Taking photos at night (Canon, SLR, PowerShot, adjustment)

[Hoosier]

I've never been able to take good night photos and need some help. I'd like to take photos of Christmas lights on our house, and other neighborhood displays. I have a Canon 8.0 megapixel camera and am just unsure how to do this. Is it as simple as moving the adjustments to "night" or is there more to it?

[grannymontanny]

this is a good thread.useful for alot of us this time of year,looking forward to some input on this too

[RayinAK]

You can increase the ISO number to take such pictures. But for better pictures you can also set your Digital SLR camera to M (manual for Canon), 400 ISO, mounted in a tripod, compose (look through the viewfinder to see if that's what you want in the picture). Play with the aperture and time until you get the right photo. For example, try f/8 or f/11 or so, and shoot for 1/32 of a second or less. Try that and if you don't like the results, then increase/decrease the speed until you get the right results. In general, for night photos with little light 1/250th or 1/125th of a second. But low-light conditions may require decreased shutter speeds from 1/15th of a second or longer. You will have to experiment with shutter speeds. Also set the camera to take RAW photos you can later work with using PhotoShop, Elements, etc.

[Rance]

My camera goes to 1600 ISO. What would I use that high of a number for? Northern lights?

[Fuzz]

Very high ISO with low shutter speeds (or low f-stop) will create a lot of noise -- you'll have to experiment to see what level of ISO noise is acceptable to you.

Your best bet is to reduce ISO, mount your camera on a tripod (or any stationary object so that it stays absolutely still), and play around with various reduced shutter speeds.

For instance, I took this shot using a tripod at ISO 200 and a 1.3-second shutter speed:



Here's a shot with ISO 1600, shutter speed = 2.5s, exposure = f/13:


Shot at ISO 1600, shutter speed = 2.5s, exposure = f/29:


Even with the same high ISO, you can see the difference in noise due to different exposures.

[Hoosier]

but can you do this with a digital camera? Fstops and all?

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by Rance

My camera goes to 1600 ISO. What would I use that high of a number for? Northern lights?

No. Canon digital SLR cameras are known for keeping the noise level down as the ISO goes up. But regardless of camera, the higher the ISO the more noise in the image. All you need is around 400 ISO for taking pictures of Northern lights with a digital camera.

You can find all the answers here:
Photographing Northern Lights

[RayinAK]

Originally Posted by Hoosier

but can you do this with a digital camera? Fstops and all?

Yes. Digital SLR cameras have manual modes where you can set shutter speed, aperture, etc.

[Hoosier]

Can you explain what noise means.

[Brill]

A good thread, was just about to ask the same thing myself. I have a Canon Powershot A540. I took some night pictures over the summer and they came out blurry. I didn't mess with anything on the camera, I just used the default settings when setting the camera to "nightscene"

I didn't use a tripod when taking these, that was my first though is just a shakey hand. But I took pictures of the same scene during the day and they come out fine. Any thoughts? Here are a few of the pictures I took, pictures are from a place called Seven Falls in Colorado Springs.

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/2729/img0317bq7.jpg

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/4448/img0318nq6.jpg

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/5189/img0322lb1.jpg

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4503/img0327ex4.jpg


My camera does have a manual mode, max shutter speed is 15 seconds, F2.6 - F8.0 and ISO 80 - 800. Also has modes to give aperture or shutter speed priority.