sony a33 set up for night castle shot

[njtree]

I am heading to FL next weekend. I am new to photography. I have been trying to get good night shots that are a nice balance. white castle and dark blue sky. "blue hour". seem like i just can't pin point the settings.

Should I do a custom white balance set up? color filter? dro level? anything to get me started I have 35mm f1.8 lens and (2) kits lens that about it. Of course remote and tri pod.

Some can get me started in the right direction I can reply all the way up to the day of the trip.

 

[Gianna'sPapa]

As long as you're not trying to capture movement, use your tripod and remote control. The lens depends on what you are shooting and how wide do you want to be. If your 35 isn't wide enough then I would use my 18-55 to get wider. With tripod night shots, the only thing I use my aperture setting for is for depth of field. Many times I will use my "P" or "Av" mode, adjust my aperture for the desired DOF and let the camera select the shutter speed with an ISO of 100. Since I shoot RAW +, the white balance is in auto and I adjust later in PP. If that doesn't get the desired result, then I switch to Bulb ("B") mode and I will manually adjust my shutter speed for the desired result. Here is one of my favorites that I have posted before using that method.


China Night by Gianna'sPapa, on Flickr

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

With your A33 I'd suggest trying the Hand-Held Twilight scene mode or the Multi Frame Noise reduction which you select thru the ISO menu. If the scene is static both of these modes will allow you to capture very good pictures in those conditions without a tripod. DRO can be helpful in many settings but I think you'll be more pleased with the other two options since they take multiple frames and stack them. Because these modes are available only in jpg white balance is going to be important. If the auto balance isn't providing what you wish I'd try a couple of others such as cloudy, shade etc. and if those aren't giving you the result then set a custom white balance. I haven't double checked and setting the white balance may not be an option with the hand-held twilight but I think it should be with the multi frame noise reduction.

At WDW I have yet to use a tripod with the A55 because my main subject has always been well enough lite that these modes do the rest. I'd still want a tripod to use for fireworks and use the bulb mode in order to get a longer exposure and show the trails of the bursts.

 

[zackiedawg]

If you're referring to that hour just after sunset, when the sky takes on that deep blue hue, but not full-on nighttime, then you really don't need a very long shutter speed. I'd tend to agree with Aperture priority, probably with the kit lens but mostly dependent on how wide you want to be. Camera on tripod - preview your white balance ahead of time (the great thing about live view on your A33 - you can see what white balance gives the color tone you want right on the screen or EVF!). Use a middling aperture initially - the good old rule of F8, and set ISO to the lowest setting, then let the camera decide the shutter length needed to get a good exposure. With the A33, I'd recommend using center-weighted metering mode rather than multipoint or wide. If the castle overexposes too much, set to -.3 or -.7 EV, and try again.

You can also try a shot or two with your 35mm F1.8 set wide open, ISO to around 800 to 1600, and shoot handheld - use the multistacking ISO mode for this, so you can stack the 6 consecutive frames to reduce noise allowing the higher ISO...you can often get a nice shot even without a tripod at that hour, and when properly exposed your camera should have no problems delivering a clean ISO800. Here's one I snapped handheld with my Sigma 30mm F1.4 lens at F1.7, ISO800, at around a quarter to 9pm:

For that special magic blue sky hour, you often don't want to run the shutter length too long - that blue glow is usually easy to catch with a slightly higher ISO and a shortish shutter speed. Longer shutter speeds will sometimes overexpose the sky and lose that blue hue a bit. I'd stick from handheld to no more than around 4 seconds or so for blue hour type shots...a few blue sky night examples:

This was 4 seconds:

This only 2 seconds:

You also might want to try a few HDR exposures - night HDR using the in-camera HDR mode is extremely effective in allowing you to control specular highlights and streetlights in shots, while still nicely exposing shadows.

 

[njtree]

thanks everyone for the tips. zack, thats the shot I would love to take. Did you do any editing in photo shop at all? I have my camera set to raw & jpeg pictures. Any more tips? My extra battery just showed up and my custom slr c-loop and glide strap. So far I'm set I think. I have some plan spots to take some photos.

 

[zackiedawg]

Thanks...no editing for me - I'm a fairly dedicated JPG photographer, and not too big on post processing - I'm more of a 'preprocessor' - I like to tune up all the in-camera JPG settings to get them where I like them, so that I don't have to do work after the shot.

I've always particularly liked that blue hour or two after sunset, and shoot it often both handheld and tripod. Feel free to browse my Night Shot gallery of thumbnails - you'll see probably a few dozen or so taken during that 'blue' time, and the camera's EXIF or shot info is listed below each so you can see what shutter/aperture/ISO combo was used:

http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg/night_photography&page=all

In case it helps either give some ideas, or information on settings. I've been a big night shooter for over a decade - it's probably my second favorite shooting subject, after birds/wildlife.