Vacation Question 4: Making Sure to Get Enough Good Night Shots?

[Suhit Gupta]

Continuing the question series - here is Question 4:

Question 3 had to do with whether you spend more time taking pictures or spending more time having fun in the moment. Question 4 goes into night photography and what are the things one needs to do in order to get all those great night shots. To some extent, it goes back a little to DSLR vs. Point and Shoot as well.

So here is the question - If you are in a place where there are a lot of lights (fireworks, floats, etc.), and you don't have a tripod, how do you make sure you get enough good shots? If you have a Point and Shoot, is your only hope to put it on no-flash mode and take lots of shots hoping to get enough non-blurry ones (since point and shoot cameras a super vulnerable to motion blur when taking pictures in no-flash mode)? Or is a DSLR the only answer to this problem?

[Vincent Ferrari]

Here's some tips I employ:

1. Grab one of the "little" tripods. Something like the Gorillapod, the Monsterpod, or the ClamperPod would be a huge help in shooting fireworks or night shots and they're portable enough to bring with you. If you can't do that, try and stabilize the camera on anything around. A handrail is usually ideal, but I've used a traffic light pole (http://www.flickr.com/photos/vincenzof/315364992/in/set-72157594408304925/) also.

2. If you can't control the shutter, try firing a few off in Sports mode. You may lose some resolution, but the shutter will be somewhat quicker. You could also experiment with different flash settings for speeding up the shutter. Also note that many point and shoot cameras now include Fireworks mode so that does make things easier!

3. Avoid using IS for Fireworks. It really doesn't do anything and might only slow you down.

Most importantly, though, is take a lot of shots and don't trust the LCD! ;-)

Oh, and exhale as you press the shutter. It does help!

[Kris Kumar]

I am always learning, constantly experimenting, to sharpen my skills. Check out some of the experiments. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kris_kumar/tags/lowlight) :-)

Tip #1: Buy the Pod. (http://thepod.ca) Every photographer must own one. Throw it in your car's glove box, you never know when it might come in handy. If you have the Pod, then buy a good tri-pod. ;-)

Tip #2: If you don't have any stand, then your best bet is higher ISO. And maybe opening up the aperature.

Tip #3: Keep practicing.

Fireworks, I always shoot them at ISO 100, f/10 or f/11, 5 secs. Definitely need a stand and use either a remote trigger or timer.

[Tim Williamson]

Here's an interesting article on using a slow sync flash technique that looks pretty neat: http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/slow-sync-flash/

http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/slow-sync-flash-2.jpg

[Kris Kumar]

Another tip, shoot in RAW. Though while shooting the fireworks with my first gen DRebel I found that the camera could not keep up with my clicking.