Nighttime Photography Help

well to start with, are you using a tripod. It is highly recommended in low light. Well for the F-Stop you want the lowest number. This will allow as much light in as possible. As for the shutter speed, it'll depend on the sensitivity (ISO) lower numbers like 200 are less sensitive,and good for bright light, or fast action. But when used with a slow shutter speed it can provide a nice clear image, in your case I would use 400. it's the middle of the road, any higher and the picture will start to look grainny. The Shutter speed will be quite low, how low I can't really say. Could likely be less than a second. What I would do is out of your digital cameras you have look for a setting "AV" and manually set the F-Stop. And let the camera then determine the shutter speed. Hope this helps.

 

I'm also not sure about the shutter speed, but I vouch for the tripod and the slow shutter speed to let in more light.
(I didn't have a tripod, so I ended up with beautiful bright blurry pictures >>)

 

Just as an example I set my camera to Aperture priority (AV), with the Aperture as open as possible, ISO 200, and took these. Shutter speeds where as slow as three to four seconds in some cases.

 

I have another suggestion. If you can set the camera to BULB mode (which lets you choose how long you can set the exposure for) or MANUAL mode (with a very long shutter), then set the F-stop to as low as possible (f-11 or f16), then you can play with the light that way, and just adjust the time instead of the f-stop. (but not to say that the other way won't work either! :-))

And a tripod is an absolute must. If you have a shutter release, even better.

 

Night Photography IS tricky - even for experienced photographers, and unfortunately, with digital photography, low-end cameras simply are not going to produce as strong results as higher-end models will. But that could be a GOOD thing - really interesting shots can be captured with perseverance and imagination!

Fireworks photography is not the same as photographing a doll under a streetlight and both of the above posts are actually "off-topic" for this board.

To begin photographing a doll in a nighttime vignette, you may want to begin experimenting at dusk before you move into full dark. If you can manually set your camera, then do dial your ISO up experimentally. I, personally, love to shoot wide open at 1600 - even with film - because I really jive with grainy, selectively focused images. But 800 ISO may be the highest your camera can go without resulting in a grainy look. An aperture of 5.6 is always a good starting place - and let your camera decide on the shutter speed. A tripod is absolutely essential. As it gets darker, the issue is going to be auto-focusing in low light and again, individual cameras are going to have different strengths and weaknesses.

Experiment! Digital film is cheap! This might actually be a great photo challenge with members posting their images and how they got their results!

 

Be aware that the type of artificial lighting will give a color cast in your pictures. If you can find out what type of light is being used, you might be able to set your white balance accordingly. Otherwise, you'll have to fix it with an image editing program like Photoshop.

What is the Cybershot model you are using? The Olympus camera you have does have the capability to shoot in Aperture/Shutter/Manual modes.

As the others have suggested, definitely use a tripod. Also, make use of the self-timer so that you will get the least amount of camera shake when the picture is being taken.

 

Fireworks photography is not the same as photographing a doll under a streetlight and both of the above posts are actually "off-topic" for this board.

Well, first, my apologies for any 'off-topic' message on the board. However, what I was trying to point out, is that there are different methods for taking a photo at night, regardless of street lights, complete darkness or whatnought. It just so happened that this particular method involved fireworks as a subject.

All of these variables, ISO, F-stop, shutter speed, all play together. You can choose to go at a higher ISO and have a larger F-stop and shorter shutter speed. Or you can go lower ISO, have a smaller F-stop and longer shutter speed, if you don't want the grainy effect of a higher ISO

It honestly depends on the effect you want to get. There's no one way to do anything.

Another technique is to use a flash light and do a "light painting" while your subject is in the dark. A very cool effect

Here's an interesting source on night photography that you might find useful.

http://www.thenocturnes.com/resources.html

Anyways best of luck on the shooting. Can't wait to see what you post.

 

Thank you for apologizing, JadeCat. Of course you were lending expertise and tips to the subject at hand. I think the tricky part of keeping photography tips on-topic for DoA and our members is the fact that much of the dollery is about communicating through our bjd photographs and although most everyone is striving to take better and stronger photos, for the most part members want to primarily take photos of their bjds! And photographing bjds is all about photographing an inanimate object - but not a still life! The goal is - usually - infusing the dolls with "life." I say "usually" because, of course, there are some wonderful art type photographs with the dolls that just have nothing whatesoever to do with a doll's individually assigned character and much more to do with Art or Psychology.

I hope I'm not sounding obvious - that's not my intention.