[ooheadsoo]

So here I am with a veritable sea of city lights before me.  Looks absolutely fabulous!  Multi dimensioned, shimmering and all that.  Then I try to take a picture, and it's similar to when I'm trying to take a picture of a car.  I fall flat on my face.  The pictures suck, just blurry pricks of light, completely flat image.  At first, I thought it was because I was trying to shoot hand held, although I tried to brace against a fence.  Then, last night, I shot again on a tripod.  No go.  Not only do the pictures still have no real detail, they are still completely flat.  Wide angle vs. "zoom" didn't seem to make a difference.  Aperture also didn't seem to make much of a difference.  Here's one example of this.



What's the secret?

[SET Man]

So here I am with a veritable sea of city lights before me.  Looks absolutely fabulous!  Multi dimensioned, shimmering and all that.  Then I try to take a picture, and it's similar to when I'm trying to take a picture of a car.  I fall flat on my face.  The pictures suck, just blurry pricks of light, completely flat image.  At first, I thought it was because I was trying to shoot hand held, although I tried to brace against a fence.  Then, last night, I shot again on a tripod.  No go.  Not only do the pictures still have no real detail, they are still completely flat.  Wide angle vs. "zoom" didn't seem to make a difference.  Aperture also didn't seem to make much of a difference.  Here's one example of this.



What's the secret?

Hey!

   For short answer.... Longer exposure

Take care,
Buddy

[ooheadsoo]

The shot I posted was 30 seconds.  I"m not sure how long my d40 can expose, but I will try longer, next time.  I'm not sure I want too much of the buildings and trees showing up, though.

[SET Man]

The shot I posted was 30 seconds.  I"m not sure how long my d40 can expose, but I will try longer, next time.  I'm not sure I want too much of the buildings and trees showing up, though.

Hey!

    Well, try a longer exposure until you feel that the picture look good to you.

    Get a cable release and set you D40 to "B" or "Bulb" Click and lock the cable release for longer exposure. Don't forget to time it with your watch. Of course you will need a tripod.

Take care,
Buddy

[nathanm]

Longer exposure is of course the answer, stop your lens down all the way, use the lowest ISO setting, put the camera on Bulb and give it a minute of exposure for starters.  Then add or reduce time as necessary.  Tripod is of course mandatory.

My camera also has a 30 second limit but I can do multiple exposures.  The question is; are two 30 second exposures in-camera the same as stacking one 30 second exposure on top of itself in Screen mode in Photoshop?  Hmmm...

[IronLion]

While all suggestions here are correct, another one I might add is that basic rules of visual composition still apply.  Just putting your camera on a tripod, using ISO 50 and stopping your lens down all the way on a bulb exposure isn't going to make a boring night scene interesting.  The image you posted above has no foreground and no focus which is why is it so pedestrian, to be blunt. 

[ooheadsoo]

Thanks for the tips, I will be sure to try them out.  I did set the ISO to the lowest, and used the timer function for one of the shots since I didn't have a remote release (probably not the pic I showed, but believe me, it was not a significant improvement.)  I think my camera also has the 30sec limitation and no B mode that I know of.  Photoshop sure is neat.  I'll try the layer trick when I get some better shots.  I think there was some haze last night.  Then again, this is LA, it probably won't get any better. 

Btw, how do you focus in the dark ?

IronLion, while I agree with you re: my composition, I am focusing here on technique.  Not even that, I just want to capture what I see, at this point, for this type of shot.

[nathanm]

I know what you mean IronLion, but I feel composition\subject matter is more of an artistic area that is usually best left un-criticized unless specifically asked for by the photographer.

Night focusing is something I had trouble with too, with my cheesy focus-by-wire lens with no markings on it.  I'm like, "Where the hell is Infinity on this thing?"

