Greeting
Nyoman

Not enough light? Dark picture.
Not holding the camera steady? Shake.

Not just ‘night’ issues but photography issues.

Night photography does not have to be all about long exposures, which is the main issue I have with this guy’s presentation. No photography is ‘all about’ any two things. At the very least it is ‘all about’ three things; ISO, speed and aperture.

He obviously mentions opening the camera aperture as far as it goes which, with most consumer DSLRs and their kit lenses is where the limitation is, as most have variable max-aperture lenses that, as soon as you go 1mm past the wide angle setting, start closing the aperture down, usually to around 5.6 by the time you are zoomed in.

I shoot a lot of night photography. I typically shoot at 400ASA and usually no slower than 1/60th. How? Well, I live in Tokyo which is bathed in light. And I shoot with f/1.4 and f/1.2 lenses.

Night photography is not all about city landscapes, which is all this guy shows in his video. If you want to capture people moving without them being a blur, how do you do that at night? No answers here. And one great piece of advice might be for people to ditch their crappy kit lens and go get a 50mm 1.8, which we all know for both Canon and Nikon can be as cheap as chips.

People here above me mentioned star trails and very long exposure work in the country away from the city lights. Not mentioned at all here in this ‘night photography’ workshop. Plus, as someone rightly pointed out, that sort of work dictates smaller apertures. Partly for the detail, partly for the fact that at f22 and low ISO you will naturally increase the shutter speed which is what you are aiming for: to do everything possible to get as long a shutter speed as you can, i.e. lower the ISO, shut down the lens.

Basically photography is about figuring out the interaction between aperture, speed and iso and tailoring that to every given situation. If one isnt doing its thing to give you the picture, change the other two accordingly.

If you are going to do a night photography workshop then cover all kinds of night photography, not just the ‘I am out walking after dinner in Sydney and need a sharp picture of the Harbour Bridge’ style night photography.

Sure, that might be what a lot of people want to shoot better but why not, at the same time, introduce them something new in the subject department as well? And if you aren’t going to do that, call it a City Landscapes at Night workshop.

Yes low ISO so you have low noise. When you raise your ISO for long night exposures the noise becomes very evident.

Pete

My own question now: Why use low ISO on night photos? Is noise much more obvious on those kind of shots?

I’m a big fan of night photography as well. I’m lucky to live close to downtown Montreal, which is a great city, with a small mountain (Mount Royal) on which you can go to get spectacular views of the city.

Things you need for night photography.

1. Tripod
2. LOW ISO 100 or 200
3. F/8 or f/11 to get a good DOF
4. long shutter speeds (using either built in or bulb mode)

This also works great for shooting fireworks. 3-5 seconds is typically what I use for shooting fireworks.

Fireworks shot
http://www.petelanglois.net/gallery/5023330_vL9wk#301596918_vYSgj