Night shoot, blurring brake lights etc!

[BigWig]

Hello people


I haven’t posted in a while and cheekily, I’ve returned for some advice. I purchased a Canon 300D Rebel last year after following advice from this very board, I’ve had some great results but I’m looking to get better.

I love the night shots when an object is totally in focus but the lights from passing cars or the London Eye (in a post seen on here) is blurred.

Is this achieved using TV mode? The last night shot I done seemed to have loads of noise, but after inspection, I was using a high ISO number, would that be the culprit?

I have the eye, but just don’t know how to get the full benefit from an SLR. I was also going to buy a fish eye lens from eBay, or an online shop if anybody knows of one?

Thanks again

[monkeyhanger]

Manual mode, long(ish) exposures and a tripod

As for a fisheye, it depends what you want. Canon do a nice 10-22 EF-S wide angle but remember you have the 1.6x crop factor to account for which makes it a 16-35(ish) Wide angle zoom.

Edited by monkeyhanger on Wednesday 15th November 15:19

[stuart b]

I'm interested in this too. I'm not sure whether you mean just blurred lights which the responses above would address or if you mean with some sort of flash in order to freeze a moving subject as well?

I have attached an example of the former. This is not meant to be a "good" shot. It was my first attempt at this style and I use it just to illustrate the point (looking back a few months later I can see a lot of deficiencies - comments welcomed) - in this example would you want to be able to see the bus which in my picture is invisible?

If so, I believe you need to incorporate flash and believe that for moving vehicles you would want to use "rear curtain" flash. This basically means that the flash is fired at the end of your long exposure not at the beginning. This is important so that your "movement" (brake lights or other blurring) will be trailing behind the moving vehicle not leading it.

A higher ISO will tend to introduce noise. You'll also get noise if you underexpose and then have to brighten up afterwards - as I did in the shot below (I then cleaned it up a bit - all wasted time). I believe you can also get noise on very long exposures due to heat build up in the camera but this is only likely to be an issue on exposures of stars and such - not what you described.

Stuart

p.s. take with a pinch as I'm just a relatively inexperienced enthusiastic amateur.

Edited by stuart b on Wednesday 15th November 16:50

[BigWig]

Thanks for the replies. Top stuff! I'll give it a go asap, basically the car will be still on e.g. a pavement while the cars pass by, is it essential to use the flash?

Is it best to use a low ISO no. with a tripod?

[stuart b]

You shouldn't need flash as long as the car's lit (by streetlamp or whatever if you're happy with that). Depends on how bright the background is of course so pick somewhere where there's not e.g. a bright shop window in the background. Then expose for the car and make sure that you end up having to have a long enough exposure to get the trails you desire.

If you're using a tripod (or other support) you should be able to use a lower ISO and a lower ISO should give you better quality.

Look forward to seeing them.

Stuart

[BigWig]

Ok brilliant, that photo you took works well.

Also, I'd like the car photographed with its lights on, how do I adjust the camera to counteract the light made from the headlights? Because I don't want everything else in the image to appear dark.

[BigWig]

It has only taken about 9 months, but here is my first attempt, at a services on the way back from Le Mans...

Edited by BigWig on Sunday 2nd September 16:10

[Marcellus]

Long exposure, no flash & tripod is the answer!!

[BigWig]

That looks spot on, I'll have to get some more practice in!

[J500ANT]

Resting on a table while in Bruges on Friday. I found it was better using the 2sec timer delay to avoid camera movement from the pressing of the button.

[RobDickinson]

I dont think the 300d has the mirror lockup custom function? Tho it maybe able to be hacked for it, for that sort of shot on 350d I use mirror lockup with timer (gives 2 second mirror locked up shot) and tripod.

[JOHNSTON]

i only have a fuji s5600, two sec delay and a tripod

[trackdemon]

Reminds of one of the first pics I took of my car 3 years ago now! Fun technique, one I may have a play with again sometime soon

Edited by trackdemon on Tuesday 4th September 15:28

[Moose.]

Took this one last year with a cheapo Canon compact, just resting on the railings with a 3 seconds exposure.

[R1 GTR]

I am a novice in photography but have a decent compact now which has plenty of adjustment available in manual mode but what exactly is ISO? Experiments i have done make it seem like it changes the shutter speed, is this right?

[jonny_bravo]

I've posted this before, slightly different to what the op wants, maybe a little noisy - but I had only had my camera for a week or so - so pleased how it turned out

[RobDickinson]

R1 GTR said:

but what exactly is ISO?

Its the 'film' sensativity.

As usualy with photography rated in fstops (a doubling or halving of light).

ISO 100 isnt that sensative so needs longer shutter speeds
ISO 200 is more sensetive requiring half the light of ISO100 to get the same exposure
ISP 400, 800, 1600 the same.

Tradeoff is noise (digital) or grain(film). You usualy balance ISO and shutter speeds with apeture to control the exposure.