Taking pictures at night... and maching shutterspeed and aperture

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HI First of all thanks for answering my first question.

I have bought an eos 33 and i am very satisfied it is a great camera, but i am a beginner and i dont know much about the camera yet, and for an example, I can't figure out how to take pictures at night not on the night potraight or the landscape. and i don't know on which i should put the shutterspeed or the aperture to take a picture of f.examp. the sun set...?

I hope you can give some advice.

WOW for the eos 33!!!

Martin Fehr Therkildsen

Hve a nice day

-- Martin Fehr Therkildsen (mourden@hotmail.com), January 06, 2002

Answers

that's what the light meter is for.

-- Jeff Nakayama (moonduck22@hotmail.com), January 06, 2002.

Dear Mr Nakayama,

Why do you insist on posting short, snide and unhelpful responses to peoples' questions?

Anyway. You seem to be asking two questions, Mr Therkildsen. Metering for a night scene and metering for sunset are two very different lighting situations.

Night scenes are difficult because light levels tend to be very low, obviously. And your camera isn't very good at handling such low levels of light. You're best off putting the camera on a tripod and experimenting with long shutter speeds (10, 30 seconds, a few minutes if it's very dark).

Keep careful notes and compare photos when you get them back from the lab. Slide photography will produce more accurate results than print, because in the case of print film the lab will try to compensate for your exposure settings.

The smaller the aperture number the larger (wider) the actual aperture on the lens and so the more light can enter your camera, so set your lens to a fairly wide aperture if you're just starting out.

Sunsets are a different case, as you have a huge light source in the picture - the sun - confusing the light meter. You're probably best turning the camera away from the sun slightly, metering for the scene, then recomposing to include the sun.

But really, light metering is the sort of thing that comes with a lot of experience and trial and error. It might be helpful to consult a lot of basic photography books to learn more about it. Photo.net has a useful introduction to the topic as well:

http://www.photo.net/photo/tutorial/light

-- NK Guy (tela@tela.bc.ca), January 07, 2002.


For starters, try these links from NYIP about:
Low Light
Sunsets
Halloween
Fireworks

To avoid unhelpful comments, you could try a forum like the Elan 7E group (EOS 33 also welcome).

-- Julian Loke (elan7e-owner@yahoogroups.com), January 07, 2002.


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