Re: Advice re taking night photos please

On Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:02:48 +0100, "Splodge" <sport.last@xxxxxxx>
wrote:

Obviously the "Son et Lumiere" photos of the fountains have not come out
well, so can anyone given their advice as to what other settings I should be
changing to get decent night-time shot of moving things like fountains in
future?

You can't (or at least not easily). The problem is the amount of
light is small which means long exposures and moving objects blurring.
Similarly the dynamic range - the range between the darkest points and
highlights (such as lamps) is too great for the camera sensor. It is
the "black cat on white bed" problem beloved of film photographers -
you could either expose for the cat, and have a flat white lace
bedcover with all the detail washed out, or expose for the bedcover -
and just have a black blob as the cat.

The only solutions firstly require a tripod and a flash gun you can
hold in your hand and secondly needs some software .

The first solution was the one used in film days. You set the camera
on the tripod and opened the shutter for a long time (minutes
possibly) and controlled aperture manually to alter exposure. You
then sent your assistant clad in dark clothes to run around the
monument firing the flash at it as they go around it. The idea is to
move the light source nearer the object so you don't get the burning
of the foreground if you use on-camera flash. With luck and an agile
assistant who doesn't stand still the monument is lit and the
assistant invisible. If the monument is a fountain the flash freezes
enough movement so you see water detail with a general haze around it.

For non-moving objects you don't need flash, a torch will do as in :-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigloada/sets/72157613632252257/detail/
http://photocritic.org/painting-with-light/

There is an awful lot of guessology involved. The idea is to have the
shutter open long enough to fire several flashes but not to overexpose
so you manually use the aperture control and ISPO control to limit the
light coming in. You really need to experiment some to get it right.

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/p/photography/ is about caves
but actually explains the technique very well.

The second solution only works with digital images. You take several
photos from exactly the same place with some exposed for the
highlights and some for the dark bits. You then use a program called
Photomatix to produce what is known as a high dynamic range
photograph. This allows you to create an image which would simply be
impossible with one photo, for example :-

http://www.hdrsoft.com/gallery/index.php

The images at http://www.hdrsoft.com/ show how it works.

You can download and try it for free and Photomatix Basic is freeware.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_photography is also quite
interesting.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Advice re taking night photos please
    ... changing to get decent night-time shot of moving things like fountains in ... light is small which means long exposures and moving objects blurring. ... The only solutions firstly require a tripod and a flash gun you can ... then sent your assistant clad in dark clothes to run around the ...
    (uk.people.silversurfers)
  • Re: Slow Sync / Rear Curtain
    ... Also, this first flash is happening once the shutter is open, so ruins the effect I'm trying to acheive by having rear curtain set. ... Note that in the presence of some light sources, such as mercury vapour lamps, a 1/10S exposure will result in about 6 weak images of the moving subject and then one last fully exposed frozen subject image. ...
    (rec.photo.digital.slr-systems)
  • Re: Web Animation and Sound Advice Sought
    ... How exactly would you use an embed tag to make a slideshow of images? ... the animation part. ... while playing a 30 second or so sound file ... you cannot learn flash in 2 days. ...
    (misc.writing)
  • Re: Web Animation and Sound Advice Sought
    ... How exactly would you use an embed tag to make a slideshow of images? ... the animation part. ... With a Flash movie you use an object tag with all ... while playing a 30 second or so sound file ...
    (misc.writing)
  • Re: flashplugin
    ... In most cases where "Flash" is used, ... fonts, font sizes, colors and images used. ... FreeBSD develops nVidia's GPUs and their drivers? ... simply cannot expect any software developer to develop and maintain a ...
    (freebsd-questions)