Night shot tips

[mirrodie]

Anyone have tips to share for night photography?

Film speeds, ISo? Etc?

[Derf]

All values change with every shot I take... ISO is never the same with me, the Apature will be to what I want the picture to look like and the shutter speed will fall where ever it happens to be.

I set the apature, check the speed and adjust the ISO to keep the speed from getting out of hand. I usually will take a shot at 800 or 1600 ISO to get the numbers and see the actual image without sitting there for 2 minutes cooking an image. Once I have the image I want, I lower the ISO to take the same image without all the noise.

but that is just me

[mirrodie]

So do you start w/ a high ISO, say 800, and then hit the aperature you are looking for and bump down the ISO as needed? Sounds like what you are doing. (SOunds like you ignore the shutter speed, am I right in saying so?)

[Derf]

Not really, If I move the ISO from 800 to 400, I need to double the exposure.... Hmmm Let me give you a forinstance

If I am shooting F-5.6 at 1600 ISO and those values dictate that I need to leave the shutter open for 1 second

With that test shot I know what I need to do to get the picture to come out Properly Exposed

If I go to 100ISO and leave my apature, I now have a 16second exposure instead of a 1 second....

1600 - 1 sec
800 - 2 sec
400 - 4 sec
200 - 8 sec
100 - 16 sec

Now lets talk apature
5.6 at 100 iso = 16 seconds
6.3
7.1 at 100 iso =32 seconds
8.0
9.0 at 100 iso is 64 seconds....... Shutter speed will make it brighter or darker depending....but if you know how the 3 things interact, you will understand how to play with the settings so you get what you want. Every picture is different and in night shots you may need to overexpose 1 stop of 10 stops.... get what you want by opening up your camera and get what you want brightness wise, then as you change the apature and ISO, start doubleing the shutter speed for each ISO and 2 clicks of the apature...if it gets way to long of an exposure, use your knowlege to ether change your depth of field (apature) or your quality (grain) to also decrease the exposure time.... or get a beer and stay a long time if you just want it all!!!!

Hope this helps