How not to take night shots!

I thought i'd share my experience of a comedy of errors in an attempt to get some nice moon shots last night.

Came back from dinner out, had a couple of gins & couple of beers, mistake number one! Beautiful starry evening, crescent moon with the whole circumference just visible. Great scene for some night shots.

Merrily grabbed my camera bag and tripod and wandered off into the darkness, i live in the countryside with no street lights or similar. No forethought or planning for a night shot, mistake number two! Brand new camera that i am not at all familiar with, 1st Nikon, mistake number 3.

Arrived at my desired spot, 10 minutes walk. Realise i did not even bring a torch! Big mistake number 4! Pitch black!

Plonk down my tripod and get my camera set on it, pull out my remote led, that i have yet to attach even in day light, mistake 5, and spend 10 minutes fumbling around trying to find where it goes.. at this point the reality of my stupidity is starting to sink in! I do however manage to attach the remote.

​I then attempt to take a series of shots of the moon having done no research and very little experience of what settings will work well, mistake 6.

Needless to say, i capture 20 horrible blurry moon shots and retreat home chuckling to myself at what a compete idiot i have been!

I did however learn a lot about how not to take night shots a valuable lesson. Most important rule don't wandered into the darkness tipsy!

​

It's all good, you're learning.

At least you had stars. I went out to shoot the Northern Lights with all the right equipment and stone cold sober and when the clouds came in we had the same results. At least you had internal protection from the cold.

Haha, sounds like a fun evening though!

And hey, you learn so much from your mistakes - my first night shot was the other evening, and I didnt read anything either. Got home and looked at what looked weird, and then I read about it.

i do have a fair grasp on how to get the results i want on my d3100 but night photography has a definate learning curve.i have taken hundreds (if not more)learning. it just depends on what you are trying to image stars,planets,dso. and such best suggestion i can give you is if its a still object try starting at 400-800 iso then start adjsuting through shutter spped until you get desire effect. and for fine detail focuse using your live view i.e. center item up then zoom in using screen zoom function and then adjust focus for best pic. good luck

Thanks for sharing this. Funny It reminds of the times i went out to the airport and sat in an open field with my lawn chair - that open field is now a nice park. I would sit in my lawn chair with my 1.7 litre bottle of 10% beer and take my photos of the aircraft coming and going, lol. Not sure how i was able to take decent photos, but i did. Once, i got a little to close to the fence and had a friendly visit from security. I don't think they caught on that i had been drinking. Now i go to that nice park they made, without the alcohol though

Sometimes I sit nxt to the runway and take pics I like touchdowns when wheels hot runway (tire smoke) shows action and wheels just off ground

I can totally relate to your experience. I skipped the alcohol when I went out for my first attempt, armed with tripod, shutter release and anything else I thought I might need. I too didn't think to bring a light and although familiar with my camera's menu and location of all the dials and buttons, could not for the life of me get the shutter release inserted into the connector point because I could see nothing; could not for want of love or money, get the ND filter properly aligned to screw onto the front of the lens and oh, probably the best of all ...... I was being so methodical in preparing for this night shoot that I had carefully set the camera to ISO 100 and bulb mode 'lest I should forget something important' and en route, stopped to take a photo where I needed a bit more light so I had pumped up the ISO ..... and completely forgot to drop it again! I also had a good laugh and have to say it was probably one of the most productive experiences I've had to date because I learned firsthand the most important, basic guidelines of low light and night photography.

​Being very much of an amateur, for me success is not always defined by taking away great photos. A lot of the time lessons learned by mistakes I make pave the way for greater success in the future and that, to me, is more valuable right now

I'm learning!

Less booze, more experience!

Watoh said:

I'm learning!

Less booze, more experience!

Click to expand...

Great the clouds look beautiful and I like your composition.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Very nice wotah

Thanks peeps

Sent from my LT30p using Tapatalk