night photography?

[aimeekitty]

I have a CAMERA QUESTION!

hehe... so if I'm lucky, one of our hotels will be right in Gion (shinbashi).
Part of this is because I kind of silly-ly want to catch a Maiko or Geisha on the way to their appointments at night.

My camera is a Canon A95, I think? Kinda a middle of the road camera, I guess? I like it a lot and it does have some manual features.

my question is,... if I want to take some low-light or night photos with this camera, is that possible? What settings should I have it on for the best effect? Do I have to use a strong flash or a tripod to get any decent photo at all?
Thanks in advance! :)

Comments

[eaglemaina.livejournal.com]

If you want to take night pictures, you will definitly need a tripod. The camera will need to be set so that a shot will take maybe 1 to 2 seconds to be done, so a tripod will insure that the camera doesn't move during that time.

A flash, well you can use one only if you want to alter the lighting of the scene you want to shoot. If not, then only the tripod will do. =)

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

I'd prefer not to flash a poor maiko if I dont have to (that' sounds wrong. ho ho)

[ziggybecket.livejournal.com]

Yes it's doable, but you'll probably need a tripod or something really steady. Hand holding that camera won't do it.

Get a tripod or put it on something stationary and set it the camera for long exposure. There should be a preset for that or to do it manually, go to shutter priority mode (S or T on your dial) and then set it to the longest shutter it supports. I think for that camera it's 2 or 10 seconds. It'll look like 2" in the LCD.

Something else you'd probably want to set is ISO. Your camera will probably go up to 400 ISO, but I don't recommend it because your images will come out really noisy. But try it to see if you like the results. You'll probably want to stick with ISO 200 for the cleanest photos.

Definitely try it out here and then look at the pictures on your computer.

If you're out and about and really want to take a picture without a tripod, go ahead and set the ISO 400 or higher if it supports it. Better a noisy picture then no picture at all. Don't use the longer shutter setting when you are hand holding, just set it on Program (P) and set the ISO to 400 and let the camera decide the shutter setting.

All of the above with no flash of course. Flash would ruin any night shots anyway.

Now if you're stalking people, I'd recommend a a low end Canon or Nikon DSLR with a 300mm/2.8 lens. Set that to 1600 or 3200 ISO and you can take some really good stalker photos from a distance. :D

Not that I would know such a thing... >_>;;;

[ziggybecket.livejournal.com]

Oh! If you're going to take a photo at night of someone moving? Hmm, that'll be a tough one.

Without a flash then yah, try going into P (Program Mode) and set the ISO to 400 or higher if your camera supports it. It'll be hard though, taking a photo of someone moving at night is difficult with point and shoot cameras.

[eaglemaina.livejournal.com]

ahahahhahaahah!!

Well if you are shooting people, that might cause some problems as they have to be very still. Just a warning, but you might have to take more than one shot each time. =)

[taeha.livejournal.com]

Use the little running man icon (high speed mode). It'll make the shutter speed up enough to capture the photo. Your photo will be darkish, but it'll at least be in focus. If you use the flash this will work especially well. But if you turn the flash off, it'll still work as long as there's enough ambient light.

DO NOT use the nighttime mode, it slows down the shutter to get enough light, and makes everything blurry and sometimes does double images. It's horrible.

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

yeah 400 iso is the highest I can get. Do you think, logistically, it would be worth it for me to have a tripod? Maybe a less obtrusive one somehow? I mean if I'm walking around at night, I wont have much time to hook up a tripod, so I'd have to carry it attached to the camera right? what do you think?

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

I might be able to get them to pause for me to take a picture. They're used to people asking for a photo, but sometimes they are in a hurry and I wont have that option.

I have the same camera as AJ.

I have a Tv on my dial,... is that shutter priority mode? haha. I'm lame. which one is the shutter setting?

stalker camera... haha how much do those run now a days? :_D

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

thankyou! :D

[ziggybecket.livejournal.com]

Yah, I don't think a tripod would be that convenient to take around. There are mini ones, but they aren't that stable. And if you're primary goal is to get a picture of someone, that's not gonna fly either, you'd have to stop them, setup the tripod, take the picture and... yah, doesn't seem very likely. :-/

I was thinking of more, if you wanted to get pictures of the city lights or something like that. Or if you wanted to get pictures of yourself and had the time to set up the tripod and such.

One other option if you're willing to spend some money is there's a $200 Fujifilm camera that can take pictures up to 1600 ISO. It's really grainy at 1600 ISO, but pretty decient at 800 ISO.

The camera is Fujifilm f40fd.

Here's some photos I took recently in a resturant with ISO 800. food (ISO 800), fortune (ISO 800), chocolate (ISO 400)

If you're still visiting sometime next month you can borrow that camera and see if it will work for you.

[aimeekitty.livejournal.com]

thanks so much for all your advice! :)

I'm coming the first weekend in Oct!

[claw789.livejournal.com]

It's possible to get a good shot at night without a tripod using the camera you already have, but you'd have to shoot mainly around well-lit places (street lights, lit signs, etc). And since those maiko are fast, timing might be tricky. There may not be a way to get around using a flash.

hope you don't mind the friend-ing