Photos of MK Castle at Night

[sheilag]

Hi there - we're lucky enough to be staying in a room that has a view of the castle. If we want to take photos at night of the various colours, etc., does anyone have any suggestions? We've just bought a Pentax K100D, and are still in the learning mode (with 18-55 lens, and 50-200 zoom - looking to get F1.4).

 

[bostran1]

How about something like this?



I took this shot in August from the top of the Contemporary. The only suggestion I have is to shoot at at a lower ISO, long shutter speed (at least 2 seconds) and use a tripod. The aperture isn't really going to matter too much from that distance but zooming in on some things could make for an interesting photo.

 

[OneMoreStitch]

WOW! Great picture!

 

[bostran1]

Thank you. That's the only one of about 30 pictures that actually looked good enough to keep!

 

[Groucho]

Definitely a tripod! That makes all the difference. If not a tripod, try to find something that you can rest the camera on. If you don't have a remote shutter release, use the 2-second delay when taking the photo. If it still has any blur from camera movement, try the 10-second delay, to give it more time to "settle".

For the shot itself, set the camera to ISO 200, Aperture Priority (Av) mode, and F8-F10. Take a shot and see if you like the way it looks. If you want it brighter or darker, use Exposure Compensation to turn the exposure up or down. You may want to take multiple photos anyway, it's hard to really get a good feel of the picture on the LCD. As for lens, use whichever lets you frame the photo the way you want, it really depends on how far away you are and how much surrounding scenery you want.

That's all there is to it... really cool night photos are really not particularly difficult, you just need the camera to be kept perfectly still.