Night photography question.....help!

Vrmonster

New member
Hi All,

I'm a brand spankin newbie...both to this site, and to DSLRs. I'm enjoying getting to know my D7000, but have a problem, and I know all you nikonites can help me!

I want to shoot some night photos, but the lens that came with my kit (18 - 105mm) does not have an infinity symbol indicator...sooooo, is there any way quick relatively painless way possible to set/lock my lens to infinity at night? Assume I have nothing in the distance to focus on....no light, nothing, its just me and the stars...is it possible to manually set it? Or, do I have to try to AF during the day, switch to manual and leave it til dark???

Just can't seem to find any consistent/good answers to this question on the web. I kept trying the other night and just kept getting 'job nr' flashing....What would be the ideal settings (aperture, f stop, exposure time, iso, etc.)?

Thanks!
 
Zoom Lenses have a very narrow Depth of Field (Online Depth of Field Calculator) so it is difficult to preset the focus. Are you trying to shoot the moon or stars then you can figure out using the chart on the site how far away you need to focus to get the depth of field to infinity. With your lens set to 105mm and F16 you could focus on something at 112 feet and everything between 56.6 ft and infinity would be in focus. but at 112 feet you would only be in focus to 9176 ft which when focusing on the moon would be very far off. Play with the chart and it will help you understand Depth of field.

In optics, particularly as it relates to film and photography, depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image.

The nice thing about Digital photography is that you can shoot and look at the results right then. Play with the settings one at the time and see the results. Shooting the Moon might be a good place to look at. Again just some ideas as a starting place.
 

Marcel

Happily retired
Staff member
Super Mod
With the D7000 you should use "live view" for what you want to do. This way, the mirror is up and you can zoom in to make really sure your focus will be OK. Make sure the camera and lens are set to "M" focus and make tiny little bits of adjustments while looking at a magnified view on the preview screen. You should do OK.
 

Mike150

Senior Member
I'm not a pro and am far from being an expert, but thes is a quick and dirty tecnique I have used. I went out in the daytime and focused my lens on an extreemly distant object.
I then put a small piece of painters tape on the focus ring and another adjacent to it on a fixed part of the lens body.
At night I go to manual focus and align the two pieces of tape, I'm at infinite focus.
Don't forget to carry a small flashlight so you can see the tape..
Use painters tape because it has a low adhesion factor and doesn't leave residue on the lens body.
I always remove the tape when I'm finished shooting
 

Vrmonster

New member
Feedback on my first attempt? Was shot at 50mm, f1.8, +1 EV, 100 ISO and about a 52 second exposure, off my back deck.

Night Shot.jpg
 
Top