Hi all, As an absolute novice I am trying to gain experience of all aspects of photography. Yep this is wrong I suppose. Should concentrate at getting one thing right before I move to the next, but that's just me I suppose. The thing is I am having a little play around with a few pictures at night. I have looked around the internet to get a few ideas and the settings in manual to use as a beginner I know there are no settings that are a hard and fast rule, depends on a lot of factors. And the answer appears to be shutter speed 0f 10 secs and ISO 1600, I have tried these and yes the pictures are better than I took previously, but they are noisy and not too clear have you any suggestions on this matter. Thanks, Pete.
Hi Pete, I'm not too sure what the scene you were exposing should have been shot at, but I am willing to guess that you were still under exposing the scene. You would likely see a little noise at 1600, but under exposure would make it look worse. Not sure what you mean by unclear as well, i assume you are using a tripod so that should mean that the is no blur do to camera shake. Depending on how dark it is, likely you may have trouble getting focus, it may be easier to focus manually when it is that dark.
Hi Pete, Any chance of posting of couple of images, this would help. Also, could you let us know how you go about getting your shots. It is different to shooting in daylight. What shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and what lens would also be helpful. You shooting jpeg's or RAW? Gary
Hi Gary, No images I'm afraid, they were all deleted as they were not that good that's the polite way of putting it. I was shooting in jpeg. shutter speed 0f 10 secs and ISO 1600. The lens was a kit lens for my canon eos 4000d. I've not purchased any other lenses as yet as I've just got into the photography scene, I'm debating at the moment if I should get a extra wide angle lens or something. Thanks pete.
HI Pete, I am curious were you using the cameras meter suggestion to identify the 10sec shutter? It would help quite a bit to see an example or two and trouble shoot what your results are.
No worries, if you post an image, and it does not have a work of art, we can give you a few helping pointers. Gary
Hi, I will attempt to get a few photos of my dismal attempts. The settings I have got are from the internet, so they are bound to be wrong. I will get back to you A.S.A.P Thank you, peter
Looking forward to it Peter. Sounds like your just plugging in some suggestions and they aren't matching up for an exposure, which really isn't a surprise (is the exposure meter all the way to the left in the view finder?). I think a good point to start would be with what the meter says for exposing the scene. So pick a subject and focus. Then set the aperture (lets pick f8 for example as it will let a fair amount of the scene be in focus. Then adjust your shutter until it says its not under or over exposed (the tick mark is in the middle on the exposure meter in the viewfinder). You can adjust to over or under expose from there to get desired effects. Forgive me if I made this too much of beginners guide.
Very Sorry about the delay getting back to you, been very busy and out of the country for a while. here are some awful attempts at taking pictures in the dark. Not great I'm sure you will agree. Peter
Hi Peter, I would not be too upset with your efforts. I would ask, what sort of images are you actually after? I do shot in the dark, but I am chasing a different type of image. Looking at these, I think a couple of them have a little movement of the camera. Also what settings are you using? Also, I shoot in RAW and not jpeg for this sort of image. I guess that your camera is being mounted on a tripod, and are you using a remote to trigger the shutter, or a two second delay after pressing the shutter button? Is there one focal length that you tend to use? Lastly, are you using auto focus, or are you using manual focus? Sorry for all of the questions. Gary
