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Discuss taking pictures of lightning and figure out how to take quality pictures of fireworks in this Q&A. For more information check out this article: 4th of July Photos: A Celebration of Light and Color!
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Kevin Soucie
member since: 11/22/2003
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How To Shoot Fire At Night With Digital
I am a firefighter and an amateur photographer. Occasionaly I travel to other towns when they have building fires etc. I own the Sony DSC-F717 it takes great photos during the day and great indoor shots at night but I am having no luck when I go to take action shots at structure fires. I do not have an external lense will that help? Also I have nightshot but then I loose quality of the picture. Should I use a tripod? Any help from people who have any experience or advice would be appreciated Thanks.
11/22/2003 5:39:35 PM
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Shooting at night when the sky is black is a challenge, to say the least, even with film which has greater contrast latitude. You will get good results shooting at dusk when there is some color in the sky. For example, photographing the moon at night will result in a white hole in a black space. Photographing the moon at dusk will result in an accurate, detailed image of the moon. You will also need to set your ISO, if possible, to at least ISO800 and use a tripod. You will also need to set your lens to it's widest aperture. Good luck!
11/23/2003 6:03:10 AM
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Sreedevi Kashi
member since: 6/10/2003
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Perhaps using a flash might help. There are different ways to do it, so it depends on whether you have a few seconds to set up your shot, or if you're shooting on the fly. If you're shooting on the fly, the easiest way is to attach a flash onto the camera. Have it set on auto. Now each camera has a particular shutter speed that works with the flash, generally marked by an x or shown as a different color. You can shoot at a shutter speed slower than what you're supposed to- this will help fill in the background without affecting your main focus too much, as the flash will have gone off already. This is how it works for film cameras. For digital, it's a matter of seeing what the settings would be if you were to use the flash, and then of course change it to manual so you can change the shutter speed on it yourself. Generally, it should work just like a film camera. The other way is a bit more complicated, and you'll need a light meter, but it basically follows the same logic. Also, I find with high contrast, it helps to shoot the scene one stop under than what the camera wants to shoot it at, as the highlights always get blown out. If you set the aperture one stop under and the shutter speed a couple of stops slower using the flash, you may be able to get all the detail- it's tricky, though, because I know all cameras are different, but I'm told that most are made to work similarly to using a film camera. You should also try playing with the contrast functions. I'm not familiar with that particular camera, but I do know that some cameras let you set it on low contrast before shooting- I don't know how good it looks, but it should help to show the entire scene.
11/26/2003 6:52:09 AM
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Paul Illes
member since: 10/23/2003
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Since it is a digital camera, boost your ISO to 800 if it will go that high, at least 400 otherwise. True, it is supposed to add artifacts, but if you end up with a usable picture, so what? By boosting the ISO you will be able to use a slightly faster shutter to stop flame movement. Use shutter priority in the appropriate setting for you camera and set it at 100th, shoot, then set it at 150th and shoot, then drop to 50th or 60th of a second and you will see how much blur the flames make. THEN, in whatever software you have for manipulating your photos, use "levels" and move the middle control or the dark control on the left, to make the shadows come up. Digital images work better if under exposed. Once they are overexposed there is nothing to bring back. Try this, or some variation close to it.
Paul
11/26/2003 3:23:52 PM
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What don't you like about your pictures. Most of the time when somebody wants to shoot flames, they don't compensate for the brightness of the flames so everything is too dark.
11/26/2003 3:42:29 PM
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John T. DiBiasi
member since: 9/13/2003
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12
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How to Shoot Lightning
I am curious how to shoot lightning with low speed film (100 speed).
9/19/2003 9:31:31 AM
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Brenda Tharp
member since: 6/9/2003
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John - the best way to photograph lightning is use the slowest film speed you can, so you can open the shutter for several seconds and hope that lightning strikes during that exposure! You can do two things to help yourself: if the slower film is still not slow enough to give you a several second exposure, put on your polarizer and/or a solid neutral density filter to block even more light; or, try to do this type of photography at twilight, or nightfall, as it will be dark enough naturally to give you an exposure of several seconds. I usually stop the lens down to f16 or f22, use ISO 50 film, my polarizer if needed, and hopefully then I can open the shutter for 10-30 seconds. This improves your odds of having the bolt of lightning strike the ground while the shutter is open. Have fun - and remember that metal tripods conduct electricity, so don't be out there too close to the lightning, and wear rubber soled shoes (just to help...!)
