Cars at night with headlights on.
Discussion
Hi,
I've got a picture of an EVO at night on the JCMR a couple of years ago. It was taken at night with a simple point and click camera and the headlights in the photo have came out coming out the front of the car.
Anyone know why this is, for some reason I think that if I was getting this effect it would have been from the back of the car, not in front of the car?
Cheers
Stuart
I've got a picture of an EVO at night on the JCMR a couple of years ago. It was taken at night with a simple point and click camera and the headlights in the photo have came out coming out the front of the car.
Anyone know why this is, for some reason I think that if I was getting this effect it would have been from the back of the car, not in front of the car?
Cheers
Stuart
as in what to do to avoid getting the blurred lights? Lower the shutter speed (or take it off night time shots). On the compacts what you get is the camera will flash to expose the foreground and then leave the shutter open for a short while to expose the background correctly.
In this case the flash exposes the foreground very nicely (the car) and then stays open allowing for the "weird" light patterns out the front.
Unless you have different modes/control over the camera there isn't much you can do with a compact. On my A70 you can do everything manually which is a help.
In this case the flash exposes the foreground very nicely (the car) and then stays open allowing for the "weird" light patterns out the front.
Unless you have different modes/control over the camera there isn't much you can do with a compact. On my A70 you can do everything manually which is a help.
) 
nice! I'm not sure of the functionality of the SLR's to be honest (I'm still waiting to afford a dSLR or better camera than my Canon A70) but I'd presume you can do pre-expose then flash on the D70 that way you'd have light trails and then a solid car, or simply put the flash on and take a "normal" picture.
Quick check of manual, and it looks like to set the flash at end of exposure you use Rear Curtain Sync.
To quote manual:
"flash fires just before shutter closes, creating effect of stream of light following moving objects"
So i would presume that the effect of lights in front of the car would be Front curtain sync, this must be how the compact works.
Cheers
Stuart
To quote manual:
"flash fires just before shutter closes, creating effect of stream of light following moving objects"
So i would presume that the effect of lights in front of the car would be Front curtain sync, this must be how the compact works.
Cheers
Stuart
sstein said:
So i would presume that the effect of lights in front of the car would be Front curtain sync, this must be how the compact works.
Yep, that's what normally happens. On the D70 and some other SLRs you can set the flash to 'rear curtain synch' which means the flash goes off at the end of the exposure (so the get the car at the front of the light trails and not the back.
The only way to lose the trails completely is to use high speed synch: luckily for you the D70 has a very high synch of 1/500th sec. So use shutter speed priority, set it to 1/500th and let the flash do the full exposure. However, firing this at rally drivers after dark might not be too smart?
If you're using a SB-800 set it to TTL mode, not TTL-BL.
If you can fire your flash manually things can get interesting.
I have a unit with a manual fire button which I can use off camera. So, night time rally shots you can set a long exposure (on my 35mm SLR's I can hold the shutter open with a remote release cable should I choose) and then take the shot and fire the flash when you think it might produce interesting results.
Best using a tripod of course - you run out of hands otherwise!
If the flash unit is powerful enough you can get tail light trails and still enough exposure to pick up the vehicle as it moves away - all without blinding the driver.
On the other hand if they have all the lights on anyway it would take one hell of a flash (from a distance) to offset the main beams - and of course people are getting used to flashes these days.
I have a unit with a manual fire button which I can use off camera. So, night time rally shots you can set a long exposure (on my 35mm SLR's I can hold the shutter open with a remote release cable should I choose) and then take the shot and fire the flash when you think it might produce interesting results.
Best using a tripod of course - you run out of hands otherwise!
If the flash unit is powerful enough you can get tail light trails and still enough exposure to pick up the vehicle as it moves away - all without blinding the driver.
On the other hand if they have all the lights on anyway it would take one hell of a flash (from a distance) to offset the main beams - and of course people are getting used to flashes these days.
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