Night-time

[JamesScudder]

Ok so a lot of the photos I take are at night time in car parks, that all have yellow lights, so as you can imagine the colour tends to go a bit funny. I know taking long exposure shots without the flash on a tripod does help. However setting up a tripod isn't best all the time, I've currently got a Nikon D60 and was wandering whether there was any kind of a flash I can get for this, that will help take photos a lot better, preferably without the aid of a tripod, or if using a tripod a must, something that will sort of block out the yellow light from the car park lights, I hope this makes sense...

[mogawowo]

Well you can use white balance choose the light bub picture on the cam under white balance, sodium vapor lamps are a pain though and yellow light is pretty much unavoidable with long night exposures near street lamps.

I'm sure theres people that know more than me on this subject so wait for that but the best advice i can say is use white balance

[tinysmall]

And a tripod.

[Chris Hawkins]

I think you're getting a couple of things confused? A flash is not really going to help over such a big area - is it big. I think you just need to either:

1) Set the white balance correctly in camera - I think Sodium lighting is way down in the 2000K range?

2) Or just use a white/black/18% gray card to correct the WB in post processing.

I'd like to hear how you get on.

[blindabyss]

I saw a video on shooting cars at night a while back and the general consensus was that you can't really deal with sodium vapour lighting by adjusting the cameras white balance. So the way those guys did it was to use portable lighting to illuminate what needed it and dragged the shutter a bit to bring a hint of the ambient lighting in. This was a group of German's but I assume that their street lighting is as horrendous as ours!

[JamesScudder]

Cheers guys, should be going to an event in a couple of weeks, so will give all the tips a go then, once again Thanks!!!

[Kenny]

Hi guys

just thought I would ask-and hope nobody thinks Im a numpty or anything,.but what exactly is "dragging the shutter?"

also,dunno if any of my fellow D300 owners know,but in the white balance settings on the cam isnt there a sub setting for sodium street lights? and if so do you think I could use that if I manage to get under the forth Bridge to attempt a shot of it at night???

Bessy regs

Kenny

[BarryM]

The forth bridge really suits the sodium temp, as the reds on the bridge look phenominal, ive tried adjusting whitebalance for the bridge but just didnt work.

Ps, err thats my bridge, permission needs granted to photography my bridge, i need it in writing mate. :Dm

If your up photographing said bridge, give me a shout mate, im literally 10 mins away looking at it out my window, can be on north side or south side in 10 mins tops.

[Chris Hawkins]

Hi guys

just thought I would ask-and hope nobody thinks Im a numpty or anything,.but what exactly is "dragging the shutter?"

also,dunno if any of my fellow D300 owners know,but in the white balance settings on the cam isnt there a sub setting for sodium street lights? and if so do you think I could use that if I manage to get under the forth Bridge to attempt a shot of it at night???

Bessy regs

Kenny

Dragging the shutter - can mean a few related things. Generally it means going to manual mode and increasing the exposure by a stop or two to allow ambient light into the camera. The flash will light your subject correctly (but more importantly freeze it) and the background will be more properly lit.

I think Ross is quite right about sodium lighting - I think that the problem is that there is not enough spectrum there to play with.

I'm not aware there is a sodium setting on the D300?

[Kenny]

Hi Chris

thank you very much for the info on dragging the shutter.I`m sure its a technique I shall be using during the course and now I know what it is I`m going to practice it and see what I come up with.

I might have been mistaken with the D300.I thought I saw such a setting when I was playing with the white balance menu on the cam.

Bessy regs

kenny