Night photography

[Drako]

Hi All,

As a newcomer to this site and to photography in general i was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction.
I have seen some wonderful photos of aircraft at night where the lights are streaming and would love to give this a try.
Can anyone point me to a thread or site where i can get some info on how to achieve this effect.
Thank you for your time,

Paul.


.

[airPLAINcrazy]

Its all in the shutter speed

Hey,

I dont know what camera you're using, but you'll need a DSLR. An ordinary point nd shoot cam wont be able to do this for you.

Assuming you have a DSLR, you'll need a sturdy tripod.

Set ur DSLR onto shutter priority...and choose a value of around...10 seconds. set the focus to manual, and click the shot before the aircraft actually gets into view.
Then you should get something like this...

http://www.jetphotos.net/viewqueued_b.php?id=1936712

was this the effect you were trying to achieve?

Regards
Gurcharan Bhoday

[Drako]

Thank you Gurcharan,

Yes that was the type of shot i was hoping for.
I have a sony Alpha DSLR.
Now that you have shown me the way i will get out their and practice.
Again thank you very much.

Paul.

[airPLAINcrazy]

hey, no probelem dude, pleased to help.

Forgot to add though, make sure your auto ISO feature is turned OFF!!! then set your ISO to 100 or the lowest on your camera. On my pic (which now got accepted yaaaay) the auto ISO was turned on...so the computers onboard whacked the ISO up to 1600 which made the image...a tad grainy lol.
avoid that and turn the blessed thing off, sometimes it even gives me ISO's like...360 :-S on my D40X which in good light puts my shutter speeds upto 1/2000 lol.

Happy Shooting

[ollieholmes]

Very good advice there. I cant stress the importance of a good tripod and keeping your iso as low as possible enough.

Good luck and i look forward to seing the results.

[tommyalf]

I'd also look into getting a remote shutter switch, espeically if you are using bulb mode where you are opening and closing the shutter yourself. Even the slightiest touch to the camera can resulte in blur. Check Ebay for remote switches. I bought an after market version for my 30D for 14 bucks, works great and is a def must for night shotting.

[Drako]

Well thanks again guys for your advice. As a noobie i have learnt so much from reading this forum and the tips you are all kind enough to share with others.
I will take everything on board that you have said and hopfully will be able to post some night shots on the D.B. in the future.
Good luck to you all and happy snapping.



Paul

[FlyingPhotog]

It's pretty much impossible to catch a sharp photo of a moving aircraft at night.

Saying that, the same guidelines apply to all night shots whether it's an aircraft or not. Here's a useful tutorial I found. http://www.schoolofphotography.com/night/night.html I taught myself just by trial and error. In other words, practice by taking many shots with different settings. Figure out what looks best to you.