Taking night shots?

What are your tips for taking shots at night?

I would like to take some of the church near my house, it looks amazing at night all lit up. Not too sure about wandering around a dark graveyard though

Use a tripod and longer shutter speeds

Or increase ISO - but downside to that is noise.

If the object is still (like a building) longer shutter speeds will give you the best shot.

If the object is moving, then higher ISO will

You must be brave going to a church at night

Thanks Azz, I am hoping there will be nothing moving in the graveyard

Brave or stupid, one of them, I just think it would make some lovely pictures.

Yup...pretty much what Azz said.

Also..if you have self timer, set it to 10 seconds or so, frame up, press the trigger, and take a step back. This will eliminate any vibration caused by your hand, despite the camera being mounted.

A remote shutter switch will also help too.
I use one sometimes. The cable is only a couple of feet long, but it's very useful.

Okay, I really need to buy a tripod then.

Guess i won't be walking through the graveyard tonight then

Not good when you're in a graveyard alone at night

You could of course 'borrow' a convenient gravestone to rest the camera on if you don't have a tripod....

But agree with all everyone has said - a nice long shutter speed!

Something also to consider is the type of lighting used to illuminate the building - some come out a little strange in the camera if the colour temperature is extreme... Try some, and see what results you get - but to improve, you may need to adjust the white balance in your camera setting to get an even better result...

I wouldn't go wandering around a graveyard at night taking photos, you might get some "ghosting" on the pictures.

Bazza

Reminds me of the story of two ladies walking thru a village in Italy. One said to the other "I think I can hear what sounds like music from somewhere"

The other lady said " yes so can I.I think its music being played backwards. I wonder where its comming from?"

So the two ladies followed the sound to outside the village until they came to a low stone wall from which the music was comming from the other side.

So they lent over to see a graveyard with two gravediggers digging away. So they said to the two gravediggers "We think we can hear music comming from inside the graveyard , but it sounds as if its being played backwards".

"Thats right" said one of the grave diggers "Thats Motzart decomposing "

Bazza

I find for night shots, its best to go to manual or aperture priority. f/8 and use manual focus depending on the ambient light.

Drop the iso to the lowest your camera will do, 200 is a good starting point. Take a shot with about a 8 sec exposure and check the pic and adjust the exposure time accordingly. Also the world is very orange at night so either play with the white balance settings or shoot in RAW and auto white balance and adjust later.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Going to buy a tripod first.and then I am going to ask the vicar if it would be okay if I took some pictures inside during a bright day , it has stunning windows.
The church is open anyway, but thought it is polite to ask really.

Here's what I do for taking long exposure or night shots:

1. A tripod. It's a must. There's no way round it. Your camera will be on a long exposure setting so ANY type of movement is going to blur and ruin the photo. I got my tripod (about 5 foot tall) for £20 on Ebay. Tripods are cheap. Even our local camera shop in the town centre which is usually expensive has a huge 6 foot+ tripod for £35.

2. Have a camera that lets you manually adjust the exposure time. What this basically means is that the shutter stays open for x number of seconds. Depending on how dark it is, and how much surrounding ligt there is (eg street lamps etc) will depend on how long you keep the shutter open for.

I have found that experimentation is best here, that's the beauty of digital. You can keep altering the settings and reviewing the picture until you are happy.

3. As other have already said, up the ISO number. Again, experiment with this and find out what works best

4. Manual or auto focus? If you are using a DSLR you may find that the auto focus won't work. If it's dark, it won't be able to pick a focal point and will just whirr and buzz and sound confused. Switch to manual focus and you'll be fine.

5. Make sure nothing is moving. If anything in the frame is moving, i.e people, trees in the wind, you'll get blurry shapes in the photo. This sometimes looks great, other times it looks awful!

6. Try a manual shutter release. I bought one on Ebay for £5. It's a switch on a cable that plugs into your camera (Mines a Canon EOS 350D) You click the switch and hold it, when you release it clicks the shutter. What it means is that if you have the patience, you can hold the shutter open for 3, 5, 10, 15, 30 minutes!