Night Photography - help!

[RenesisEvo]

Right, the Britcar 24 hours is coming up, so I've been out trying to get a handle on my camera's manual mode for some night shots. It's a Fujifilm S6500fd, getting on a bit but it does have 28-300mm (although it says 'Equiv. 135' - no idea what that means) and more to the point - manual zoom!

So, I'm fairly happy with ISO and shutter speeds, and to an extent focal length. But - here's the question, how do you focus the camera, when all you can see through the viewfinder is blackness? Trial and error isn't going to cut it I'm afraid. Occasionally I managed to get the auto-focus to work, but it did struggle - I've always found my camera to be slow/fail to auto-focus in poor light. So with no light, it really is hit-and-miss. There must be a better method?

Any other tips for shooting racing cars at night would be most welcome

TIA

[14-7]

By 'equiv' it may mean that the sensor is X 2.xx in other words the lens is a 135mm but due to the sensor size it acts as a 300mm. Maual zoom is useless and it would be far better to have manual focus but it sounds like you don't. A high ISO and shutter speed (f2.8 etc) should mean more light entering the sensor however unless the focusing system is up to it you may be buggered. The less light comes in the harder it is for cameras to focus correctly which is why even some top end cameras struggle.

If you have no option for manual focus you may well be fecked.

[RobDickinson]

Equive 135 means that lens is 28-300 in 35mm focal length terms.

In real terms its probably more like 7mm to 70mm , and the sensor is a lot smaller than a 135 film frame (aka 35mm).

If you can manual focus on a spot and shoot there with autofocus off.

[RenesisEvo]

Thanks chaps.

14-7 said:

If you have no option for manual focus you may well be fecked.

I have a manual focus option, but I can't tell before I hit the shutter if it's focused, because focused or not, it's still looks black on the viewfinder.

[markmullen]

If it is really dark focus on something bright at a similar distance away and lock it on to manual focus.

[tim-b]

Use a torch to pre-focus manually on a spot. Obviously be careful not to blind any drivers! Although I doubt that would be an issue unless you use a massive searchlight. I tend to take the wind-up torch that usually lives in the boot of my car, it's come in very handy at Spa 24hrs, Britcar @ Brands and the Wales rally, as there is pretty much no light except from the cars once you get away from the pitlanes etc.

TBH though, if it's that dark then you won't get much in the way of pictures anyway, unless you are using flash (which IMHO kind of spoils it) your options are quite limited. The old trick I have used is to wait for 2 cars together, the one behind will light the scene of the one infront. Or you can play with a tripod and get some light trails, or just go for the long exposure panning shots.

[mattdaniels]

How / where are you practicing at the moment? I've never photographed a night race before but I would be very surprised if the place is so pitch black that you can't focus. There is going to be ambient light from the pits, paddock, stands, other cars etc. etc. I shouldn't have thought you'll have a problem locking focus on either the cars themselves, or pre-focusing on something the same distance away and then panning the car as it comes past.

At least the good thing is you'll have plenty of hours of darkness to practice and get some shots.

[markmullen]

tim-b said:

TBH though, if it's that dark then you won't get much in the way of pictures anyway, unless you are using flash (which IMHO kind of spoils it) your options are quite limited.

I disagree, a slow pan at night on a car with headlights on can give some dramatic shots,


Mark Mullen 52 - Week 23, 77 Felbermayr Porsche at Le Mans by mark_mullen, on Flickr


Le Mans 2010 219 by mark_mullen, on Flickr

Plus you've always got the chance of some flames (excuse the flare, I didn't clone it out, might revisit it and sort it).


Le Mans 2010 381 by mark_mullen, on Flickr

[mattdaniels]

Love that middle one. [+]

[RenesisEvo]

markmullen - thanks for your excellent examples!

I went out to a small brige over a motorway, the bridge itself is not lit, so I could have a go at doing light trails using a tripod. Quite happy with the results when I managed to get it focused.

I'd love to know more about how you acheived those panning shots above if you don't mind sharing, I'm guessing a longer pan (than say, in daylight) with high ISO / fairly quick shutter? With night qualifying on the Friday I'll have plenty of time for practice, but it would be great to start on the right foot.

Thanks again everyone!

[markmullen]

In terms of settings:

1) 1/80th at F4, ISO800

2) 1/20th at F4.5 ISO 1600 -2 stops exposure compensation

3) 1/80th at F4, ISO 1600

I use a variety of settings, usually manual, though sometimes shutter priority for panning.

[tim-b]

markmullen said:

tim-b said:

TBH though, if it's that dark then you won't get much in the way of pictures anyway, unless you are using flash (which IMHO kind of spoils it) your options are quite limited.

I disagree, a slow pan at night on a car with headlights on can give some dramatic shots,

....

Sure it can (and some nice examples btw), but those scenes weren't really dark. You won't get much (other than headlights/taillights) at 1/80th unless there is some light, even with a 5D mk2 . IME if it is dark enough that you can't see anything through the viewfinder, or for autofocus to work, your images will not come out like that - I'm guessing there was a fair bit of ambient light in your examples, even if it looked 'dark' to you.

My example below from Spa 24hrs is shot at 1/60th, f2.8, iso 3200 (so would be over 5x brighter than your settings for 1st&3rd!) and still needed to be 'pushed' a lot in raw to get it that light. Hence it's a struggle to even find your focus, or see what colour the car is, without having some external light source.

Having been to the Brands Hatch night racing in the past, I can say it's also very dark there (although not quite as dark) once you get away from the start/finish straight.


IMG_9559 by motion_captured, on Flickr

[RenesisEvo]

Can I just say a big thank you, had a great time at the Britcar event, plenty of time to try out different things during the night based on the comments and information provided here. Haven't gone through the photos yet but I'm happy with the way some of them looked. Even managed to nab my brother's Nikon D70 he picked up off eBay last week, managed better than he did! In fact, the viewfinder on that was a revelation (mine being an EVF...); and after experiencing the useless continuous mode on my camera (even with the fastest memory card available), I am now yearning for a Canon/Nikon DSLR.

Thanks again, I may put some examples up later (although the standard is pretty low compared to those in the Britcar threads).

[Gad-Westy]

markmullen said:

In terms of settings:

1) 1/80th at F4, ISO800

2) 1/20th at F4.5 ISO 1600 -2 stops exposure compensation

3) 1/80th at F4, ISO 1600

I use a variety of settings, usually manual, though sometimes shutter priority for panning.

Super shots Mark. What focal length were you shooting at?

[nellyleelephant]

markmullen said:

In terms of settings:

1) 1/80th at F4, ISO800

2) 1/20th at F4.5 ISO 1600 -2 stops exposure compensation

3) 1/80th at F4, ISO 1600

I use a variety of settings, usually manual, though sometimes shutter priority for panning.

Did you take those on a 1DII?

[markmullen]

Gad-Westy said:

Super shots Mark. What focal length were you shooting at?

Thanks!

Usually between 150 and 200mm

nellyleelephant said:

Did you take those on a 1DII?

The Felbermayr was on a 1DII, the other pair from 2010 were on a 450d.

[nellyleelephant]

Did you have to remove much noise at ISO 800?

(Only ask as I have the same and haven't done any higher ISO pics yet)

[markmullen]

nellyleelephant said:

Did you have to remove much noise at ISO 800?

(Only ask as I have the same and haven't done any higher ISO pics yet)

There was no more noise reduction on those than the Adobe Camera Raw default and I think they come out quite well.

The noise even at 1600 isn't too bad in my experience, I would certainly rather have a shot that was a little noisy than one which was OOF as I couldn't get a decent shutter speed.