A couple of weeks ago I decided to practice my night photography and make use of my new ultra light tripod. So I went to Stanford University down the road one full-moon night.Played with apeture and shutter speeds. Despite the LCD making a lot of the pics look good, a lot of them were out of focus when I viewed them on the pc. I got better results with a smaller apeture and longer shutter time (which is not surprising). Any Tips Matt?
Here are some better ones.
1 comment:
Yeah - focus properly. ;)
Typically _all_ cameras have issues focussing in low light. It can be a pain in the ass.
One of the easiest ways to get around the problem is to bring a torch. Shine it on the object and lock in the focus. Remember to turn the torch off before you take the shot. ;)
If you're shooting something at distance the torch won't be very effective. If you have manual control of your focus use it to set to infinity. Note that infinity may not be located at the end of the focus range - check it by shooting during the day at an object far away.
If you don't have manual focus control then the best bet is to find an area of high contrast (near a light for example) and use that to find your focus. Cameras can use high contrast areas more effectively to deduce focus.
As you said, small apertures (ie large F-stop numbers) are usually better in low light because they have a greater depth of field and, therefore, are more forgiving of inaccurate focus.
It's also worth remembering that flare (that star effect around lights) is greater with large apertures. So if you want to use that effect go with a smaller aperture but be uber careful with the focus.
Hopefully that helps!
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