Comments on: Night Photography Tips for DSLR Users

By: Michael O'Keefe

Michael O'Keefe — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:10:00 +0000

Here is my dilemma, shooting a busy fire scene at night, with emergency strobe lights and firefighters running around, not to mention the flood lights facing away from me as I shoot. Hard to get crisp shots even with a tripod. Using a Canon 60 D. Please help!

By: rion

rion — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 20:21:50 +0000

Because cameras have the ability to accumulate light over time, night time photographs can seem brighter than they do to our eyes. This means that details are revealed that are hidden details from view because of the limitations of the light gathering ability of our eyes. very usefull tips

i have same tips here about how to revealed colors of night for Details and Moods
http://photograpyreview.blogspot.com/2011/09/colors-of-night-details-and-moods.html

By: RM De La Haya

RM De La Haya — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:53:04 +0000

when shooting subjects with my Canon xti in a dark location or at night time, I get decent shots but in dark areas, all of my subjects turn out with a strong YELLOW tint.

outdoor example: a fountain with reflected white light appears light blue or at most slight tan to the naked eye. Despite changing my iso settings (100-1600), f stop (2.8 – 22)and speed (1/4000 to bulb), i still get yellow images.

indoor example: in a hotel lobby, with ambient light, all of my pix look yellow despite changes to iso, f stop and speed. see attached photo please

Very clean and beautiful pix, just strong yellow tones. any ideas how I can get more accurate colors during night shots.

signed, frustrated of the yellow.

bytheway: i appreciate your informative videos and articles. they have been my most useful guide for purchases and tutorials. I much appreciate it partner!

rmd

By: Rick Landry

Rick Landry — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:59:00 +0000

I just struggled with a very spontaneous night photography event, i.e., attempting to shoot a nearby raging forest fire threatening a town. Wind gusts were up to 35 miles an hour, and it was 10:30PM, dark except for the fire. Although I managed to come away with a half dozen “good” shots of this phenomenon, I “battled” with a 400mm lens which would not lock-on to a focus point ( there were plenty of flames!), and thus I could not depress the shutter. Manual focus produced the same problem. I found the only way I could get the shutter to operate ( using a Canon 5D MkII @ ISO1250, 1.5 to 3.5sec., and f-stop 5.6) was by turning on and off the camera: sometimes it would then latch on to a focal point, and I could depress the shutter.
In retrospect, I think my mistake was narrowing depth of field by opening the aperture as wide as I could. I may inadvertently have been preventing the lens from focusing on something at the distant range. I would be interested to learn what others think about this? TY.

By: yasky

yasky — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 06:28:10 +0000

Although I enjoy nigh photography long enough, this tips also help me with some new information.

By: borndate

borndate — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 04:26:46 +0000

Good video, eventhough it didn’t go in detail but sufficient for entry level dslr user to understand on how it works for night photography. For advance user who already knew this, you don’t need to read this site, right? You all are “very pro” now. If you still insist to blog in, you can always add in whatever it is missing in this video. Share it with us.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 02:22:03 +0000

Some complained about it being to basic. If it is to basic for you then you most likely don’t need the help the rest of us are looking for on this site. It was very helpful to me including the knobology, Keep the tips coming.

By: awokenMIND

awokenMIND — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:54:50 +0000

@Rick:
As I too have a Rebel XTi, I do own its manual and well, it explains how I set an aperture and how to dial in the time or change ISO-Settings. Nothing else did I criticize in my above comment. It’s just that I don’t want to see each and every button to be pushed in a video tutorial. Every owner of a DSLR should know how to dial in an aperture as it’s dealt with in the manual. The meaning behind e.g. different aperture values may not be the key of a manual but that’s not what I was talking about!

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:30:12 +0000

@awokenmind: When you find a user’s manual, out of the box, for ANYTHING that explains the product better than a third party publisher, let me know. The manual that came with my Rebel XTi is next to worthless. However, I have had some success with the field guide.

By: DD_nVidia

DD_nVidia — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 23:07:20 +0000

Er, linkback?

http://www.cameralabs.com http://www.dslrtips.com

And some props to Gordon for making all the videos over at cameralabs and dslr tips.

Why switch your camera back to fully automatic, well, suppose its personal preference, mine gets set to Av @ f/4 ISO 400 as a custom function 1 when it goes back in my bag, so if i pull it out to get a shot, I’ve got it, sure a little noise, but nothing you’ll see when printed at a4, or a3 with a little NR.

Some people also seem to be confused by depth of field here.

The noticeable DoF on your 50mm F/1.8 lens isnt always the same, even though its a prime lens. The distance you are focusing is important. Stand right up near the closest focusing distance, the depth of field will look more dramatic, go back to capture it properly, it won’t look as though the depth of field is so big.

If i have it right there is a formula to work out the depth of field with Aperture, Focal Length AND Focusing Distance, Distance between the Subject and other items in the foreground/background.

Something along those lines anyway. Wikipedia has the forumla i’m sure.

Anyway, props again to Gordon and to those over at Cameralabs.com and DSLRtips.com – should check them out plenty more videos over at the site.