Night Shots

I came home this evening to find my daughter and her friends had set up some candles on the patio table. I was thrilled to see they did this outside and not in the house. It was a drizzly, breezy, night so they had a bit of a challenge keeping the candles lit.

Of course I saw this as a golden opportunity for a photoshoot. Not sure if they would approve of my shutter clicking away, I took some from inside the house first without their knowing it. The shots from inside were shot through a window that has glass blinds. The glass blinds created double and tripple candle reflections, none of which were particularly pleasing upon later review.

Fortunately when I ventured outside the kids welcomed the chance to get some shots of their "chemistry" experiments. Here are two important tips for photographing people in candle light. Tip1: Stablize the camera. Use a tripod or a sturdy surface. Night shots require long exposures and while the shutter is open any movement causes blurry pictures. Tip2: Tell your subjects not to move! Same principle. If the photographer's hand moves everything is blurry, if the subject moves just the subject is blurry. Of course you may want to experiment with movement in night photos, but the two tips apply if you want sharp (or fairly sharp) images.

Some cameras have a mode for taking pictures of people at night (the icon is a person's torso with a moon or star behind them). The program mode might do a pretty good job also. In the pictures posted here I used ISO 200 (note, although higher ISOs do provide more light, lower ISOs still provide a sharper less grainy image so if you can use a tripod and get your subject to hold still you can get away with a low ISO), 1/4 shutter speed 4.0 aperature (horizontal picture), and 1/5 shutter speed 3.5 aperature (vertical picture with the chemistry book).

Oh, one more tip, have your subject very close to the candle.

In prior night shots I got some interesting pics of the Community Federal Building (Ok, I know it was bought by Edward Jones, but I still think of it as the old CF building), and a firehouse on a foggy night. When the weather sets the stage for unique photo ops get out there and shoot. Did you know you can use the landscape mode for night shots of buildings? Just remember to use a tripod. I like using my car window tripod so I don't even have to get out of the car. But you do have to turn off the engine or the vibration of the car's engine will blur the shot.

In contrast, the dock picture (at Acorn Point Lodge in Reel Foot Lake Tennessee) was taken at 1600 ISO with a shutter speed of .3 and an aperature of 3.5. This made for a fairly bright shot even though it was taken at night. The trees are lit by lights that are connected to the trees.

geopic