ok. so as mentioned in my “Eurofighter Typhoon” post, I always struggle a little with night time photography. no issues with static subjects as I have time to work settings out. more, moving subjects so obviously hand held. if for argument sake, I’m shooting through a chain link fence (like most UK bases) I try to use f2.8 to minimise the chances of getting the fence shadows in and it obviously helps with low light situations. I avoid auto ISO as this tends to use ridiculous values to obtain correct exposure.
how do you get tack sharp images hand held in low/little light situations?
Well, I haven’t shot night photography for a long time. I think the same rules still apply though, since we’re still confronted with too little light reaching a sensor which still needs ample light to get a decent image.
So, even though IS is a generation or two better these days, and in-body with certain cameras, it’s still not enough to shoot with a high keeper rate at night I think. So a tri / mono pod is needed.
Higher ISO’s are better quality these days, with less noise, but like you said, if you go too high, it becomes a mess again. So there you have to find your camera’s sweet spot.
A moving target then becomes even more difficult, since you still need long shutter speeds. But using a tripod and pan horizontally would work, but the relative movement of the subject in relation to the camera makes it really hard to not have any motion blur on the subject.
One final thing I can suggest, something which I’m not able to do myself, since I don’t have any gear, is; practice, practice, practice. Just try different settings, setups and compositions and see what works best for you in combination with your gear.
For this alone I wish I had some gear again… just shooting to get in that state of flow again and figure out what works best for me. Now every time I pick up a rented kit, it feels like I have to start all over again.
cheers Roger. I know what to do, I’m just crap at doing it.as I said, I have no issue with tripod settings as I have time to work things out for static subjects, when its moving its so much harder as a tripod isn’t really an option.
I guess the issue is, as you point out, I need more practice.i have done 1 night shoot in my life and that was static aircraft.
This is an age old problem, I can only echo Roger’s advice to take loads of images, the keeper rate will be very low but you only need one to be sharp! Bump up the ISO as much as possible to have at least a workable shutter speed at 2.8 and use noise reduction in post to compensate.
