Need technique help!

[paul25]

I'm a novice who's having trouble taking good pictures at night.

I was taking photos of my friend who stood across the Hudson River  of Manhattan high-rise at night.   I could not get BOTH him and the high-rise clearly.

I've tried flash, as well as slow shutter with lense wide open.
Nothing worked.

Please teach me how to do this right.

Thank you in advance.

[n1x0n]

I've tried flash, as well as slow shutter with lense wide open.

The only thing left is to try to combine long exposures AND flash... that's the key.

[pattyadams]

I'm a novice who's having trouble taking good pictures at night.

I was taking photos of my friend who stood across the Hudson River  of Manhattan high-rise at night.   I could not get BOTH him and the high-rise clearly.

I've tried flash, as well as slow shutter with lense wide open.
Nothing worked.

Please teach me how to do this right.

Thank you in advance.
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I'm a novice too, so others I'm sure will correct me if I'm wrong. You may need to alter your exposure till the background looks good and the add in fill flash to get the right exposure for your friend, assuming he is within the range of your flash.

[BryanHansel]

You may have to set your flash to account for the slow shutter speed required to get a good exposure on your background. I don't shoot Canon, but with Nikon you have to set the flash for slow to do what you want. Also, you may want to dial in some negative exposure comp on your flash. I usually dial in -.7.

Here's a snapshot I took this last summer. I exposed for the background, set it on a tripod, set the flash for slow exposure, dialed in -.7, and shot. The camera did the rest.

[Jonathan Wienke]

I've tried flash, as well as slow shutter with lense wide open.

That's likely your problem. With the lens wide open, it is impossible to get your friend and the background in focus simultaneously. You need to stop down if you want both in focus. This spreadsheet will help you calculate what aperture you need. The fill flash technique already mentioned will help you expose everything correctly, but will not help get everything in focus.

[howiesmith]

Perhaps a different way of saying this is:

1.  DoF is determined for this set of circumstances by f/stop and focus distance.

2.  Ambient exposure is determined by f/stop and shutter speed.

3.  Flash exposure is detremined by flash power, flash to sybjjct distance and f/stop.

To solve this problem:

1.  I would select the Dof needed for your friend and background to both be adequately in focus, which would provide the f/stop and focus distance.  There may be nothing to autofocus on at the distance you select.  In that case, try manual focus.  And remember, DoF also depends on other variables assumed here to be fixed (like ISO, lens focal length, print size, and viewing conditions, etc.) for a given photograph.

2.  Then I would meter the ambient to determine the shutter speed for the selected f/stop.  You can use ISO as a variable here.

3.  Last, I would determine the flash power and flash- subject distance for the selected f/stop (and ISO).