Suggestions for taking night pictures with my Nikon D90

nannye

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Apr 6, 2011
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Just wondering what the right settings might be? My pics turned out crappy last time of the parade and really any night pictures such as my kid, the motion blur, which was expected, but worse than i thought, so I just am looking for suggestions as to the appropriate settings.
 
What settings and what lens did you use?
 
If you could post a couple of the problem images with the EXIF info, we could diagnose your issues.
 
My friend Alan Hess is a concert photographer and just published a book on shooting in low light situations. Here's the link on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Night-Low-Lig...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326250412&sr=1-1

If you're shooting a parade at night, then you need a high ISO to get your shutter speed high enough to freeze motion. If that shutter is dragging, you just have a blurry mess.

Other low light photography issues are fine with a longer shutter speed, but you need a tripod to provide a stable platform. You just can't hand-hold it at some long shutter speeds.

This video shows just how much a camera shakes, even on a tripod, by using a laser. Take a look.

http://vimeo.com/22878525
 
This video shows just how much a camera shakes, even on a tripod, by using a laser. Take a look.

http://vimeo.com/22878525

That was an awesome video! Thanks for posting.

What was the other rule about lenses and minimum shutter speed that Mark Barbieri posted (I think)? Something like if you are shooting with a 200 mm lens the lowest shutter speed that you need to use for freezing motion is 1/200 because of the increased focal length. He did a much better job of explaining it...

~Marlton Mom
 
What settings and what lens did you use?

I have an 18-200 lens and the setting was auto in night mode, as well I switched it to action for a faster shutter speed which helped and also tried standard auto. none were great. Action was better than others due to the faster shutter speed.
 
I would have used the shutter priority mode (I believe that is 'S' on the Nikon dial) to set a faster shutter speed and then adjusted the ISO up to set the desired aperture for the exposure I wanted. I primarily use the semi-automatic modes and switch to manual only when I cannot obtain the exposure I want by any other means. I will use the 'P' mode when I really am struggling to see what the camera thinks and then adjust from there.
 
That was an awesome video! Thanks for posting.

What was the other rule about lenses and minimum shutter speed that Mark Barbieri posted (I think)? Something like if you are shooting with a 200 mm lens the lowest shutter speed that you need to use for freezing motion is 1/200 because of the increased focal length. He did a much better job of explaining it...

~Marlton Mom

Yes, that's the rule. You can hand-hold a shorter focal length at a slower shutter speed. I've heard the rule about needing a shutter speed to match your focal length as a minimum, too.
 
I have an 18-200 lens and the setting was auto in night mode, as well I switched it to action for a faster shutter speed which helped and also tried standard auto. none were great. Action was better than others due to the faster shutter speed.

Forget the automatic modes and start shooting in Manual Mode. You'll understand what's happening with your exposure better that way.

Is that a Nikon 18-200? I had one of those and it has VR, which helps compensate for your hand vibration. However, it doesn't compensate for a slow shutter speed when you're trying to capture a moving object. As the parade moves, it reflects light. Even if you had the camera on a tripod with a slow shutter speed, you'd still have blurry photos because you didn't freeze the movement.

You need to raise your shutter speed, which generally means opening your aperture and raising your ISO in night conditions.
 
You always want your ISO as to the highest number possible. To prevent the motion blur as already stated you want a fast shutter speed.
 
You always want your ISO as to the highest number possible. To prevent the motion blur as already stated you want a fast shutter speed.

I will respectfully say, absolutely not.

Proper exposure is based on a triangle. The three components are aperture ("f stop"), shutter speed and ISO (sensitivity).

By raising your ISO unnecessarily high, you're introducing noise and degrading the image, especially on a previous gen sensor like on the D90.

The first basic steps; with the 18-200, try to shoot as wide / close as you can (IE, get closer to the action). Why? The 18-200 is a variable aperture lens; by 100mm you're already at a slow f/5.6. If you were to shoot at say, 50mm which will open up to f/3.5, you're letting in three times the amount of light, allowing you to set your shutter 3 times faster.

For example, the following settings provide the same exact exposure;

f/2.8 - 1/250
f/4.0 - 1/125
f/5.6 - 1/60

These would be approximate settings for shooting a night parade. At 2.8 you can set your shutter to 1/250 which will freeze even fast action. As you can't shoot at this aperture, you're at f/4 as a minimum; you are letting in half the amount of light, so now you have to double your shutter speed to maintain a proper exposure, so now you're at 1/125, which is still suitable for slow moving parade's (especially if you pan your shot with the movement of the float). At 5.6, you are now letting in 4 times less light that at 2.8 and now have to quadruple your shutter speed, all the way down to a slow 1/60, which will lead to image blur for shooting moving objects.

Once you get close enough to the action, as Gianni's Papa said, I would recommend setting your camera to shutter priority mode at 1/125 as a minimum, the camera will keep your aperture set as wide open as your lens allows. Alternately you can shoot full manual and try that route. I would start with an ISO setting of 800. Take a few shots and check them. Underexposed? Increase your ISO. Take a few more shots, check it again. If for some reason it's actually bright enough that the body is pushing the aperture up to say, f/8, dial your ISO back a notch (from 800 I believe 640 is the next setting). The long and short of it, you want to keep your ISO as low as possible while still maintaining a proper exposure. Do some test shots BEFORE the parade begins, but not so early that you've lost a bunch of light from the sun setting and you now have to compensate for that.

There are a few exceptions to the above. Lets say you got your hands on a nice fast 50mm f/1.4. At f/1.4, you are letting in sixteen times the amount of light compared to f/5.6. So in reference to the above examples, you would be able to set your shutter at 1/1000 to maintain the same exposure. Shooting wide open like that though can lead to unwanted effects, specifically a VERY shallow depth of field. What that means is that the subject will be sharp on that focal plane, but will then soften at different depths. (IE, Belle's face will be sharp, but the beast that is standing 3' behind her will be blurry, as will the rest of the float). Shooting wide open is idea for portraits, not so much for parades.

HTH's!
 
The 18-200 is certainly a convenient lens to use out and about at WDW. The problem is that it is not a "fast" lens. A "fast" lens is one that has a fairly large aperture (2.8 or larger. 1.8 or 1.4 would be even better). The 18-200 is a variable aperture lens, meaning that the more you zoom, the smaller your maximum aperture is. So..... even at the shortest focal length of 18, your widest available aperture is probably around 3.5.

If you ZOOM with this lens, you will do even worse in low light situations, with your smallest possible aperture being around 6.3.

You have a camera that is capable of taking great low light photos. If you push the camera you can get some decent night photos, but as others have stated definitely not in the auto modes.

A great place to start is with reading Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. It is a great easy to understand explanation of the exposure triangle.
 












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