Yet Another Canon A70 thread: need settings suggestions for night photos.

[Fausto]

I'd like to be able to get some better shots of me racing at night on the velodrome.

My first effort.....not awful, but not great.

Here's the deal; the velodrome is lit with bigass stadium lighting, but they could really use about twice the number of lights they currently have so it's a bit dim. On top of this, the riders will be whipping by at 25+ mph most of the time so I need a fairly quick shutter speed to prevent blur. Any suggestions from you photo-experts out there?

Thanks!

 

[Anubis]

can you adjust the F-stop on that cam? if you can open it WAY up. the lower the number the more light comes through. also set the ISO at 400 because it is more light sensitive

http://pichosting.pcthike.com/TheEvil1/P8210031

theres one of my faves that i have taken

 

[luv2chill]

Well if it's feasible you should get a decent tripod. The biggest problem with night shots is that the lack of sufficient light for exposure means the shutter must stay open longer causing lots of blur. You may want the subject to be blurred (kind of a cool effect for bike racing) but you want the background to be sharp as it can be. A tripod is really the only way to accomplish that well.

Otherwise, yeah, bumping up the ISO will help... you will get some "noise" in the picture as you artificially increase ISO but going up to 400 or so should be fine. Set the camera on aperture priority and open it wide up. The camera will use the appropriate shutter speed to properly expose the shot. You'll have to just play around with different shutter speed/aperture combinations depending on whether you want the subject sharp or blurred...

Digicams make photography so fun because you can shoot to your heart's content and get instant feedback on whether your shot "worked".

Have fun!

l2c

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

Only way to reduce that kind of blurring is to reduce the shutter speed. To do that you will either need to Flash (increase the amount of available light in the environment) or increase the F-Stop (increase the amount of light reaching the light sensitive part of the camera). Does the A70 have an F-STop? I am sure you can force the flash...


action shots like that need 1/250 exposure or less. I would guess that particular shot came in at 1/60th sec.

 

[Fausto]

Cool, thanks guys. I'll see if I can pick up a cheap tripod and get the wife to man the camera next time I go racing. She's a bit of a shutterbug anyway.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: yamahaXS
Only way to reduce that kind of blurring is to reduce the shutter speed. To do that you will either need to Flash (increase the amount of available light in the environment) or increase the F-Stop (increase the amount of light reaching the light sensitive part of the camera). Does the A70 have an F-STop? I am sure you can force the flash....

AFAIK, you can set everything manually on the A70 if you want to. I just haven't figured all the settings out yet (there are a crapload).

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: Fausto1
Cool, thanks guys. I'll see if I can pick up a cheap tripod and get the wife to man the camera next time I go racing. She's a bit of a shutterbug anyway.

Please no hiney photo's, thank you

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

Originally posted by: Fausto1

Originally posted by: yamahaXS
Only way to reduce that kind of blurring is to reduce the shutter speed. To do that you will either need to Flash (increase the amount of available light in the environment) or increase the F-Stop (increase the amount of light reaching the light sensitive part of the camera). Does the A70 have an F-STop? I am sure you can force the flash....

AFAIK, you can set everything manually on the A70 if you want to. I just haven't figured all the settings out yet (there are a crapload).

But there may not be an aperture control. look for "f-stop" in the manual... lower f stop = bigger aperature.

The other comment about setting the ISO to 400 makes sense too....

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: RossMAN

Originally posted by: Fausto1
Cool, thanks guys. I'll see if I can pick up a cheap tripod and get the wife to man the camera next time I go racing. She's a bit of a shutterbug anyway.

Please no hiney photo's, thank you

Don't worry, to stay legal he has to at least wear a thong - gotta have the strap.

Viper GTS

 

[lowtech1]

Increase film speed (ISO), and increase shutter speed. Unforutnately most digicam only have a max of 400 iso speed therefor you are limited to what you can shoot.

The poor shot could be from low shutter (1/60 or 1/30 of a second & on camera flash is on) and hand shake. There is some background and forground blur, therefore you might want to increase shutter speed to a faster shutter speed or use a tripod. And, there seemed to be at least 1 stop under expose, because the white background is grey & there is some lost of detail on the subject.

There are several ways to improve the shooting condition.
Unfortunately the Canon A70 is an entry level (amateur) camera, because it doesn't have hot/cold shoe, or X/T sync for an on camera external flash. However, you can purchase off camera slave flashes to help with the lighting (the slave flash triggered by your on camera flash). (Might want to check it out at the camera store to see if your camera would work with this setup.)
The other method is to use tri-pod & pan shot. And, it is a technique that will need some practice. With tri-pod & pan technique you can shoot at speed as low as 1 second and get excelent result. (my favorite pan shots from bike races have always been 1/2 or 1/4 sec shot).
See your local camera shop for suggestion on a a good tri-pod & nice fluid head.

Good luck & happy photography.