Electric light parade/Osborne lights photos

[ms.yt]

Providing I can locate my Gorillapod before we leave, I'm going to try to take some pictures of these two events for the first time ever. I'm relatively new to nighttime photography, so I'd love it if someone who's had success at this would share their settings and images. Thanks so much!

 

[mom2rtk]

What camera/lens combo do you plan to use?

What you're really after is a somewhat fast shutter speed with MSEP. So you want to use the fastest lens you have available and the highest ISO you are happy with.

See the motion blur on Fairy Godmother's wand in this shot? I shot it at 1/125 (f/3.5, ISO 3200). So a gorillapod won't help much on shots like this.

Main Street Electrical Carriage by mom2rtk, on Flickr


You can shoot Osborne Lights with the gorillapod, and get some really good results, but I would think it will be a challenge to find a spot to set it up without heads in the way. I shot with a tripod here, but I expect it's more crowded than ever this year:

Osborne Lights by mom2rtk, on Flickr

 

[ms.yt]

I have a Nikon D3200 and an 18-55 mm lens, a 55-200 mm lens and the "nifty 50" lens. All my lenses are pretty cheap, but I was hoping to play around and get some cool results. Your images are great!

 

[mom2rtk]

I have a Nikon D3200 and an 18-55 mm lens, a 55-200 mm lens and the "nifty 50" lens. All my lenses are pretty cheap, but I was hoping to play around and get some cool results. Your images are great!

Thank you!

The nifty fifty will likely be fast enough to get some good results, but that length is a bit tight if you are curbside. You might want to try and find a spot to watch where you can capture the parade coming at you, so you can shoot at different distances down the route. The carriage shot was done curbside at 18mm. You could try with your kit lens, as long as you keep it zoomed out all the way where I'm guessing your aperture can go as wide as 3.5.

 

[jec6613]

If your nifty fifty is actually the 35 f/1.8 DX (which is the DX equivalent of one), you should be very happy with the results. A true 50mm on a D3200 is definitely a bit tight, but both provide excellent optical performance (assuming your 50mm is one of the newer AF-S Nikkors - can't speak to any others), especially at night. The simpler optical formula and judicious use of aspherics lead to them being fantastic at night.

You should also get good results with the 18-55 if you keep it at 18-244mm, which does have an f/3.5 aperture and VR, but beware that you'll want to shoot it at f/4 or so or you can end up with some pretty bad veiling flare. Try your best to keep any light sources from hitting the lens, and use your hood if you've bought one, and you should be okay. For night scenes, you'll find that primes are far better, but lack wide angle capability.

 

[klmall]

My best Electric Light Parade shots were actually taken hand-held with a Canon G12 (non-DSLR) using the Night setting. It was hot in June and I didn't want to carry my larger Canon 4Ti. They were easy to shoot and equal if not better than my DSLR attempts in raw format.

If only I had aimed a bit higher to include the whole castle.........but I was cornered in a great location.

 

[katt789]

For DEP I shot withOUT a tripod, with f1.8, 50mm lens, 1/100 (could DEF go lower) ISO 3200 and obviously this needs more editing but my nighttime shots usually I depend on photoshop express app on my phone to edit them better!
Untitled by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr