I've just bought an Olympus C-2020Z, and while it is producing excellent photographs (I love it!), I haven't yet had much success at taking night photographs where there are relatively bright lights. The problem is that the lights look very blurred. If I reduce the exposure, the blurring gradually decreases, but it never goes away completely, and the whole photo starts to look way too dark anyway. Not all lights are problematic - for example, backlit signs seem to look good.

I'd really appreciate some advice on how to maximise the sharpness of lights in night photos when using digital cameras. For example, if there are filters which I should be using, I'm keen to try them.

Thanks, Greg.

-- Greg Sullivan (gregory.sullivan@compaq.com), May 05, 2000

Answers

I don't know wht you're using for aperature, shutter and ISO settings, but here's what I do when I'm shooting at night.

Depending on how much light, I wouldn't open the f-stop up to its maximum; see what the camera registers @ f4 or 5.6. Remember, on the Olympus models, you can open/shut down the aperature by 1/3rd of an f-stop as well. Since it's night and you still might have a problem, you might want to put the camera on a tripod or lean it against something just to steady it (that's where I'm guessing you're getting the blurriness from). If the lighting is too bright, you might want to adjust the ISO to 200.

The key is this: for every step in shutter speed you increase, you decrease the aperature one step. If you need more light, you have to decrease the shutter speed (and depending on what you're shooting, you may NEVER get rid of the blurriness).

Hope this helps!

-- Sue Bald (destiny3@ix.netcom.com), May 05, 2000.

Sue seems to have this well in hand, with more info than I would have been able to suggest. I wish I had full or nearly full manual options. Oh well, next camera, I suppose... ;-) The only thing I can add is that it's TRIPOD with capital letters about 4' high in bright orange and purple neon when it comes to night shots... :-)

You can also try placing the camera on any stationary vibration free object and using the SELF TIMER. The self timer is the simplest, cheapest, built-in device than can substitute for a remote shutter. If you practice just a bit you can even get motion shots with the timer, you just have to learn to anticipate. As with life, timing is everything.

After I got my PDR-M5, I had a lot of fun one evening on the main street of a small local town [quit the snickering, it was good clean wholesome fun... :-)] just playing with settings to get a night shot. I found that just setting the camera on top of my van and using the timer beat trying to battle oxygen deprivation while trying to hold it steady by a wide margin. It only took a few tries to get the settings right for the length of exposure in bulb mode and the ISO to then catch a car going up the street. The results were kind of neat, as I got a nicely exposed background with street lights and all and two very interesting sets of red stripes down the street where the "ghost" auto had passed, since it wasn't stationary long enough to reflect enough light to be exposed. Altogether, a lot of fun. Don't jack the ISO up unless you have to as it tends to produce a LOT more noise.

By the way, it doesn't take long to set up and get decent results. I managed the whole deal without the chinese food that I was taking home getting cold... :-) However, next time I'm bringing the tripod so I can just set it up with the legs unextended on top of the van. Beats trying to find something to wedge it up with to get the angle you want... :-)

Have fun!

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francomm.com), May 05, 2000.

Thanks! I sat the camera on a rock solid pillar, which had a perfectly flat top. I did not use the self timer (or IR remote control), though. I was using maximum aperture (F2.0). I have not yet tried higher apertures - will do so ASAP. I used ISO 100 for minimum noise. I shot LOTS of photos, varying the shutter speed only each time. Not one looked acceptable to me.

I have a feeling that some lights will just never look good with this camera (as Sue suggests may be the case) but I will go out again and try a) higher F-stops, and b) using the IR remote control. I'll go to exactly the same spot I was at before.

What I think I'll also do is upload some of the photos, so you can judge for yourselves what might be the problem.

Greg.

-- Greg Sullivan (gregory.sullivan@compaq.com), May 05, 2000.

Ok! I've uploaded a bunch of photos to: http://members.dingoblue.net.au/~gregsullivan/c2020z_nightpics/

All photos taken with focus locked at infinity, and full manual control. White balance was left at auto by mistake. (I would have preferred to lock it to anything, just to keep it constant for all the photos - no big deal though I don't think) Framing is not quite identical between shots - sorry about that. I placed the camera on a flat surface and used the remote control to trigger the shutter.

The pair of photos which have just about the right overall background level of light are the F5 1s and the F2.2 1/4s shots. However, the (neon?) signs at the top of the buildings are blooming a LOT - those signs looked razor sharp to my eyes. The dimmer photos make those signs look sharper, however the background light level is then way to dim, and besides, the signs still don't look sharp enough.

I have, however, made a bit of progress. Can you see how much less chromatic abberation there is in the F5 series? (look at the circular lamps). It's almost non existent! So, Sue, it seems that your advice to try higher (smaller) apertures has at least helped to a degree - many thanks!

Please let me know what you think.....

Cheers, Greg.

-- Greg Sullivan (gregory.sullivan@compaq.com), May 06, 2000.

Forgot to mention that I shot at 1600x1200, but only High Quality JPEG compression, rather than Super High Quality - I did this to reduce the file sizes, because the artifacts are so blatant that I don't think a little more JPEG compression will make the slightest difference.

Also, they're all shot at ISO 100.

Greg.

-- Greg Sullivan (gregory.sullivan@compaq.com), May 06, 2000.

These shots look superb. I do similar shots except (perhaps unlike you) I stitch them into panoramas, with my 950 on a tripod I can obtain 1100 * 7000 pixel stitched images producing 10 Mb pict files - have you tried this. I maybe very wrong but I think night time shots are far more atmospheric and interesting than those taken in the daytime.

regards michael

-- Michael McKelvey (Michael_McKelvey@excite.com), May 07, 2000.

Thanks Michael, I'm glad you like them. However, the reason for my post is that I am unhappy with the appearance of the bright neon lights - in real life they look very sharp and quite frankly a LOT better than they do in the photos.

I'm all for panoramas, but this thread is specifically about the appearanc of the bright lights. However, here's a panorama shot just for good measure :) http://albums.photopoint.com/j/ViewPhoto?u=27007&a=5926280&p=20849393

Greg.

-- Greg Sullivan (gregory.sullivan@compaq.com), May 08, 2000.