D7000 Night shooting

Hey, I'll be borrowing my friend's tripod tomorrow and doing some night shooting. The thing is, I want some recommendations in terms of the best settings I could do to get the most out of my camera when shooting low light/ night time. I want some recommended settings for long exposures as that would be the main thing I would be shooting tomorrow. What should my aperture be, as well as my shutter speed. I know it needs to be slow shutter speed and small aperture ? if you guys could give me exact numbers as to set on my camera that would be much appreciated.

There's no way we can determine ahead of time what the best shutter speed, ISO and/or aperture will be for your shooting situation; photography simply doesn't work that way. All the standard rules of photography will still apply when shooting at night, though; e.g. a small aperture will still yield a deep depth of field and a slow shutter will still accentuate motion blur. Do you want one, the other, both or neither?

My only two suggestions, really, are when doing night photography I prefer to shoot at very low ISO, say ISO 200 max; but that's me and even for me that's a very general sort of guideline. The other is this: If your camera supports "Long Exposure Noise Reduction" I suggest you enable it.

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As HF said, keep the iso low. Only raise it if you must to get a desired shutter speed or aperture. Don't use auto iso.

Also keep in mind that your meter will try to make the scene look like a daytime scene. If you need it to look as dark as you see it, shoot in M. Or if its more of a twilight scene, you could try dialing in some negative exposure compensation in A or S mode. You might need to focus manually if its too dark.

You could try your night portrait and night landscape scene modes. I've never tried them though, but it can't be any worse than us guessing and giving you specific settings.

In the end, its best to just be very comfortable with your camera and be ready to quickly adjust the exposure as needed. Shooting RAW will give you more to play with when you get home too.

Yes keep your ISO at 200, shoot in manual and depending on what you want in focus choose your aperture. The shutter is what is going to determine the exposure. Shooting at night it's pretty much a trial and error thing. Start at 5-10sec exposure and play around with it till you get the desired image your looking for.

For your camera...
Put the camera in manual mode. Then, just rotate the "main command dial" (the knurled dial facing you on the upper RH side of the back of the camera... NOT the one on the front below the shutter button, which controls aperture). Note the numbers changing on the lower LH side of your viewfinder as you rotate the dial. That's the shutter speed. If the number is increasing and there is no "seconds" symbol (") to the right of the number, that means the shutter speed setting is getting faster (i.e. 500 = 1/500th of a sec., 1000 = 1/1000th of a sec., etc.). Rotate the dial to the right for faster shutter speeds, left to slow down shutter speed. Keep turning to the left until you see the " symbol after the shutter speed number. When you see the " sign after the number, that no longer means 1/X of a second, it means number of seconds. So, 6" means 6 seconds rather than 1/6 second. Experiment with 1 - 8 seconds or so at first. Depending on your focal length and aperture, you may need more, but you'll generally get a good night shot within that range if there is any light at all in the scene.

You do the same thing when in Shutter Priority mode, except that in Shutter Priority, you control the shutter speed and the camera controls aperture. In Manual mode, you control BOTH shutter speed and aperture... and ISO as well, if you have "auto ISO" turned off.

and dont forget to turn your VR off when using the tripod. (i still forget this )

Thanks pointing that out, I was thinking about it, but forgot about it at the same time.

Hi Roy and Texas, please explain the turning off of the VR when using a tripod.


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I am not very good at explaining this, the VR on helps reduce camera shake from your hands, so when you are on your tripod it is still and you don't need the VR on, it will be shaking when you do not need it, clear as mud?

VR stands for Vibration Reduction. How this works is similar to a gyroscope. It stabilizes the lense while using your camera freehand. Any subtle movement cannot destroy what you are wanting to capture. Even the pulse in your wrist is enough to alter the sharp focus.

When using a tripod, you are using or introducing a stable environment to shoot. This counteracts the built in gyro used with VR.

There is much more to it and when I get to a computer, I can e palate further.

I first learned about VR in the sport optics world. I work for SWFA and we attend many exhibition shows selling product. A few years ago, we attended the NRA show and offered only Nikon sport optics. Nikon offers several VR options in Binoculars as well as a few Spotting scopes. Specifically in the Stabil-Eyes binoculars, Nikon offered VR in the 12X binocular for cruise ships for a couple of reasons. One the magnification is high, this decreases stability. Secondly, boats do not propose stable environments to view areas with binoculars, say if you wanted to watch whales off the coast of Alaska.


Here's a link with the information that you should read: Nikon | Technology | VR (Vibration-Reduction)

Hi Ray Texas,
Apologies for the late reply, I was away out of town due to work obligations. Thanks for the excellent replies on my question. I still don't exactly understand, but will in future turn VR off when using a tripod.
Regards
Mike

Mikemcd said:

Hi Ray Texas,
Apologies for the late reply, I was away out of town due to work obligations. Thanks for the excellent replies on my question. I still don't exactly understand, but will in future turn VR off when using a tripod.
Regards
Mike

Click to expand...

Which part do you not understand?

Texaswicked1 said:

Image blur caused by camera shake generally occurs with shutter speeds slower than 1/[focal length] in 35mm format equivalent. Nikon’s latest VRII lenses offer the ability to shoot at shutter speeds 4 steps faster.

Click to expand...

Here is the Nikon article that you have plagiarized:

Nikon | Technology | VR (Vibration-Reduction)

It of course also says those words.

But I thought the idea was to hold the image steady at shutter speeds four steps slower.

Copy and pasted... he wanted to know how it worked. So I decided to post whet he subscribed rather than attach a link.

I want aware I broke any rules. I never said that was my work. I did however include my own commentary, hope that was OK.

Sorry, no sympathy for plagiarism, that's low. The link would have been a good idea, and surely welcomed. Copying work of others was not a good idea.

Please, Texaswicked1, remove the post you've copied and pasted. This behavior is not accepted here. When you want to lead someone to another site, just post the link.

This is a warning and if you do not comply, measures could be taken.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Marcel said:

Please, Texaswicked1, remove the post you've copied and pasted. This behavior is not accepted here. When you want to lead someone to another site, just post the link.

This is a warning and if you do not comply, measures could be taken.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Click to expand...

Duelly noted.