Tried some night shots. Advice please.

Brocks

Brocks

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I have seen magazine articles where shots are taken in the depth of night in the middle of no where with striking results.

Tonight we had a full moon, clear sky and a heavy frost developing. I spent an hour doing exposures of up to 5 minutes in temperatures of -4degrees. However nothing came out. Everything was pitch black. So are there any tricks to taking such shots?

I had the 400D, with the 24-105L on a Tripod with a cable release and mirror lock up. I tried Apertures from F/4 to f/20, and exposures from 2 minutes to 5 minutes. I could see lots of things with the naked eye, but not with the camera.

Also how do you focus in this situation?
 
Brocks said:
I have seen magazine articles where shots are taken in the depth of night in the middle of no where with striking results.

Tonight we had a full moon, clear sky and a heavy frost developing. I spent an hour doing exposures of up to 5 minutes in temperatures of -4degrees. However nothing came out. Everything was pitch black. So are there any tricks to taking such shots?

I had the 400D, with the 24-105L on a Tripod with a cable release and mirror lock up. I tried Apertures from F/4 to f/20, and exposures from 2 minutes to 5 minutes. I could see lots of things with the naked eye, but not with the camera.

Also how do you focus in this situation?
Click to expand...

Focusing would be better done manually, could you see anything through the viewfinder, what ISO setting did you have ?shutter speed depends on what your shooting at. I'd expect to get something even a crap looking shot with a full moon and clear sky.

Some Galleries here ---> http://www.hoursofdarkness.com/Night_Galleries.htm By viewing some photos similar to what your after you can view the exif data on the photos and see what setting were used.
 
I use Kuso Exif viewer ---> http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Digital-Photo-Tools/KUSO-Exif-Viewer.shtml install it and when you right click on a photo and select exif viewer from the drop down menu. It shows you what F stops/shutter speed etc were used for that photo + other settings without having to download it. It's freeware, there are other similar programs but this does for me. Works in IE and Firefox, dunno about other browsers
 
With a full moon i've always found iso400, f4, 30 sec exposure gets you a reasonable night landscape exposure.
 
For some star trails you are going to need a lot longer exposure or else a lot of exposures stacked ontop of each other. If you do a search on the forums for star trails you should find more info on the topic :)
 
Brocks said:
... However nothing came out. Everything was pitch black. ... I had the 400D, with the 24-105L on a Tripod with a cable release and mirror lock up. I tried Apertures from F/4 to f/20, and exposures from 2 minutes to 5 minutes. I could see lots of things with the naked eye, but not with the camera.
Click to expand...
You don't say what ISO setting you used, but 5 minutes at f/4 should certainly get you something under a full moon, even at ISO 100.

In fact, it should be a virtually perfect exposure!

Here are the calculations.
* The Sun is 450,000 times brighter than the full moon, which equates to 18.8 stops of exposure.
* The Sunny-16 rule suggests that in full sunlight the shutter speed should be the reciprocal of the ISO at f/16.
* For example, Sunny-16 says that at ISO 100 you'd have 1/100th at f/16.
* From f/16 to the f/4 which you used is 4 stops.
* From 1/100th to the 5 minutes you used is 14.9 stops.
* So you were 18.9 stops over-exposed compared to full sunlight.

So if you used ISO 100, 5 minutes at f/4, your pictures should have come out very well indeed.

Are you sure you took the lens cap off? :)
 
First thing I thought, which I realise is both flippant and unhelpful, was 'lens cap' :)
 
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