[mjosef]

You would need to take a few shots at varying exposure time(bracketing) If that shot is 30 sec. start at 35sec. and increase each successive exposure by 5-10 sec. interval up to about 2 minutes...then review and decide if additional time would add any thing to the scene.
And I agree with Iron...unless that sky has something you want to capture, move the horizon up above the top 1/3...its a personal call though.

[SET Man]

Hey!

   Yes, your D40 have "Bulb" It should be one below 30sec. Set your D40 to "M" or "Manual" and dial the speed down to 30sec and than one more after that should be "Bulb" or "B" As for cable release I don't know if there is a connection for it on the D40 if not than you have to keep pressing shutter button without shaking the camera. I think there is a remote that you could buy for your D40 and that will do.

   As for what to do. Well, there is no need to set ISO to the lowest or stop lens all the way down. Most of the time ISO anywhere up to 400 is fine. Of course higher will lessen the time needed but the picture will be grainy of which sometime could look good... this is depend on what you want to the final picture to look like.

   As for the aperture. Middle aperture will do around f5.6 to f16 depend on focal length of your lens. As for how long? Well, that is the beauty of digi-cam just try it until you feel the picture look good to you. As for focusing... if  you are shooting far senenic shot like that just set your lens to infinity.... for something closer, but do your best

   As for composition and subject? Well, just shoot what you like. You will learn as you doing it.

   Good luck and keep us posted

Take care,
Buddy

[ooheadsoo]

I do have shots with the horizon on the top third, but frankly, they look no better - plus they had needle thin dry sticks in the foreground casting nasty looking hazy silhouettes, so I just uploaded this one to AC because it was within the file size limitation.  I tried f8, f 14, and f22, none of which seemed to make much of a difference - with my technique on that night.  I will try with bracketing and playing with more different settings, next time, but I haven't been doing it that much with the night shots because I could tell at a glance that I didn't capture "it," so I packed up and went home.  What can I say, it was windy and brisk, and i had a shirt on with a full sweat.  And there were people nagging me to hurry up.     I'm using a refurbed cheap kit lens that comes with the d40 with no focus markings, but next time, I'll assume infinity is all the way over at the sharper end.

Buddy, I'll check out B mode, next time! 
I'm starting to think photography is worse than audio.  Now, I need flashes, a better tripod, flash diffusors, maybe a bigger bag, will it never end?  And this is just beginner gear.  I've been battling over whether to buy a flash and diffusor or a new electric bass...

[jeffreybehr]

Do also use mirror lockup and and automatic shutter delay if your camera has them.  The less the camera loves while the shutter is open, the sharper the image will be.

Ironlion is correct about composition.  The image you posted could have the top HALF cropped away.

Nighttime exposures are tough.  I got lucky with this one.


That's Canyon Lake, on Arizona's Salt River e. of Phoenix, shot from the e. looking w. into the long-after-sunset gloom.

[ooheadsoo]

Yes, I know the composition is bad, but given the wide angle I was testing out, I had the choice of cropping the top half or bottom half, depending on how I framed it in the location I was at, so it didn't matter to me when I released the shutter whether I kept the horizon at the top or bottom of the frame.  As I already mentioned, I only posted that particular example because it was convenient, and it did adequately convey how bad my shots are, in general 

That shot is gorgeous!

[SET Man]

Hey!

   OK, how about some urban city view....



 View of Manhattan and 59th Street Bridge fromQueens, NY. Remember the Simon and Garfunkel song?



  View of Midtown Manhattan. Also from Queens. I took these pictures on 4th July last year just a few minutes before the Macy's firework show start.

   I'm sure you probably wonder about the technical side of the photos also. So, here is the stat...

    ISO 200, 6 sec, f5.6. Zoom set at 16mm (24mm in 35mm film) for both pictures. The first picture show full frame and the second one had been cropped, mostly got rid of the empty sky.

Take care,
Buddy

[ooheadsoo]

Very nice!

It looks like I have no choice but to lighten the whole thing up.  I didn't want to do that because the houses around here aren't very photogenic, imo.  Lots of overgrown trees and shrubbery, too.