Shooting @ night.

[biot]

Hi all.

I own Konica Minolta A1.

I want to start shooting some night scenes, but everytime i shoot i get a blurry image and not sharp enough. ( i usually shoot aperture f2.8, shutter 1/4)

i use tripod but it doesn't help.

any more suggestions?

[kex]

biot wrote:

Hi all.

I own Konica Minolta A1.

I want to start shooting some night scenes, but everytime i shoot i get a blurry image and not sharp enough. ( i usually shoot aperture f2.8, shutter 1/4)

i use tripod but it doesn't help.

any more suggestions?

try using the timer. that should help to avoid the camera shake when you're pushing the shutter release.

[Kenny_Leong]

yah...use the self-timer so that you're not touching the camera when the camera is taking the picture. Otherwise if you're already user self-timer, then maybe have to find out what the camera is doing for its focusing method.

[PhillyPhotographer]

~Agreed! Use the self timer!~


8)

[biot]

and should i use the manual focus ring, or should i let the camera focus by pressing the shutter half-way down??

[PhillyPhotographer]

~I guess if the camera's autofocus is not doing the best of job I would use the manual focusing. I normally use the manual focus at night so I know that it's' focused correctly. I wouldprefer and suggest theuse of the manual focus.~

8)

[ttretas]

You can either use the focus ring, or set the camera to one of the preset focal distances.

[biot]

so i should use the focus ring in order to get good focused pictures.

if the object that i want to shoot is far and i have to zoom into it, can i use the manual ring and the distance to be infinity (somethin that looks like "oo" sign) ??

[jawz]

biot wrote:

<snip>...

if the object that i want to shoot is far and i have to zoom into it, can i use the manual ring and the distance to be infinity (somethin that looks like "oo" sign) ??

If you are truly shooting in low light, 'far' (i.e., the distance you can see in this low light) is actually much closer than 'infinity' (a distance, for this discussion, greater than 1000 ft.). At an aperture of f2.8, your depth of field is relativelty shallow (maybe 15 ft or so, depending on the distance to subject) when zoomed out to 200mm, so setting the manual focus to infinity will most likely not give you a correctly focused image. I suggest that if you are going to use manual focus and rely on the focus distance guide that try to focus on some object at the hyperfocal distance and then set your focus guide to that setting and then shoot your subject. For this to be successful you must actually focus on something at the hyperfocal distance since the focus distance scale is too coarse to set the hyperfocal distance 'open-loop'.

see: http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

[Kenny_Leong]

I think that after you know what settings you have on the camera, and know what those settings do in terms of depth of focus etc...then the next thing to do is to go out and experiment, and take notes of your results. Eg...head out there at night, and use the different ways of focusing. Use various aperture settings and shutter speeds and ISO settings. Whatever settings we need to use depends on whether the subjects are moving or not etc, and whether we want to use a tripod or not.