Need some camera setting advice

[Blue_In_AK]

We're going down to our Town Square this afternoon (when it will be totally dark) for the City's New Year's Eve "fire and ice" extravaganza...ice carving, fire jugglers, ice skating, mini-Ferris wheels, etc. and fireworks at 7:00 p.m. I think this will be really fun for some cool night/light shots, but I need some advice on settings. I'll be handheld, but I'm thinking I'll take the 17-85 which has IS, and I have a pretty steady hand.

Can anybody advise me on the f/stops, ISO and exposure times? I want to get good shots and this won't come around again until next year.

[F.Gordon]

1. Your camera will shoot at ISO 3200

But you'll have a whole bunch of noise to deal with. If you want to know how to shoot at ISO3200 ask... otherwise go ISO 1600 (which will also have a ton of noise to deal with)

Press the Drive/ISO button on the top near the shutter button. Unless you've been playing with it..it should read 100. Turn the big wheel thing to the right of the rear display until the number goes up to 1600. Then 1/2 depress the shutter button to lock the ISO in.

Turn the dial on the top left to AV (Aperture Priority) then turn the little wheel directly behind the shutter button till it reads in the f/4 to f/5 range. If you try to try to go much higher you'll be handholding 1 or 2 second shots. I'd recommend setting your EV compensation a few notches and then correcting the exposure (and reducing the noise) in RAW. You can do that in Paintshop Pro X.

You can also play with the flash. The next to last AUTO setting is Night Flash. You'll be pissing people off when the sucker strobes but you can get some fast night shots. Didn't you get the Canon Flash?

This; Handheld, ISO 1600, 1/30 second, f/4.5, EV -2 steps. (but notice what happens with a 1/30 sec exposure.. you get "hot spots" with brighter lights)



I say try different settings. Also... when I try to handhold a slow shot I'll click off 3 or 4 rapid shots and hope that ONE is fairly sharp.

Can you tell I've had too much coffee today.
:crazy:

[Blue_In_AK]

2. That's a beautiful picture, F.

Thanks for the advice. This gives me somewhere to start from anyway. I suppose if I took that little 50 mm lens, too, I could have the f/stop at 1.8 and then I could set a faster shutter speed? Is that the way it works? Sorry for all the questions.

[F.Gordon]

3. f/1.8 will give you a faster shutter speed.....

...but a much narrower depth of field (how much is in focus).

This is a handheld film shoot (ASA200) f/1.4 1/40 sec (no ev compensation) Now film apertures create a much more narrow depth of field than a 1.6 crop digital, but you can "see" and get an idea...

[chknltl]

4. Kinda short notice on advice...best I can provide:

Take a flash. Set up camera to whatever the recommended settings are for flashgun and off you go.

Mindset:
What is your purpose here? Documentary, or are you looking to experiment and have fun? Here is a mindset I sometimes use:
Treat the event as a point and shoot that you are documenting. Take the tactic of "seeing" these photos from a future perspective: 50 years from now, what will folks find fascinating about those images, or conversely imagine that you were looking at an event 50 years old...what would you find worth looking at...would it be the kinds of clothes folks wore, the old cars they drove, what about the minor celebrities who may be in attendence...and etc. this is a "mindset" to take that may net you some great shots.
If you are just looking to "have fun" turn it into a learning exercises, plan on working with one notion or one lens and learn all about it "on the job". I have heard stories about very famous photographers who would just put a 24mm wide angle lens on their camera and off they would go. This was done intentionally in order to gain a knowledge about it and to test their skills thusly limited.
This is not only challenging but it can be very educational as well as fun.

Settings:
A lengthy class on film speeds and shutter speeds and low light tricks in this short of time will do you little good here so I won't try. Not using a flash? Then a tripod is advised but I suspect that even with one you would wind up with a lot of dark images and tripods are quite cumbersome. The higher ISO settings will gain you speed, something you want to gain should you choose to shoot without a flash. Choose your fastest aperture too. Any combination which gets you up to and preferably beyond 1/30th of a second handheld without a flash is desirable. (Yes I know you digital guys with your IS lenses are doing remarkable stuff below that speed but this is not countering subject motion, if your subject is moving then you are gaining blur.)

Lenses:
I suggest a wide to medium zoom is in order, especially if you are using a flashgun. Another possibility: try limiting yourself to your fastest lens. Lower aperture # = faster lens-speed. A 50 mm. 1.4 might serve you some sharper brighter images than that 17-85 with IS if it is a variable aperture slower than 2.8, which a lot of the cheaper zooms are. (Sorry I have no way of knowing the satus of your zoom). That single focal length lens will gain you a much brighter viewfinder to compose with as well as some all important speed.

If you can take both, great but if only the zoom is going and NO flash....ouch. The higher the ISO you can use the better here. I am a film guy so I can only offer up advice from that perspective.
Film speeds of 1600 and even 3200 were available at one point, not sure if they are anymore. We used to get a Fuji 800 which we pushed (on our camera's ISO setting) to 1600 thereby gaining a little extra speed. Colors were only marginally less brilliant when done this way. I would sometimes push that to 6400 in order to get an artsy grainy effect.

If you are using slower film speeds (ISO 400 or less, no flash and a slow zoom handheld in low light conditions.... My advice would be to leave camera at home and enjoy event as a spectator.

But if you insist on shooting under those circumstances: Look for ways to steady yourself and your camera when shooting. Solidify your shooting posture by leaning up against something solid, a wall or a pole or a car or something in order to solidify yourself prior to squeezing off a shot. One technique that may be helpful is holding the camera in such a way that your elbows are brought into your chest as opposed to having them spread out like wings. Watch the pros here, rarely do you see them with their elbows out when doing handhelds, one can steady the camera better by tucking those elbows into your chest area. The overall notion here is to create a steady cradle for your camera, The steadier you are the less motion (blur) goes on the photo.

