Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: Digiteyesed on August 15, 2005, 03:43:32 am

Title: Low light shots
Post by: Digiteyesed on August 15, 2005, 03:43:32 am
I'm not sure about Nikons, but long exposures are nothing to sweat on a Canon dSLR. I routinely push my exposures up to the half hour mark:

http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/image...05/01/00300.php (http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/images/2005/01/00300.php)
http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/image...04/11/00009.php (http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/images/2004/11/00009.php)
http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/image...04/10/00022.php (http://www.digiteyesed.com/portfolio/images/2004/10/00022.php)

I'm not the type to shoot concerts and bars at high ISOs, so you'll have to talk to someone else about that. :-)
Title: Low light shots
Post by: Ben Rubinstein on August 15, 2005, 06:33:11 pm
Sean, I visited your website, very impressed. What technique are you using for good quality half hour exposures on digital? Longer exposures and lower iso or the other way round? Are you running extensive noise removal, etc?
Title: Low light shots
Post by: Digiteyesed on August 15, 2005, 09:59:45 pm
The truth is that I don't meter at all -- I just do the rule of thumb thing. I keep my exposures to around 4 - 5 minutes at ISO 200 if there's a full moon (if there's snow on the ground I shoot at ISO 100 for around 3 minutes). If there's no moon in the sky at all and the area is completely dark, you can leave the shutter open for hours.

Here's an article I wrote (in PDF format) that you will probably find helpful:

http://www.digiteyesed.com/clippings/f2_lp_article.pdf (http://www.digiteyesed.com/clippings/f2_lp_article.pdf)

I've since upgraded to a Canon 20D, but find that it is just fine for long exposures as well.
Title: Low light shots
Post by: geradthomas517 on August 17, 2005, 12:11:23 pm
Sean...
Outstanding work!!!!!
Title: Low light shots
Post by: wjy on August 17, 2005, 08:54:58 pm
After looking in the manual I see it has a bulb setting for longer exposures.  so never mind my last post.
Title: Low light shots
Post by: wolfnowl on August 18, 2005, 08:03:04 am
Canon (Japan) has an online article on astrophotography here. (http://web.canon.jp/Imaging/astro/index-e.html)

Mike.
Title: Low light shots
Post by: photo0551 on August 15, 2005, 02:29:44 am
Some time back I migrated to digital - D1x.  I have a Mamiya 7II and Mamiya 645AFD outfits.  I have a fairly large archive of film which I am slowly scnning via a Nikon 9000.  The question is low light photography.  I enjoyed shooting as high as 6400 ISO rated film.  Found a few films that had their purposes and could give the details that made the low light work appealing.  I am curious about how the opinions run on the new high end Nikon / Canon / digital cameras deal with low light work.  I have been only modestly pleased with the D1x.  good but not great at the 1600 and 3200 ISO equivalents.  Certainly no options above.  I enjoy going into parks and bars and other low light places at night to shoot and enjoy the night.  Any thoughts?

Thank you.
Title: Low light shots
Post by: Jonathan Wienke on August 15, 2005, 12:11:39 pm
I shoot a lot of concerts and such at ISO1600 with the Canon 1D-MkII. This is a fairly representative sample:

(http://www.visual-vacations.com/Galleries/2005-03-04/finding_mercury/images/2005-03-04-0235.jpg)

No noise processing, just a batched action to resize and sharpen for the web gallery. This is a full-frame ISO1600 wedding shot with a 100% crop overlaid:

.(http://galleries.visual-vacations.com/images/2004-12-09-0006.jpg)

Both images were shot RAW, and converted with ACR. All in all, I think you'll find digital much better than film; ISO 1600 on the 1D-MkII is better than most ISO400 35mm film.
Title: Low light shots
Post by: Dr. Gary on August 15, 2005, 06:54:38 pm
Sean, I also visited your site and was wondering how you meter for 1/2 hour? I do a lot of night shooting on a tripod at ISO 100 with my 1DS Mk II and don't have any problems with noise, but I don't have a way to calculate that long an exposure.

drgary
Title: Low light shots
Post by: Andres Bonilla on August 15, 2005, 11:25:50 pm
Sean beautiful photos in your website!
Title: Low light shots
Post by: Digiteyesed on August 17, 2005, 05:18:03 pm
Thanks very much everyone for the kind words.  :D
Title: Low light shots
Post by: wjy on August 17, 2005, 08:46:26 pm
Quote
I've since upgraded to a Canon 20D, but find that it is just fine for long exposures as well.
I don't shoot long exposures at all but I have a 20d and as far as I can tell the 20d only goes up to a 30 second exposure,  so how can you get 4-5 minute or hour long exposures with the 20d?  If it will do it can you tell me how.
thanks
Title: Low light shots
Post by: Digiteyesed on August 18, 2005, 01:43:17 am
You'll need the remote release cable to use the bulb setting.