Late night lighting

[klara92090]

Hello everyone. First off, this is my first post so glad to be part of the forums here Okay, down to business. I had an idea and needed some tips:

I had this idea of taking photographs of places really late at night (midnight to 1 AM), like the pier at the beach for instance, or a street by my house, completely abandoned and totally undisturbed. I wanted to achieve a certain eerie quality to the pictures, with a possible ghosting effect (having someone in the photograph move around a bit, in order to achieve a certain ghost-like blur). The only lights that will be involved would be the street lamps.

Curious as to how I should approach the lighting: should flash be used? If not, how long should exposure be for, and are there any recommended ISO's? 100 would be great, but I'm not sure if that would hold up this late at night...or could it? I'm still sort of an amateur at this, haha. Well, with late night photographs, that is.

And as for the ghosting effect, any advice? It would be much appreciated.

Thanks, everyone!

[OsmosisStudios]

What you'll want is a good sturdy tripod. Set the camera on that and use either the bulb mode or a 30s exposure. Having your subject walk around will cause the "trail" of where they are, but flashing them with a flash will temporarily freeze them in the scene.

I'd recommend ISO100, f/11 and whatever shutterspeed you need to get the effect you want. Ambient light will be fine unless you want to stop someone for a brief flash of their movements.

[Chip]

A tripod and experimenting will serve you well.

For ghosting, in addition to what OS said, you could also try, say, a 30s exposure. Then, have your subject move around in the scene, but have him/her stay still in a couple of different places for say 5-10 seconds each. Most likely, the subject won't show up when he/she is moving, but will show up as a "ghost" when he/she is still. The longer the person stays still, the more "real" they will appear.

And the length of shutter needed will depend on your ISO (lower lets you use a longer shutter), your aperture (a higher f# will let you use a longer shutter), and the amount of ambient light (less ambient light will let you use a longer shutter). Each setting and situation are different, so there's no bright line rule to follow.

Just experiment, pay attention to both what changes from shot to shot and your results, and have fun. You'll get the hang of it soon.

[RexK_Cozumel]

honestly a 30 second exposure is way too long if you want to get a ghosting effect. At least if the people are moving at a normal pace. They will dissappear completely. I would try a ~3 sec exposure