Also seek to shoot only in the brighter areas or shoot those subjects which are brightly lit.

Gaining speed and steadyness are your companions here...I hope this is helpful emergency advice. There are books written on this very topic of night and low light photography, if you have time check out material online or check in with your camera store to see what they may have.

Good luck to you tonight. I hope you have fun...
Happy New Year.
chknltl

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Thanks...

I think I'm going to try to avoid the flash, if I can, and maybe stick the 50 in my pocket to take along since it's small and light. Mostly this is experimental, but I think there's going to be some pretty cool stuff down there to look at. How can you go wrong with fire jugglers? And colored lights on ice carvings? And frozen fountains and people ice skating? It'll be great. Anchorage does know how to throw a party, and it's FREE! (Best part.)

[chknltl]

15. Both lenses are a good tactic

Perhaps swap them around periodically and learn the advantages of each. For months I would shoot live bands in low light and shifting light circumstances using my flash. There was much to learn here, rear and front curtain sync, stroboscopic bursts, bounce and adding gels were tricks I worked with. There is much I never learned in regards to my flashgun but by concentrating on a single technique I gained confidence with it. That is my advice here...choose an item which you wish to learn about, perhaps that 50mm. lens and give it a workout for a period of time, get comfortable with it and you will gain confidence in using it. You can use it easily hand held, wide open no strobe with 400 speed film in dimly lit stage show settings....I have done that very thing with a "mosh pit" directly behind me. 800 speed film gave me a little more speed and was preferable, pushing that 800 to 1600 provided the best results for me.

There is a lot of good advice here by all of us, some advice contrary to other advice. From what I can see nobody here has offered up anything bad, the contrariness comes from purpose. What your intentions are dictates what advice given will suit you best. For instance "Flash or No Flash": Shooting some folks with a flash at night is absolutely a "NO-NO" (When in doubt seek permission). Other times as in shooting candids it may be OK and still in other times like that image of the children here in this thread a flash can be downright necessary in order to achieve that very affect. It all comes down to purpose.

I know I speak for everyone here when I say we look forward to seeing the results of your shoot from tonight. Perhaps some of those pics which turn out bad can be posted as well. Someone here will likely be able to tell you what went wrong and why...that is a part of the learning curve too. (Sometimes a technique that is wrong for one application becomes a "cool" trick for a different application).
c

PS: Don't forget to take the lensbrush! ;)

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

5. expose for the highlights and forget the dark

you don't need to go to 1600/3200... 200 or 400 will be just fine.

you can't possibly hand hold long enough for dark details, so forget them, go for the lights, and even though they are in the dark, they are still the same settings...

so for 400 use f4 at 60 or 125

also, will you have a flash? cause you can get some great shots even at ISO 100.. like this one I did last night at Rockefeller Center 100ISO, f2.5 1/39 shutter


depends on what you want to do.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Oh, cute. Your kids? Grandkids?

Well, I can see from these responses that there's more than one way to skin a cat, as my old dad used to say. Guess I'll just try a bunch of stuff and see what happens.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

8. kids

and you are right, there are entire books written on just this subject.

[GOPFighter]

9. Night shots are fun!

If you use the 17-85 at it's widest zoom (17-25) you can almost certainly go down to 1/15 sec or even 1/8 if you have a steady hand (or if you can find a lamppost or something to brace yourself against). Light meters are easily tricked at night. I usually underexpose my night shots about -0.7 f-stop. Also, you will probably have more light available than you think so you may not need to go as high as 1600 on the ISO. I would try ISO 400 to begin with and move it up if you need more light (noise in night shots seems to be more noticeable than in day shots!).

Of course I'm basing much of this on my Olympus 5050 which isn't as flexible as your setup.

Here's a photo I took last summer, and the settings from my EXIF file:



This picture was taken at 1/10 sec handheld (I braced against a lamppost), f 2.0, the zoom was slightly wide at 44mm, the ISO was 125. The camera was set on automatic - I didn't select any of the settings.

Good luck! Sounds like fun!

[Blue_In_AK]

12. I'm really quite amazed at how much light

the camera can take in at night. Christmas night I went out on my front porch with the tripod and just took some shots up into the tree branches at different settings to see what would happen. It was a cloudy night, no moon, just reflection from the city lights, but most of the shots I took were overexposed. I was surprised.

[F.Gordon]

10. Ok.... don't use ISO 1600 or ISO 3200

:silly:

Your Night Flash auto setting will default to ISO 400. Personally... I don't like using Flash at night. But like Wanna' said.... focus on the main light source. Use a flash? Ice Carvings.... you'll get some nasty reflections. Fire Jugglers and Ice Skaters.... you'll blind them and they'll set themselves on fire and/or crash into each other.
:rofl:

Oh... and it's New Years? Hey!! Have a great time.
:hi:

[Blue_In_AK]

11. I'm really looking forward to this outing

because it's so different from what I usually do. Plus, it's not too cold, and we've got good warm winter gear, so we should be able to hang out for a couple of hours without getting too chilly. Then we're coming home to have Alaskan crab legs and shrimp cocktail, a bottle of wine, and Dick Clark, I suppose. :)

[F.Gordon]

13. Didn't Dick Clark die 10 years ago?

We're hangin' tonight. Nuttin' special. Sounds like you have a great night planned. I say.. concentrate less on getting good photographs and just have a good time.
:party:

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

14. Keep the camera lens out, don't put it in your jacket

or you will get fog in it...

do keep the batteries warm if you can... a shirt pocket should work.

[Blue_In_AK]

16. Oh, thanks, I didn't think of that. n/t