Soulburner
05-24-2008, 10:43 PM
I attempted my first night shots last night. I had 1 good result out of about 6 different spots.
I used f/4, ISO 100, and the camera chose a 30 second exposure time which is the maximum. I still had to increase exposure slightly in ACR which means I could have used ISO 200 to speed things up a bit. Otherwise it turned out pretty good for a first try I think. The tree was the only movement as it was slightly windy, and it could be removed if I wanted.
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k245/BlackHawk2k6/Night%20Shots/DSC_1029Edit.jpg
It was much darker than this - with the sky mostly black to the eye, as well as the grass. Most of the color you see is from post-processing (Exposure, White Balance and Vibrance). I used manual focus, and put the lens at the mark just before infinity. In my experience so far with this lens, that is where it auto-focuses to when the focus point is farther than about 10 feet. I tried it slightly forward and back of that point and the results were softer so I stuck with it. The point I refer to is shown here:
http://www.photographyblog.com/images/products/tamron_17_50mm_1.jpg
I had the dot lined up almost exactly as shown. This will likely be the focus setting I end up using for most of my night shots in the future.
The thing I was worried about most was depth of field. I only used f/4 so I thought I may get some areas out of focus until f/8 or f/10, but perhaps with such a long exposure it doesn't matter as much. It all looks in focus to me. That brings me to my question though - do you generally use small or wide apertures? In most of my reading I found people opening their lenses up - but I get on here and I see people posting excellent pictures at f/10 and more so I'm not sure what the best approach is. Am I right in thinking aperture means less with long exposures in regards to depth of field? Obviously mine at f/4 was fairly sharp.
I intend to get into night time photography much more in the future :cool:
Comments? Criticism? Can't get better if I don't know what I'm doing wrong.
I used f/4, ISO 100, and the camera chose a 30 second exposure time which is the maximum. I still had to increase exposure slightly in ACR which means I could have used ISO 200 to speed things up a bit. Otherwise it turned out pretty good for a first try I think. The tree was the only movement as it was slightly windy, and it could be removed if I wanted.
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k245/BlackHawk2k6/Night%20Shots/DSC_1029Edit.jpg
It was much darker than this - with the sky mostly black to the eye, as well as the grass. Most of the color you see is from post-processing (Exposure, White Balance and Vibrance). I used manual focus, and put the lens at the mark just before infinity. In my experience so far with this lens, that is where it auto-focuses to when the focus point is farther than about 10 feet. I tried it slightly forward and back of that point and the results were softer so I stuck with it. The point I refer to is shown here:
http://www.photographyblog.com/images/products/tamron_17_50mm_1.jpg
I had the dot lined up almost exactly as shown. This will likely be the focus setting I end up using for most of my night shots in the future.
The thing I was worried about most was depth of field. I only used f/4 so I thought I may get some areas out of focus until f/8 or f/10, but perhaps with such a long exposure it doesn't matter as much. It all looks in focus to me. That brings me to my question though - do you generally use small or wide apertures? In most of my reading I found people opening their lenses up - but I get on here and I see people posting excellent pictures at f/10 and more so I'm not sure what the best approach is. Am I right in thinking aperture means less with long exposures in regards to depth of field? Obviously mine at f/4 was fairly sharp.
I intend to get into night time photography much more in the future :cool:
Comments? Criticism? Can't get better if I don't know what I'm doing wrong.