HEADPHONES Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 Got my first ever proper camera. An entry level Canon EOS 1300D with a bundled efs18-55 lens. Looking to take pics of my sunset orange Zed at night under street lights or supermarket carpark lights. I've gathered I need a bigger aperture setting and longer exposure to let more light in. Put the shutter on a timer to prevent camera shake. But that's all i know. As there is no settings on my camera labelled "bigger and longer" I was wondering if anyone could give me rough settings as a starting point. Hoping to capture some flake popping shots soon as the old Galaxy S3 doesn't cut the mustard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 Best thing you can do is just play around and note down what settings you used, what worked / what failed, etc... This way you learn through experience instead of being spoon fed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KyleR Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 (edited) The easiest way is to set it to auto and see what settings the camera picks and then adjust off that knowing what each setting changes. For example - lower aperture numbers shorten the FOV (field of view) meaning that a smaller portion of the photo will be in focus. This produces the wonderful images you see of a single flower being sharp and the rest of the picture blurred out (bokeh) Larger aperture numbers will increase the size of this area, but will require extra light from other settings, such as longer exposure times. ISO is the sensitivity of the sensor, higher numbers make it more sensitive to light and therefore able to take better pictures in low light situation, the negative side is noise, there will be odd random coloured pixels in the shot which may or may not lower the quality of the picture. Edited July 23, 2016 by KyleR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMballistic Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 My experience with cameras is a little behind the times to be honest as I took most of my pictures back in the day (1990-2000's+) with my old Minolta SLR 35mm camera but some things should be the same I'd guess. When taking pictures in dark surroundings with lights around (like traffic lights, building lights, moving cars etc) then if you want a really cool effect you can't beat "light trails" imo. As below... To do this you will need to set your camera up in position on a tripod firstly. Then with your camera set in "manual" mode set it to a long exposure setting (shutter speed open for longer) and adjust the "F" value to a higher setting (13-14 ish). You may need to play around to see what looks best and if possible use a remote control for the camera for taking the picture to avoid any camera shake. I searched Youtube just quickly to see if there was a video which explained it better. This is what I found... Hope that helps. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
350zedd Posted July 23, 2016 Share Posted July 23, 2016 I would advise using a tripod if you are doing night shots, and keep the ISO at 100 to keep the image quality high. You could probably get away with hand held shots, but you'd have to wang the ISO setting up higher to get a faster shutter to prevent blur. As Kyle said, this will degrade the image with "noise" and the image quality will suffer. Putting the shutter on a timer will only prevent camera shake if its on a tripod. If you are just starting out, set the camera to AUTO and let it decide what to do, while you figure out how different settings affect the image. Alternatively, set the camera mode to aperture priority with an aperture of say f5.6 and let the camera decide the shutter speed. As I said, use a tripod for best results. I would shoot raw files as this will allow you to alter the white balance later on in post processing. This would be useful for correcting any colour cast caused by street or supermarket floodlighting. If you shoot jpeg, any post processing will degrade the image. Good luck...don't forget to post your results up here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HEADPHONES Posted July 24, 2016 Author Share Posted July 24, 2016 Thanks for the tips guys. So I got me a tripod. Chose ISO 100 Tried auto as a baseline then took multiple shots adjusting settings to see the difference. Got a bunch of pics all with subtle changes. Will post a few up. I'll use a tablet to help view the images as I go next time. I didn't realise the decals on the rims were out of focus until I viewed larger images. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HEADPHONES Posted July 24, 2016 Author Share Posted July 24, 2016 Will work on getting the results with a simple static background before I tackle anything like light trails. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cearnshaw85 Posted September 12, 2016 Share Posted September 12, 2016 My experience with cameras is a little behind the times to be honest as I took most of my pictures back in the day (1990-2000's+) with my old Minolta SLR 35mm camera but some things should be the same I'd guess. When taking pictures in dark surroundings with lights around (like traffic lights, building lights, moving cars etc) then if you want a really cool effect you can't beat "light trails" imo. As below... To do this you will need to set your camera up in position on a tripod firstly. Then with your camera set in "manual" mode set it to a long exposure setting (shutter speed open for longer) and adjust the "F" value to a higher setting (13-14 ish). You may need to play around to see what looks best and if possible use a remote control for the camera for taking the picture to avoid any camera shake. I searched Youtube just quickly to see if there was a video which explained it better. This is what I found... [media] [/media] [media] [/media] Hope that helps. WOW thanks for this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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