[chris_arnet]

Im going down to Grapveine lake tonight (Texas) to take a couple pictures of the light from the city reflecting off the water. But i've been worrying about overexposure. I'll need a couple second exposure to get the llok i want for the water, but im worrying about the lights being over-exposed and blown out. I also want to get a shot of the wake frozen in place, but im wondering how if thats possible. I shoot a Digital Rebel XTi, and even with the ISO at 1600 and the aperture wide open, i dont think ill have enough light for a quick exposure like that. Im also shooting film tonight, Kodak B&W 400 ISO. I need at least 6 good pictures, and ive only got 8 frames left on the roll. I dont have another roll of film though, cause the film pictures i take are part of an assignment for my photojournalism class. (Im obviously shooting digital first)

Thanks For Any Help You Can Give.

[geekyrocketguy]

Get a tripod. I'm going to get flamed for this, but even a $20 one from Walmart will work if your camera doesn't weigh 5 pounds.

Use Manual mode. Put the ISO at 100 or 200. You don't want a really grainy photo from using iso 1600. Put the aperture in the middle somewhere, from 5.6 to 16ish. Set your Shutter Speed to whatever gets a decent exposure.

If you use a long shutterspeed, the water will have a cool blurred effect.

As far as freezing a wake...good luck with that. If your ISO and aperture are maxed out, there's not a whole lot more you can do.


I'm not a fan of B&W stuff at night...I think night photos look better in color. But shoot a bit of each.

[chris_arnet]

Originally Posted by geekyrocketguy

Get a tripod. I'm going to get flamed for this, but even a $20 one from Walmart will work if your camera doesn't weigh 5 pounds.

Use Manual mode. Put the ISO at 100 or 200. You don't want a really grainy photo from using iso 1600. Put the aperture in the middle somewhere, from 5.6 to 16ish. Set your Shutter Speed to whatever gets a decent exposure.

If you use a long shutterspeed, the water will have a cool blurred effect.

As far as freezing a wake...good luck with that. If your ISO and aperture are maxed out, there's not a whole lot more you can do.


I'm not a fan of B&W stuff at night...I think night photos look better in color. But shoot a bit of each.

ive got a tripod, and a remote shutter trip. lol, im not a noob... i just normally shoot water. yeah, thats the effect i was goin for. thanks for the help tho. any other tips/suggestions?

[geekyrocketguy]

Here's water blur from a 1 minute 20 second exposure. The original shot is way better, but I can't get a decent scan.



1:15 exposure...


You can still get decent water blur with a faster shutter speed, this shot was 1/2 second.

[chris_arnet]

i want the water to looke more like a mist hanging over flat water, with the beams of light cutting across it. the lake has decent sized wake, so i think i can acheive it. gimme a second to find a pic of the EXACT effect i want.

[Mr.Imagine]

Experiment a lot, I like to use ISO 400 for night time long exposures, you'll need to experiment a LOT. Plan to be there for about 2 hours. Remember to turn on the long exposure noise reduction in custom functions on your Rebel. Say you have a 120 second exposure, it will take 120 seconds for the photo to save if you have the noise reduction on. Remember, if you turn your camera off while its saving, the picture will be lost.

Get creative, I used the flashlight on my phone to light this when it wasn't turning out the way I wanted it to:

[chris_arnet]

sort of like this....



but with the lights coming across like this...





mr. imagine, thanks.

[geekyrocketguy]

That 2nd photo is an embarassment to photography. If you want the long strings of lights, you need to use a long shutter speed.

The "white mist" effect is caused by the bubbles of flowing water. If there are no bubbles on the lake, you won't get the effect.

The effect that Mr. Imagine used is called painting with light. If you do that, you gotta watch white balance. A normal flashlight will result in a really yellow photo. If you want a more neutral color, use an LED flashlight.

[chris_arnet]

neither of the above pics are mine. just used as examples. yeah, i used the eadlights of my car to "paint" some rocks a while back. thats another question i had. i dont want to use "Always Wrong Balance", but setting custom will be hard, cause its at night. what should i do?

[geekyrocketguy]

Shoot raw, or raw + jpg. If you do painting with light, use an LED flashlight.

[chris_arnet]

Originally Posted by geekyrocketguy

Shoot raw, or raw + jpg. If you do painting with light, use an LED flashlight.

i dont really have experience with RAW. ive always shot Jpeg.

[chris_arnet]

just got back. will have pics up in a few

[chris_arnet]

i am honestly embarrassed by the crappiness of the photos tonight. so i will post only one picture just so you get a feel of how bad the others turned out.

here it is *flamesuit on



go ahead and laugh.

[NotYourPsycho]

What held your camera?

I'm pretty photo retarded, but it looks OOF.
(it might just be this screen though.)

(you are super close to me.)

[Shocktechballer (Banned)]

Bleh. Washed out colors..

[chris_arnet]

^^^ hey amy, you probably have no idea who i am, but i know you.

i used a tripod with a remote shutter release. taken at the dam on grapevine lake about 45 mins. ago

OOF? something i know i should know but i dont.

[chris_arnet]

Originally Posted by Shocktechballer

Bleh. Washed out colors..

its definantly in black and white.

[geekyrocketguy]

OOF = out of fucus. It looks in decent focus to me.

You should have panned up a little so that the horizon followed the rule of 3rds.

When you're learning to process RAW, it helps to shoot RAW + JPEG. If you screw up the raw convo, you still have the jpg.

Could I see a color version of that photo?

[chris_arnet]

no problem, just gimme a second to find it....


here it is:


i didnt do any editing to it besides some smudging to get rid of some pixels that love to glow purple and red.