Night time photo question

[Prairie_Gal]

On our upcoming cruise which departs from San Juan there will be a great photo op as we leave San Juan of the fort all lit up. We depart at 10:00 p.m. so it will be dark. The thing is, the ship will be moving. I just got my first DSLR yesterday (T3I) with the 18-55 kit lens, and I also have a 50 mm f1.8 lens. Which lens and what settings should I try? If the ship wasn't moving I would feel more confident that I could get a good shot.

 

Sorry to sound like such a newbie.

[pierces]

On our upcoming cruise which departs from San Juan there will be a great photo op as we leave San Juan of the fort all lit up. We depart at 10:00 p.m. so it will be dark. The thing is, the ship will be moving. I just got my first DSLR yesterday (T3I) with the 18-55 kit lens, and I also have a 50 mm f1.8 lens. Which lens and what settings should I try? If the ship wasn't moving I would feel more confident that I could get a good shot.

 

Sorry to sound like such a newbie.

 

If you are moving, don't use a tripod. Even docked, the ship will rock enough to blur a long exposure of the shore.

 

Your T3i should handle the exposure on Aperture Priority mode. Set the f/-stop to as low as you can on the 18-55 or f/2 or so on the 50mm and let the camera choose the shutter speed. Start at ISO 800 and work up to the maximum.

 

The secret to good night shots is bracketing. Since lighting is never predictable in situations like a sailaway, there is no "best" setting.

 

50mm - f/3.2 - ISO800 (San Juan, coincidentally)

 

 

 

Dave

[awboater]

I agree with pierces.

 

You want to use your fast lens, and you will probably have to crank up your ISO as well.

[zackiedawg]

And that fort doesn't light up as much as the camera would wish it to, from the water. Your eye perceives it well enough, but it's super dark for the camera. You definitely will need the fast prime lens, opened up to F1.8. You'll most likely want to either shoot in Aperture Priority with the aperture held open all the way, and watch your shutter speed - you'll need at least 1/30 to 1/50 or so to be steady enough to compensate for the ship's movement without getting blur. I'm guessing from my experience with it that you'll be needing at least ISO1600. Remember one thing with ISOs - don't be too afraid of the higher numbers. While higher ISO usually equals more noise, noise is much more prevalent in an underexposed shot. So in a situation where you use ISO800 and end up underexposing, vs using ISO1600 and getting the exposure right, the ISO1600 shot can actually end up with LESS noise and more detail. Exposure is the key.

[dodger501]

I do bracketing on shots like this all the time, bring each image in as layers in Photoshop and pick & choose the best features of each.

[chipmaster]

Use the 50 1.8, though it might not be wide enough for you to get the scenic expansion

 

Shoot it aperture mode as another suggested wide open, likely you want DOF far enough so that won't matter

 

Depending how tolerant you are of noise in your pictures with your camera set the ISO to anywhere from 800-3200 ISO.

 

Depending on motion it'll come out great if you can be shooting 1/60 or better or not soo good if you are going even slower. Per above you need to decide do you push ISO even higher versus shutter speed lower and tradeoff noise and blur

 

You can post process with something like neatimage which has free trail download to clean up the noise.

 

Of course if you can shoot 12800 ISO go for it :D

[Prairie_Gal]

Thanks for all your help. I think I've got it now. I'll post a pic when we get back and let you know how it turned out.

 

Dodger501, I don't have Photoshop. I just do some basic editing with Windows Live Gallery.

[Sutho]

I have been trying night photography for years and am still learning new tricks. I prefer to keep my ISO 800 or lower as I do not like noise. I often have to step the photo back a bit as the histogram seems to want to make you shoot too long exposures.

 

 

This photo was taken with an EOS 60D with EF24-105mm f/4L lens. I shot it at 1/4sec at f/4 at ISO800. The image as I see it there is exactly how dark it was on the night and I did not need to do any post image processing.

 

 

This photo above was done on the same settings except for 1/3 sec.

 

I used a tripod for these. I also have a Canon EF28mm f/1.8 lens. I am still learning night photography with that as it is a new addition but I think I have to use a quicker shutter speed than what the camera recommends and am also finding it is better at f2/8. I always go for apeture priority when I take all my photos but with some night ones I kind of switch to full manual control when the camera does not do what I want it to do.

[mitsugirly]

Not sure if your camera has this feature or not, but mine has a panoramic feature and I've shot using that (you just start in one spot and hold the button down and pan to the right while it's snapping pictures) and it stitches them all together. I took some at the zoo Christmas lights a few weeks ago in the dark and it didn't turn out too shabby. :p (Just saying since you have a 50mm and probably won't fit too much in it).

[Turtles06]

Sutho, those are beautiful pics. Thanks for sharing.

[Prairie_Gal]

Sutho, those are beautiful pics. Thanks for sharing.

 

I agree, beautiful! Thanks!

[Prairie_Gal]

Well, I promised to come back and show you the results of your advice.

 

Here is a photo of the first fort. I was pretty happy with how it came out.

 

 

As Justin said, the second fort was too dimly lit and the photo just came out really blurry, not even worth posting.

 

Thanks again for all your advice, it really helped.

[Paulhc]

I have been trying night photography for years and am still learning new tricks. I prefer to keep my ISO 800 or lower as I do not like noise. I often have to step the photo back a bit as the histogram seems to want to make you shoot too long exposures.

 

 

This photo was taken with an EOS 60D with EF24-105mm f/4L lens. I shot it at 1/4sec at f/4 at ISO800. The image as I see it there is exactly how dark it was on the night and I did not need to do any post image processing.

 

 

This photo above was done on the same settings except for 1/3 sec.

 

I used a tripod for these. I also have a Canon EF28mm f/1.8 lens. I am still learning night photography with that as it is a new addition but I think I have to use a quicker shutter speed than what the camera recommends and am also finding it is better at f2/8. I always go for apeture priority when I take all my photos but with some night ones I kind of switch to full manual control when the camera does not do what I want it to do.

 

Sutho - nice photos!

 

one thing to try if using a tripod (not applicable to OP's question on a moving ship) is to keep ISO at 100, stop down to f16 or so and use a really long exposure. That can give some nice affects.