# Taking Night Time Pics



## mysticbluex3 (Feb 15, 2005)

What is the best way to take night time pictures? I've been trying to take good pictures of my angel eyes (headlights off) at night w/o flash and all I see is the car and a blur of white lightfiling up the headlights. This is what I have tried: Using a tripod to minimize movement and increasing shutter speed. I have a cannon S400. Any advice? Thanks guys.


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## Rob V (Apr 4, 2005)

Increasing the shutter speed isn't really necessary but the tripod is. Just set your camera to the Flash-Off setting. This is usually the symbol with the lightning bolt with a circle and slash. This will force the camera to meter on available light alone and might give you about a 2 second shutter speed.


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## Bob Clevenger (Dec 17, 2004)

Actually you are on the right track. You want to significantly underexpose the photo compared to the automatic setting because the bright angel eyes will be overexposed otherwise. The camera (or external light meter) does not know that you are taking a photo of a small bright area (the angel eyes) surrounded by a large dark area (the rest of the car) and it will try to make it all 18% gray. You have to use a faster shutter speed and/or a smaller aperture to make the dark car stay dark.


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## KrisL (Dec 22, 2001)

What they said ^^

Also, angel eyes are bright enough that you can still use a fast shutter - 1/200 or so.. to capture just the white rings.

If you want the angel eyes and the rest of the car to both show up (without the angel eyes being overexposed), I recommend taking two pictures and combining them in photoshop.

Use something like 1/200 f/8 for the first picture, and 2sec f/8 for the second picture. Of course, you need to lock the focus on the camera and keep it on a tripod so that both shots are exactly the same frame.


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## KrisL (Dec 22, 2001)

Somewhat related picture:










Guy I knew took this picture [(c) Henry de Santos]. This is a 20 MINUTE exposure. He had strobe flashes that he flashed around the car and surrounding areas approx 15 times. You can see how much earth rotated in those 20 minutes by looking at the streaks on the stars.


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## xspeedy (Apr 10, 2003)

A steady platform is required. Even a camera on a tripod can shake if it is a windy day. For this pic, I put my cheap S50 on a trash can.

Fixed em:


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## KrisL (Dec 22, 2001)

xspeedy said:


> A steady platform is required. Even a camera on a tripod can shake if it is a windy day. For this pic, I put my cheap S50 on a trash can.


Those pictures didn't work.


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## xspeedy (Apr 10, 2003)

KrisL said:


> Those pictures didn't work.


Better than hand held. I wasn't packing a tripod and SLR for that trip.


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## KrisL (Dec 22, 2001)

xspeedy said:


> Better than hand held. I wasn't packing a tripod and SLR for that trip.


No, I mean posting the pics didn't work . All we can see is a "MyPhotoAlbum" advertisement thumbnail. Your browser probably has the picture cached... ctrl+reload this thread and you'll see it too. The site must not allow remote hot linking.


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## Vodka G (Jan 18, 2006)

the tripod is a must....just try diff 'shutter' aka 'exposure/EV' levels

i did say go with a -0.7 or so since the angel i is quite bright


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## KrisL (Dec 22, 2001)

Vodka G said:


> the tripod is a must....just try diff 'shutter' aka 'exposure/EV' levels
> 
> i did say go with a -0.7 or so since the angel i is quite bright


shutter speed and exposure/EV are different things.


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## xspeedy (Apr 10, 2003)

KrisL said:


> No, I mean posting the pics didn't work . All we can see is a "MyPhotoAlbum" advertisement thumbnail. Your browser probably has the picture cached... ctrl+reload this thread and you'll see it too. The site must not allow remote hot linking.


Thanks. I thought you were being critical 

Fixed now. I just uploaded them instead of linking.


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