Help i'm in the dark?????

sammi

sammi

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Please help....I took some action shots tonight ( my first time in the dark) and *** i can usually make into a half decent photo during the day is ruined at night....*** am i doing wrong ???? my camera was set up on automatic so i thought it was pretty much idiot proof....(obviously not).....any ideas :thinking:
 
It will be loads easier to comment if we people could see a sample picture.....

Generally Action shots at night require either very good floodlighting or 2.8 aperture and a high iso rating....or a good mixture of all this....maybe you could give us a run through of the settings used and the conditions if you can't post a picture?

Cheers

AJ
 
DSC_2888.JPG
heres a sample pic.......there were some pretty big lights in the background....was taken with my d50 and using an 18-55 mm lens....there is just something missing.... (ps this is the best one out of the lot ) :)
 
Firstly this is awesome...are you in the Air force? (sorry its off topic, you dont have to answer)

I think the main problem in this shot is that the colour of the plane is very dark and so is the sky so the camera is going to find it very hard to expose both and really show the plane...(tell me if i'm teaching you to suck eggs)

I dont really know how you could get over this in this shot....may have to wait for some more knowledgeable people to come along....

I think this shot could benefit from some Post processing..but again i'm not sure of the type...

Sorry I cant be much help..

:help:
 
cheers superstat for your input..and encouragement.....no i'm not in the airforce however i know a man that is....... :)

as i say this is the best of the bunch.....unfortunately the rest of them seem to have fuzziness and alot of noise in them...not sure how to rectify that:help:

:nuts:
 
what kind of settings did you use? could you post one that has these problems? (It doesn't matter if you don't think its great cos we trying to find out what went wrong:))
 
I'd suggest you:
1. Bump up the exposure in Photoshop and do a selection of the plane and foreground
2. Save selection
3. Go back to original exposure
4. Apply saved selection and change to inverse
5. Bump up the background exposure to your satisfaction
and your plane, hopefully will standout better with some background detail showing through too.
Looks as like you have a very good pic there.
 
DSC_28021.JPG


well here is a truly naff one....told ya that one was the best...........:thumbs:
as for settings just on automatic....:)
 
Your best shot looks sharp.
The second doesn't.
I think you need to use a tripod, select shutter speed and try out a setting of 3 seconds or so. The lower your ISO setting, the longer your exposure will have to be.
 
Sammi where abouts are you? Take me with you next time and I'll help you figure out a way to make the shots better :lol:

I recon the first shot looks good, just needs a few well placed stobes ;)

Pete
 
I'd say the first picture is pretty much perfectly exposed. The man and the dog look spot on, and the plane looks black because... it 's black. (I speak as one who has much experience of photographing black cats. They tend to come out black too.) If it were mine I'd be really quite pleased with it, but I'd also be thinking of trying to go back and retake it when there's some light in the sky.
 
I'd agree that the first shot is properly exposed. My take would be to use the usual portrait trick of rim lighting the plane with strobes. Should be easy to set up and would bring out the plane from the background :)

Pete
 
icecavern said:
Sammi where abouts are you? Take me with you next time and I'll help you figure out a way to make the shots better :lol:

I recon the first shot looks good, just needs a few well placed stobes ;)

Pete
Click to expand...



he he.....i'm in cyprus does that make it an even better prospect......i do need help..(mentally probably).....:D


thankyou all for your kind words and advice....have organised a retake for next week so hopefully with tips logged in my head i should get better results....cheers :thumbs: xx
 
What you have in the second shot is camera shake, probably caused by you jabbing at the shutter release in your excitement trying to catch the running dog in just the right spot. A good quality powerful flashgun would help you I think but obviously that would cost.
 
sammi said:
he he.....i'm in cyprus does that make it an even better prospect......i do need help..(mentally probably).....:D
Click to expand...

Makes it more appealing, but a bit costly to pop round :lol:

Ask around for SB600's and SB800's and see if you can borrow some. You need at least one SB800 to put on the shoe of your D50. Then set that one as a master, then another as a slave on something behind and to the front of the plane, you want it in line of sight of your camera but out of shot. Then beg, borrow, steal as many slaves that will act as a slave flash as you can, these you stand on the furthest away wing, all pointing along the top edge of the plane. The SB800 on the camera fires the one at the front of the plane, then that one firing fires the ones along the back lighting the edge of the plane body.

OK so you could probably get a similar effect with some HDR and a few exposures, but just think how fun it'll be playing with those flashguns to create a stunning shot :D

THe other thing to try is wait for a nice sunset, get a few flashes at the camera position firing at the plane, expose for the sky, and let the flashes light the plane. Stick warming gels on the flashes to bring the effect out.

Can anyone tell I've been reading everything I can about nikons CLS recently :D

Pete
 
oh and if the floodlight is one of the mobile ones on a trolley just wheel it around for another angle lol
 
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