moving subjects / dark lighting

[iQing]

it is very difficult to take pictures when the subject is moving or the surrounding is dark.

let's discuss how to take pictures in such situations.

[youngyew]

I learnt that there are a few ways to do it, but I seldom did them myself. It depends on the effect you want to achieve: do you want the moving object to look clear or blurred (to show the "motion"), and do you want the background to look clear or blurred.

Object & Background clear: Short exposure time, down to 1/500 or so depending on the speed of the object. Flash would be one of the ways to achieve it but the strobe light will always destroy the natural colour of the object and make everyone in sight look like Jo-Onn. If you don't want flash, the only thing you could do with limited control and access of camera equipments is open the aperture as large as possible (so that enough light comes in for exposure). Besides, high ISO number (film sensitivity) is also important. For digital photography, ISO 200 is the highest you could go without intolerable noise, while with digital SLR you can crank it as high as 1600 and yet produce relatively clean picture.

Object clear, Background blurred: Considerable shutter time (again, depending on the subject). Pre-focus (half press the shutter button) on the moving subject, pan your camera and make sure that the object always stay in the same place in your viewfinder or LCD. While continue to pan the camera, press the shuttle button and voila! With some practice you will be amazed by what you can do.

Object blurred, background clear: Do nothing. Just normal setting, blast off (preferably on a tripod), and we will get it.

[youngyew]

http://static.flickr.com/31/95214942_109478dccd.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/changyang1230/95214942/)
Clear object, blurred background (taken with a slow shutter speed while panning along the moving object)

http://static.flickr.com/11/95214941_e47cdd1115.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/changyang1230/95214941/in/photostream/)
Clear Background, blurred object (blast away while holding your camera steady)

[Vigilante]

Water smoothing trick for calendars

http://www.pbase.com/quasars/image/55668143.jpg

Taken at Cornell's Beebe Lake Dam

[Thirdshifter]

In the dark where your speedlight will be ot of reach.. mainly night landscape, Long exposure is the only way.

With long exposure you will need a tripod or to set your camera on something stable during the entire exposure.

http://img490.imageshack.us/img490/8630/98475906c9e50c0868bcfb79a49f1b.jpg

[taufiq]

Youngyew, how did you manage to capture a moving object using a slow shutter? That's awesome. I always use a fast shutter plus mid to high aperture to do so. It will darken the surrounding, thus taking picture in the daylight helps me better.

http://static.flickr.com/42/96611441_40f97e3c6d.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/21/96611440_95446e87b4.jpg

[youngyew]

Youngyew, how did you manage to capture a moving object using a slow shutter?
Actually it wasn't very slow, it's just 1/200s, if im not mistaken, because that was the lowest my camera could go in the bright daylight.

The only thing I did was to move the lens in a way so that it is always pointing to the moving object (i.e. panning along) throughout the exposure. It's not that hard actually, but I think a good timing is important.

[misled_youth]

First time I took a batch of photo's that were both UNDERexposed and OVERexposed at the same time.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y92/misled_youth/DSC_0369s.jpg

Nikon D50 + SB600

Was standing under the shade due to the rain.

Got 10,000 people ah?

[Thirdshifter]

misled, instead of bracketing, why not you just shoot in RAW? I know shooting in RAW is a PITA, but sometimes in the digital age where post processing is a must why not go all the way?

however i only do RAW maybe 20% of the time, so instead of using bracketing i no just shoot in RAW instead. Although bracketing is probably the better way in certain conditions...