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Step 2Experiment with these settings, and conduct principal photography
Here is the philosophy:
It is true, that with exposures slower than 1/15 of a second, you will get more blurry photos. But, it is also true, that with exposures as slow as 6/10 of a second NOT ALL of your photos will be blurry.
(UPDATE: and by blurry I am referring to "naked-eye" blurriness when viewing it after it has been printed and from a reasonable viewing distance. If you look at the image pixel by pixel on your computer screen it will probably look blurry.)
So the philosophy I am preaching is this: take lots of photos at a few different settings, and you are DESTINED to have a few winners. Actually, many more winners than you think. And you won't have to take hundreds of photos every time you want to take a nice night picture. The following instructions are only to be used the first time you take night photos, in order to determine which setting for your camera gives you the best results. Then in the future all you have to do is set your camera to your preferred settings, and take 5-15 frames so you can be sure to have one that isn't blurry. It's a small price to pay to finally get to bury that g-d tripod and actually get to capture the cool night shots when you see them.
The first thing you have to do is make sure you have a large-capacity memory card for this. With my A620's 7 megapixel full-resolution size, I like to load a 1GB card. This will be fine.
Second, set your shooting mode to "continuous," meaning that as long as you are holding down the shutter button, your camera is taking pictures.
Next, experiment with these settings: ISO at 200 and 400, shutter speed from 1/15 of a second to 6/10 of a second (or whatever looks good on the LCD as you adjust settings), and aperture set to whichever setting allows the LCD to appear as bright as you want the photos to be. In otherwords, set ISO first, shutter speed second, and aperture to the brightest setting. Now, start taking pictures.
Hold down the shutter so you get 5-15 shots at each setting, experimenting with the variables. Take lots of pictures. Try to hold the camera as still as possible while doing this. Cheat if you have to. Lean against a parking meter, bus stop sign, railing, tree or wall. Sit on the bumper of your car or indian style on the curb. Get as still as you can, but whatever you do, don't lug a tripod with you when you take these shots.
Your first night photography session after reading this instructable should easily net you 200-300 pictures. If you don't have a large enough memory card, then lower your image resolution to the smallest setting just so you can take a shitload of pics. At this point, like the old lie goes, "size doesn't matter." This is an experiment just to see which settings your particular camera loves most for hand-held night photography.
Now, after taking a few hundred shots of your city's skyline at about 10pm, using continuous shutter mode at a variety of settings, go home and prepare to be amazed.
(UPDATE: Upon further reflection, I have reconsidered and logic tells me it actually might work better if you set your aperture (F-stop) to the widest setting first so that the most amount of light is entering to begin with. "So is that the large F-stop number or the small F-stop number?" I have no idea. It is whichever setting makes the LCD the brightest as you adjust it. After you got the F-stop opened up, then set the ISO, then the shutter speed or exposure or whatever it is called on your digital camera.)
(sample photo shot at ISO 200, at 1/4 of a second)
It is true, that with exposures slower than 1/15 of a second, you will get more blurry photos. But, it is also true, that with exposures as slow as 6/10 of a second NOT ALL of your photos will be blurry.
(UPDATE: and by blurry I am referring to "naked-eye" blurriness when viewing it after it has been printed and from a reasonable viewing distance. If you look at the image pixel by pixel on your computer screen it will probably look blurry.)
So the philosophy I am preaching is this: take lots of photos at a few different settings, and you are DESTINED to have a few winners. Actually, many more winners than you think. And you won't have to take hundreds of photos every time you want to take a nice night picture. The following instructions are only to be used the first time you take night photos, in order to determine which setting for your camera gives you the best results. Then in the future all you have to do is set your camera to your preferred settings, and take 5-15 frames so you can be sure to have one that isn't blurry. It's a small price to pay to finally get to bury that g-d tripod and actually get to capture the cool night shots when you see them.
The first thing you have to do is make sure you have a large-capacity memory card for this. With my A620's 7 megapixel full-resolution size, I like to load a 1GB card. This will be fine.
Second, set your shooting mode to "continuous," meaning that as long as you are holding down the shutter button, your camera is taking pictures.
Next, experiment with these settings: ISO at 200 and 400, shutter speed from 1/15 of a second to 6/10 of a second (or whatever looks good on the LCD as you adjust settings), and aperture set to whichever setting allows the LCD to appear as bright as you want the photos to be. In otherwords, set ISO first, shutter speed second, and aperture to the brightest setting. Now, start taking pictures.
Hold down the shutter so you get 5-15 shots at each setting, experimenting with the variables. Take lots of pictures. Try to hold the camera as still as possible while doing this. Cheat if you have to. Lean against a parking meter, bus stop sign, railing, tree or wall. Sit on the bumper of your car or indian style on the curb. Get as still as you can, but whatever you do, don't lug a tripod with you when you take these shots.
Your first night photography session after reading this instructable should easily net you 200-300 pictures. If you don't have a large enough memory card, then lower your image resolution to the smallest setting just so you can take a shitload of pics. At this point, like the old lie goes, "size doesn't matter." This is an experiment just to see which settings your particular camera loves most for hand-held night photography.
Now, after taking a few hundred shots of your city's skyline at about 10pm, using continuous shutter mode at a variety of settings, go home and prepare to be amazed.
(UPDATE: Upon further reflection, I have reconsidered and logic tells me it actually might work better if you set your aperture (F-stop) to the widest setting first so that the most amount of light is entering to begin with. "So is that the large F-stop number or the small F-stop number?" I have no idea. It is whichever setting makes the LCD the brightest as you adjust it. After you got the F-stop opened up, then set the ISO, then the shutter speed or exposure or whatever it is called on your digital camera.)
(sample photo shot at ISO 200, at 1/4 of a second)
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Regarding F-stop settings, the smaller the number means the bigger the opening and thus the more light getting into the camera. This is because the number you see actually represents a fraction, i.e., 16 is actually f/16, where you insert the focal length of the lens for the f.
BTW - nice shots of Omaha!