9/20/2003 5:30:14 PM
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John,
Brenda's advice is right on. One suggestion I might add is if your camera has a 'Bulb' setting which locks the shutter open, use a cable release, open the shutter and block the front of the lens with a black card (matboard works). When you see a lightning strike, wait about 5-10 seconds and uncover the lens. As soon as you have captured a lightning strike, cover the lens again and wait about 10 seconds then uncover the lens, etc. This process will allow you to capture several strikes on the same frame -- you'll need to experiment. I have a couple of lightning shots in my gallery captured with this method. This only works at night. Best of luck.
God Bless,
Greg
9/24/2003 5:47:27 AM
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John T. DiBiasi
member since: 9/13/2003
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thanks a ton for the advice, now I just need a damn storm...
9/24/2003 9:05:36 PM
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Josh
member since: 8/11/2003
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13
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D.O.F and Shutter Speed
Hi, I finally bought the Canon Rebel Ti and it is amazing -it can be operated manually to any extent and I am very happy with it. But I do have a few questions.a) If I want to use a slow shutter speed to take a picture of a waterfall, how do I know what speed to set if I want to get a nice picture of flowing water and not the drop by drop type look?
b) Same question but for aperture and depth of field
c) People say to use a slow shutter speed to catch fireworks, but I don't understand why, since they disappear very quickly - wouldn't they be gone before the exposure is finished?
d)What exactly is bulb mode?
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP!
8/26/2003 9:33:05 PM
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Jon Close
member since: 5/18/2000
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(a) Try several and take notes. It'll vary depending on the speed of the water, and your distance from it. The farther away (or wider angle lens used) the longer the shutter speed for blurring motion. The opposite is true for stopping motion - faster shutter speeds are required as you move closer and/or as focal length increases. Very generally, 1/125 and faster will freeze the motion, 1/60-1/8 will give you streaking motion, 1/4 to several seconds (or even minutes) will give milky blur. (b) Smaller apertures increase depth of field. DoF also varies depending on the lens focal length and distance from your focused subject. When you focus the lens is at its widest aperture. When the shutter is tripped, the mirror flips up and the aperture instantaneously stops down to the chosen aperture, then opens wide again. Using the Rebel Ti's DoF preview the aperture closes down to the selected value so you can see the depth of field. The viewfinder will darken because the smaller aperture lets in less light. Allow your eyes to get accomstomed, and the difference in DoF will be apparent. You can also use the camera's DEP program mode to set the aperture for appropriately shallow or deep depth of focus. Or you can use a DoF calculator to determine the aperture you want. A couple I like are f/Calc from http://www.tangentsoft.net/ for doing calculations on the computer, another is DOFMaster from http://dfleming.ameranet.com/custom.html which allows you to construct a DoF scale for your lens that can be used in the field. (c) Like lightning, fireworks explosions usually happen too fast to hope to catch by pressing the shutter at that moment. A fast shutter speed would freeze the small sparks of the explosion. So you use a long shutter speed to catch the full effect and the long tails of the cascading sparks. Opening the shutter for a longer period (using a smaller aperture like f/8) on a black sky will expose only the brief bright light of the firework. See the section "Fireworks" under Kodak's "Taking Great Pictures" at http://www.kodak.com (d) BULB holds the shutter open for as long as the shutter button is held down. You would use this to get exposures longer than the camera's timer limit (30 seconds) or for example, lightning, where you have the shutter open in anticipation of a lightning strike, then close it immediately after. It is best to use BULB with a remote release and a tripod.
8/27/2003 6:05:18 AM
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Hey Josh im going to see if I can help you out on veiling water here. What I will do is just tell you how I do it, and see if that helps. First off I shoot with a Canon Rebel 2000, I shoot with Velvia ISO 50 then I drop it to an ISO 40. You always want an overcast day and or deep shadow for this kind of shot. On the norm I go with an f/11 or f/16 this will give you a nice slow shutter speed something between 1sec-10sec. Sometime when you are unsure you can bracket or im my case I just try different appertures and shutter speeds. Hope this will help a bit, if you have any questions just drop me a line. Darren Fisher
9/3/2003 4:30:21 AM
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Paul Ferrer
member since: 3/17/2001
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Hey Josh,
If you want to see some pictures that I took last year of fireworks with long exposures and the use of bulb e-mail me. I experimented with it and I was pleased with the results. My e-mail is ferrerfoto@hotmail.com and I’ll send you a picture with all the details.
PAUL
9/3/2003 9:28:40 AM
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