| Titan1080 |
04-04-2013 09:46 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Huck
(Post 2245161)
And let me ask you guys a question. During night shots, if I'm looking through the viewfinder, the camera has no problem focusing. But after it focuses it won't shoot, and it blinks the flash symbol at me. Then without moving or anything, I'll switch to live view and it has a lot of trouble focusing. Once I get it focused (or almost, as you can see in the first pic above) it will take the pic no problems, no flash. What I resorted to doing was looking through the viewfinder, focusing, then turning off the auto focus and switching to live view to take the pics. It was kind of a pain. What am I doing wrong? For reference, I'm shooting with a D5100, stock lens, and the settings were 100 ISO, 5.6 aperture, shutter speeds between 15 and 25 seconds depending on the shot, and an auto white balance. Suggestions?
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Can't really add to what was already posted in reply, but from an astrophotography perspective, night shots can be tricky, especially in metropolitan areas. I had all sorts of trouble trying to get a good shot of Comet Pan-Starrs a couple weeks ago from my deck and truely dark skies are a long drive away from me. Definitely pick up a remote trigger if you don't already have one and use the bulb setting for exposure length.
I used this shot to establish where the comet was since it was still fairly light out and the thing was already low in the sky, it's roughly centered above the trees: 28mm lens f/4.5 ISO 800 4-ish seconds.
Once I knew where it was, I switched to my 70-300mm and zoomed in: ISO 800, f/5.6, 2 seconds. I would have liked to have gone longer but at that level of zoom I would need a tracking mount....someday!
This one is a good illustration for getting out to the sticks. Car is a little out of focus but I was mainly wanting the stars in focus and the aperture setting I wanted couldn't get both. I was in a fairly dark rural area outside town and the nearby city lights still ruined the sky on exposures as short as 7 seconds like this one. I used an amber filter on my speed light and fired it manually a couple times to light up the car and foreground, the rest is light pollution. Also, I didn't see the powerlines at all until after I parked and my eyes adapted, definitely invest in a red flashlight so you can somewhat see in the dark without ruining your night vision: 28mm lens, ISO400, f/2.8, 7.5 seconds
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