Photos at night

[Latel]

Hi All
I love taking photos but to be honest I'm not very good at it. I sometimes manage to take some decent shots, and some turn out acutally quite good....until I try and take them at night I have a Panasonic TZ8 and dont really know enough about cameras to use anything other than the auto setting. Can anyone give me any tips on taking good photos at night? I would love to take a great shot of The Castle, WWoHP and fireworks, so any help or advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[disneyboy2003]

Hi All
I love taking photos but to be honest I'm not very good at it. I sometimes manage to take some decent shots, and some turn out acutally quite good....until I try and take them at night I have a Panasonic TZ8 and dont really know enough about cameras to use anything other than the auto setting. Can anyone give me any tips on taking good photos at night? I would love to take a great shot of The Castle, WWoHP and fireworks, so any help or advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

For sharp, non-blurry night photos, the most important thing you'll need is a tripod (or something similar, such as a GorillaPod). As long as your subject is not moving, you will be able to get excellent night photos, even in Auto mode.

Your camera also has a couple settings that are specific for night and fireworks. There is a "Night Scenery" setting, if you wanted to take pictures of just Cinderella's Castle at night. There's a "Night Portrait" setting, if you wanted people in front of Cinderella's Castle at night. There's also a "Fireworks" setting.

Instructions on how to use these Scene Modes are on page 61 of your camera's User's Manual. (link)

The reason why you need a tripod for these night & fireworks shots is because your camera will select a long shutter speed (ie. the camera will keep the shutter open for 1 to several seconds). There is no way to hold the camera completely still for those several seconds. If you've tried, you've noticed that your pictures are pretty blurry. That's why you NEED to have a tripod (or GorillaPod) to hold your camera completely still for those several seconds.

Also, your subject needs to stay still for the duration of the photograph. Easy for the Castle to stay still for night photography. Hard for little boys to stay still.



Actually, I just read that your camera also has a "Handheld Night Shot Mode", which means that it will attempt to take night photos *without* a tripod! What this mode does is it will take 10 consecutive photos, try to combine them into 1 sharp night photo. It sounds amazing. I'd still recommend using a tripod and one of the other Scene Modes I mentioned above.

Hope that helps.

 

[zackiedawg]

As mentioned above, your best night shot results will come from using a tripod, a long/slow shutter speed, and a low ISO setting. You can use the camera's scene modes, but you also may want to see if you can go into the menu, and select the lowest ISO setting available manually, such as ISo100. It's also often a good idea to turn off the in-camera stabilization when putting the camera on a tripod, though some cameras will automatically recognize when they are on a tripod and disable it.

If using something like handheld night shot mode, with multiple frame stacking like your camera has, it's a very good idea to learn how to be steady - good stance when holding the camera, breathe out before shooting, brace elbows against your body or shoot with the camera held close to your body or waist rather than up at face-level or out at arms length.

Being still is necessary the longer the shutter has to stay open for. Think of the shutter like your eyelids...a 'fast' shutter would be like closing your eyes first, then try opening them for just a millisecond and close them again immediately. If something had been moving, like a person walking past you, during that millisecond your eye was open, you wouldn't have even seen the movement - everything would be still - you took a superfast 'snapshot' of the scene with your eye. Now, if you were to close your eyes first, then open them for 2 seconds before closing them again...during that 2 seconds, you would have definitely noticed things moving through the frame of your vision - people walking, leaves blowing in the wind, cars passing by - all that movement would be clearly seen and 'captured' by your eye. But what if you had to print all of what you just saw in one photo - all of that motion and movement would have to be put into the print. The result would be that things in motion would be blurred or streaked through the photo. And if YOU were moving, the whole entire scene would be blurry since your position changed over that whole 2 seconds. That's what the tripod is for - it won't stop subjects from moving during a long exposure, but it will stop YOU from moving (or the camera)...so the camera can capture a nice, sharp, clear scene of anything not moving (the castle), and nice streaking lines for anything that was in motion (fireworks).

 

[jkpatrick]

Also if you set your camera on a tripod for those long exposure night shots, I recommend that you use a timer setting, set at the shortest time (1 or 2 seconds). The reason is that when you press the shutter button, you put some downward force on to the camera, then when you let go, your camera may slightly bounce up. This in the past has created a slightly blurred photo. With it set at a short timer, it has a couple seconds to stop vibrating before the photo is taken.

Also if you don't know how to use the other settings, what about just using the Manual mode and increase the exposure time. Then you only need to play with one setting.

 

[mom2rtk]

Also if you set your camera on a tripod for those long exposure night shots, I recommend that you use a timer setting, set at the shortest time (1 or 2 seconds). The reason is that when you press the shutter button, you put some downward force on to the camera, then when you let go, your camera may slightly bounce up. This in the past has created a slightly blurred photo. With it set at a short timer, it has a couple seconds to stop vibrating before the photo is taken.

Great suggestion! But if you're using a remote shutter release, you won't need to do this.

 

[Latel]

thanks for the advise everyone. I think I will have to have a bit of a practice before my next trip to Orlando. I don't have a tripod, as I like to carry as little as possible in the parks, but hopefully I will be able to find a wall to put the camera on. As I say, I will have a practice and if I find I need to invest in a tripod, I will do.
Thanks again

 

[ScottUK]

You can pick up a lightweight tripod for about £10/$15... I have one about 8/9in that will extend to 4feet, so should fit in a bag, or go for a "spider" style, these can wrap around a railing etc. Good luck.

thanks for the advise everyone. I think I will have to have a bit of a practice before my next trip to Orlando. I don't have a tripod, as I like to carry as little as possible in the parks, but hopefully I will be able to find a wall to put the camera on. As I say, I will have a practice and if I find I need to invest in a tripod, I will do.
Thanks again

 

[zackiedawg]

Good luck and have fun. You can usually get by without a tripod if you need to - you may not always get the perfect straight-on angle you're looking for, but somewhere will be a fence, wall, rail, garbage can top, etc that you can put the camera on to take the shot. I've done it many times myself when I didn't feel like bringing my tripod to the parks but still saw a shot I wanted to take a long exposure of!