So You are Thinking About Night Photography

So you are thinking about night photography and not sure if your camera can do it or what the settings you might use.

 

Most modern DSLR’s and Mirrorless cameras can take great pictures at night and of the stars, but I would recommend doing some testing before you go out on your first night of night photography shooting. The intent is to

  1. Let you know if your camera is suitable for night photography and
  2. To give you a starting point on the settings to use to get the best shot of the night sky or other night shot.

The steps used do not only apply to taking pictures of the sky but any night photography situation you are thinking about such as taking pictures of the city at night.

 

Night sky photography (AKA Astrophotography) is something that I’ve always wanted to and I needed to find out if my current camera was up to the job. On a recent night where there were no clouds in the sky I decided it was time to test my old trusty Nikon D80 to see if it was up to the job. So I headed outside with my tripod (A must if you are doing any low light photography), my Nikon D80 with the Nikkor 18-135 lens, and my wireless remote. The remote is not required, but it does make things a little faster to do. If you don’t have a remote trigger device be it wired or wireless, you can still get your night shots, but you will have to use the camera’s built-in timer function or you will get camera shake when you press down the shutter release button.

 

For my testing, I put my camera in manual mode, set the aperture (f-stop) as wide as my lens would let me at f3.5 with the lens at its widest setting of 18mm and set the exposure time to 30 secs, which is the longest my camera will go before switching to bulb mode. For the testing, you want the exposure time and f-stop fixed as you will be only adjusting the ISO setting for each shot. You will need to focus your camera to near infinity in order for the stars/night sky to be in focus. Do this manually by turning your focus ring all the way until it stops at infinity and turning it back just a little, or find a distant light and let your autofocus focus on that. After you have set your focus, you must turn off the autofocus feature of your lens or as soon as you go to click your shutter release your camera will just get stuck trying to focus and most likely never focus. On my Nikkor lens, I can turn off the autofocus on the lens. Your camera/lens will vary on how you turn auto focus off. It is your option whether or not to use the long exposure noise reduction option that your camera has. For my testing, I did use my camera’s long exposure noise reduction option. If you are not sure, take a series of pictures with it off, then another series with it on and compare.

 

Start out at the lowest ISO your camera has, in my case that was 100 and with each picture you take,  increase the ISO by one setting stop until you get to the highest your camera can do.  For my old trusty Nikon D80 that meant ISO’s of: 100, 125, 160, 200 250 320, 400, 500, 640, 800, 1000, 1250, 1600, HI 0.3, HI 0.7, HI 1.0. When it is all said and done, you should have a range of shots that vary just by the ISO. So I ended up with 16 shots.

 

This 5 of the images spread across the full 16 image range of images that I got during this test.

 

Click on each image to see the full version

At ISO 100
At ISO 100

At ISO 250
At ISO 250

At ISO 640
At ISO 640

At ISO 1600
At ISO 1600

At ISO Hi 1.0 Equivalent to 3200
At ISO Hi 1.0 Equivalent to 3200

 

After looking at my test shots it tells me a few things

  1. Due to light pollution and the low sensitivity of my sensor I”m not able to get the Milky Way with this camera. By today’s camera standards, my Nikon D80 has a very low sensitivity as its highest native setting was 1600. Most camera’s today got to at least 25,600.
  2. To get a decent amount of stars I need to use the higher ISO’s of my camera. At least 1600 if not the digitally enhanced HI settings.
  3. Even at the higher ISO’s my camera still cannot capture enough light for the faint stars. And even with noise reduction turned on, the pictures are still too noisy.

 

Just because I cannot capture the stars with my camera I did not give up on night photography as you may have seen in my previous posts from Light City Baltimore.

 

I’ve been able to get some great night shots in the city with my Nikon D80.  This is because the light it much brighter than the faint stars and my camera’s sensor is sensitive enough to get the light at this level.

Just keep in mind that you are doing this testing just as a starting point and to determine what is possible at the max aperture and timed exposure. Once you know this base, if it worked out for you, you can make adjustments when you change the exposure time and aperture. I won’t go into the formula here, but I’m sure you can find it on the internet.

 

For now, get out there and try some night photography shooting, I’m sure you will get some great pictures.

 

#nightphotography #Camera #Settings #testing #tips #night #recommendation


 

Things you do to get the shot

The things that you do to get that shot.

A few days ago I posted the following picture on my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/markdoddphotography/) BTW, if you like my photography, be sure to like this page.

20160307-DSC_3363_AuroraHDR_HDR

Although I did like it, something was not quite right. I had taken it on my tripod at the lowest height setting I could use. After someone commented on my Facebook page that they thought the hands were too close to the edge of the photo I realized that was what was bugging me about the photo.

Since I do not have a super wide-angle lens what was I going to do. My widest lens is a 18mm-135mm and that is the lens I used for this photo and was already at the widest setting of 18mm. I thought about it for a few days and decided I’d go back and just set the camera on the floor.

So yesterday I went back, set the camera on the floor and got ready to take a few photos. I’ve done this kinda thing before with sheer guesswork and multiple attempts. Take the photo, pick up the camera, check the image and repeat until I got what I was looking for. This takes forever and there is no sure way to know if I got the shot until I picked up my camera and took a look at what I just shot. Not to mention that you had to remember where the camera was when you picked it up so you knew where to place it when making an adjustment.

My camera does not have a flip screen or wi-fi, so I had no way to view the image live. Also it is inside and my camera doesn’t have a high enough ISO to let me hand hold it and get a noiseless photo without using a flash, which would destroy the look. What else was I going to do.

Then I started thinking. I have a cell phone, it has a forward facing camera so you will see on the screen what it is pointing to. Can I use this to see what I would see through the viewfinder. Turns out the answer is yes. I placed the camera on the floor, slide my cell phone under the viewfinder so the lens is lined up with the viewfinder, and low and behold, I could see on the screen what the viewfinder was showing.

Here is the picture of the setup on the floor at the base of the statue.

20160318-P1020408

I did have to use my lens cap to prop up the right side of my camera to make it level. So if you are going to do something like this, have a few small items that are the same thickness as your cell phone just in case you need to prop one side of you camera up like I did. I lucked out in that my lens cap was the same thickness as my cell phone

Here is of one of the photos I took with this setup. I think it turned out rather well with much more space between the hands and the edge of the frame and showing much more of the dome itself.

The Statue of Jesus in the Billings Building of Johns Hopkins Hospital
The Statue of Jesus in the Billings Building of Johns Hopkins Hospital

I do have a Black and White version that is colorized like the first photo on my store page so be sure to check that one out as well.

#tips #gettheshot #Hopkins #Baltimore