Taking pictures in the dark

[Arrrhalomynn]

I couldn't sleep last night, so I decided to take a stroll through the town, taking my camera with me. It was very dark, apart from some street lights, windows, christmas lights etc. Pretty much all pictures I took failed. They were either too dark or had moved, because my camera doesn't autofocus when the flash isn't on.

What do I need and what do I need to do to take proper pictures at night?

The picture below is the only one that didn't completely suck.

[Hydrobond]

You NEED a tripod for night pictures without the flash.  If the camera moves even the slightest bit when the exposure time is that long, the pic will be ruined.  But, Nep will be able to answer this question much better than I can.  

[Lord Nepenthean]

What he said.  Get a tripod.  To get enough light for night photography, you need to have a long exposure time, or slow shutter speed.  Usually the break-off point for hand-holding a camera (for most people) is 1/60th of a second.  I can usually go to 1/30th or maybe a little longer myself, but this isn't really recommended.  Once or twice I have gone as far as 1/8th of a second hand-held, but that was after taking about ten shots of the same item and only one didn't have camera shake.  Many night photos need to be taken at a second, two seconds, or much longer (16 seconds, 30 seconds, longer).  So, you really need a tripod for this or to be able to set your camera on a wall or something.

Camera shake and out-of-focus photos are different things, but they look about the same in the final photo.  So, try setting your camera on a wall to do a test shot, even if you don't like the composition.  If you have a time-release setting (usually used so you can jump in your own photo), use that so you don't shake the camera when you hit the button.  This can probably help you determine if having your camera focus or not is really the problem.

If your camera can't auto-focus when it is too dark AND you have no manual focus (too few digital cameras do have manual focus), it may also be easier to stick to things that are further away from you, so you can set your camera to "landscape," which basically focuses the lens on infinity.

Another thing to keep in mind is your film speed.  I'm assuming you're using a digital camera, so you don't really have film, but most cameras mimic ISO speed anyway.  100 speed film is on the low sensitivity end and is good for daytime photography.  200 is a little more sensitive, and 400 is getting better for indoor phtography because it is more sensitive still.  In 35mm film, the higher your film sensitivity, the more grain you will see in your images - so there is a trade-off.  Most digital cameras have a similar thing happen with higher "film speed" settings.  The higher you set your CCD's sensitivity to, the more "noise" you will generally have.  This is something you should probably mess with too.  You can get a better exposure with a 400 setting sometimes, but you may start to lose quality.  Test your camera to see if this is much of an issue since it seems to vary.

If you don't have a tripod, I'd just do some test shots by setting your camera on walls or on top of your car to see if you can get good exposures before you go out and invest in a tripod.

P.S.  Also, check your camera's manual if you haven't already.  A lot of times there is something in there about taking night photos.

[den68]

damn Nep, you need a job? I could use a good photographer. I hold my own but will admit to using Photoshop as a crutch every now and then.

[Lord Nepenthean]

I need to get my degree first I think.  I doubt I'd be much good to you, even if I do need a new job.  If you know of anybody I could talk to just to get volunteer opportunities though, I'd love to hear from ya.  I want to make a career out of photography someday, so every little bit helps.  In case I haven't told you, I'm hoping to go to Grand Valley State next year for photography.  At this point I have my application in but need to get transcripts sent before they can review it.

[den68]

My degree is not in photography and my pictures are on over 50 websites and have been in numerous print catalogs.

it's just product pictures. I'm sure you could already do that . Although you are a serious photographer so it would get quite boring shooting what I do.

Grand Valley State? I was accepted there. So Nep will be moving to Michigan, Sauza and i will show you around.

[Lord Nepenthean]

I've actually thought about getting into advertising/product photography as part of my career.  Doing portraits full-time would pretty much drive me nuts, so if I can't do the really fun stuff, I wouldn't mind product photography.  I'll have to see how everything goes, though, since that's a few years away.