed and aperture and try again. Check the LCD.

Keep raising the ISO only until you get the results you want.

If you get the results you want at a reasonable ISO (say 200 or 400) then you can set the aperture to f/4 instead of f2.8 and just raise the ISO 1 stop to compensate.


Make sense?

Once you have the exposure correct then look for interesting things to shoot; have something near in the frame for interest and something farther away for interest...not just stuff in the background. think "near/far" juxtaposition.

zuzanne Loc: Crawfordville, FL

Thank you all so much. Printing off all your tips to take with me.

zuzanne

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

No flash, shoot raw, matrix meter underexpose a bit, don't waste time on shooting jpegs, they will be unrecoverably underexposed. Raw files will have far more headroom for highlights and shadows. You want to record the great colors of the lights - which would be lost if you use flash.

However, if you are including human subjects in the image, a very small amount of fill flash might be in order.

AZNikon Loc: Mesa, AZ

My thanks also. I will be photographing Phoenix Zoo Lights on December 15th and this will give me a starting point. I also plan to do some test shots on the street before the shoot. Thanks, Bob

zuzanne Loc: Crawfordville, FL

Thank you for your help. I was wondering about the flash.

zuzanne

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Suzanne, don't think I've ever used one at night, but if the wet street glare is a problem, try using a cpl. Just remember that if your lenses are slow, it will slow them a little more. Good luck
SS

erickter Loc: Dallas,TX

Agree.

:thumbup: :thumbup:

Cdouthitt Loc: Traverse City, MI

Remember to stop down to get starburst light effects. Usually you'll need a tripod to get this since the shutter speeds will be long.