# av mode in night time help!



## lawrencek328 (Nov 10, 2013)

hey guys ive been using av mode a lot when theres decent lighting but yesterday i was at my girlfriends party and trying to take pictures outdoor at night time with my canon t5i and 18-55m lens but the shutter speed was so long and my pictures would come out blurry now is there a way to use av mode at night time? or should i be using a different mode? i ended up using manual mode but I am not to good with it, i was not able to focus the subject and add depth to the pictures


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## Juga (Nov 10, 2013)

A speedlite can give you a AF assist beam. As far as your shooting mode you should use shutter priority or manual if you want to control your shutter speed to prevent blur. The downside to that is you are going to have to bump your ISO and depending on the lighting situation you might come out with some extremely noisey photos.


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## lawrencek328 (Nov 10, 2013)

thanks joe much help


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## texkam (Nov 10, 2013)

> or should i be using a different mode?


Yes. Manual.



> i ended up using manual mode but I am not to good with it


Get good with it.






Learn off camera flash.


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## lawrencek328 (Nov 11, 2013)

is there a way to pull up focus points on the screen in mf mode?


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## bratkinson (Nov 12, 2013)

Whether you use Av, Tv or M at night really doesn't make much difference. The 'battle' (as I think of it) is the exposure triangle. As you've likely discovered, the popup flash is pretty much useless beyond the first 10 feet or so. Adding an external flash would be a great help for lighting and keep the shutter speed fast enough to stop most movement. The AF-assist of the external flash would also help in focussing in those low light conditions as well.

And no, Auto Focus points do not show up while in Manual Focus. What value would they be if they did? In my opinion, the primary reason for using MF is to focus somewhere that AF can't be 'coaxed' or 'tricked' into focusing upon.


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## centauro74 (Nov 12, 2013)

You have to learn the exposure Triangle, in your case without the flash. The next thing was to raise your ISO to maybe 1600, you'll get noise but at least you can take the pictures. I rather have noise pics than blurry ones.


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## centauro74 (Nov 12, 2013)

One more thing you can do is to get a fast lens,  like the 50mm 1.8,  you can find I'd for less than $100 and can help you in those low light situations.


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## astroNikon (Nov 12, 2013)

Just in case for the OP  ... Don't confuse "manual focusing" with Manual Mode.


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## EIngerson (Nov 12, 2013)

Higher ISO.


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## lawrencek328 (Nov 12, 2013)

is there another option of a faster lens other than the 50mm 1.8 I like the ability to be able to zoom in and out


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## lawrencek328 (Nov 12, 2013)

im talking about when you flick the af button to mf on the lens, sorry im still new to the dslr world


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## pgriz (Nov 12, 2013)

Each mode (P, Av, Tv, M) has its own method of controlling exposure, and use.  Av is good when you know you want to control the DOF with the aperture, and you don't care about the shutter speed.  So under low-light conditions, the camera will keep the shutter open as long as necessary to get what it is programmed to think as the "correct" exposure.  This is not what you want if the light is low, and you're hand-holding.  So you have three choices:  add more light (flash, move to brighter area), use the existing light more effectively (a faster lens will bring more photons to the sensor), or boost the sensitivity of the sensor (increase the ISO).  Each method has its own set of characteristics.  Direct flash generally makes for ugly people pictures, so "most" photographers use either bounce or modified flash to get a better quality of image.  Fast lenses are great, but they do this at the expense of a very thin DOF, so focus accuracy and focus placement become very important.  Increasing the ISO may cause increase in apparent noise (less of a factor on new cameras, very much an issue with older sensors).  

Tv is good when you know you don't want the shutter speed to go too low, and the camera tries to compensate by varying the aperture.  However, if you run out of aperture (say your max aperture is f/4), then the images will still be dark.  Unless you start boosting the ISO.

P is actually a pretty good mode IF you allow the camera to control the ISO as well, and then it will pick whatever combination of shutter-speed, aperture, and ISO that gives a "correct" exposure.  However, with this method, you've handed control of most of the decisions to the programming in the camera, and it may or may not actually work for your specific situation.

M is of course, where you set everything yourself.  This is a good mode to use when you know what you are doing, and can predict the effects each of your exposure choices (shutter speed, aperture, ISO) will have on the final image.

Keep in mind that the camera needs a minimum amount of light to be able to carry out its AF functions, and if the light is too low, the camera may be incapable of getting a focus lock, unless it gets additional assistance.


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## lawrencek328 (Nov 12, 2013)

thank you pgriz, my main problem was that my flash would not go off in av mode so I switched from af to mf to take pictures


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## lawrencek328 (Nov 12, 2013)

Amazon.com: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Standard AutoFocus Lens - Gray Market: Camera & Photo 

would that be a good f/1.8 speed lens to take night pics with?


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## pgriz (Nov 12, 2013)

lawrencek328 said:


> thank you pgriz, my main problem was that my flash would not go off in av mode so I switched from af to mf to take pictures



Most likely what happened there is that the camera couldn't get a AF lock because the light level was too low, and some cameras do not allow you to press the shutter if the focus lock wasn't achieved.  By going into manual focus, you "told" the camera that you're looking after the focus - so it says, okie-dokie, I'll open the shutter (and fire the flash) any time you press the shutter.


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## pgriz (Nov 12, 2013)

lawrencek328 said:


> Amazon.com: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Standard AutoFocus Lens - Gray Market: Camera & Photo
> 
> would that be a good f/1.8 speed lens to take night pics with?



The answer is Yes/No/Maybe/Depends.

Yes, it will let in more light to the sensor, at a cost of a thin DOF, and probably you will still need to boost the ISO or use some form of flash or additional light
No, by itself it gets you only 1-2 stops extra of light,
Maybe, because together with other techniques (higher ISO, tripod, additional light sources) you may get enough light even with a slow shutter to show the detail you want to show
Depends, because if the subject is moving, you probably can't use a tripod, and are now needing either more light, or higher ISO or both.


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## lawrencek328 (Nov 12, 2013)

it would allow me to take the picture but no flash


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## pgriz (Nov 12, 2013)

An "average" interior lighting level (EV 5 at ISO 100) would require 1/8 sec at f/2 at ISO 100, 1/30 sec at ISO 400, and 1/60 at ISO 800.  Shooting 50mm on a crop camera, and using the "rule" that hand-held shutter speed should be no less than the reciprocal of the focal length, your minimum shutter speed would be probably 1/60 sec.  That means that if you shoot your 50mm f/1.8 lens wide open, you'd need to bump the ISO to at least 800, to be able to shoot at 1/60 sec.  At that aperture, if your subject was 10 ft. away, your depth-of-field would be a little under 0.8 ft. (about 10") "thick".  So, you will get most of a person's head in focus, but not the person standing behind them or in front of them.  If that's unacceptable, then you will need to increase the aperture to f/5.6 or even f/8,  which means a loss of 3-4 stops of light.  If you had a 5DIII, you could boost the ISO to 12,500 (4 stops from 800), and get decent images.  Can't do that with a Rebel.  So then flash becomes the way forward.

To recap:   f/1.8 will allow you to shoot at 1/60 sec at ISO 800, with a rather thin Depth-of-field.  If that's what you want, then yes, it will allow you to take the picture without flash.  But you will have some noise in the images, and the depth-of-field will be shallow.


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## table1349 (Nov 12, 2013)

This thread sounds like the OP could use something like: Understanding Exposure, 3rd Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera: Bryan Peterson: 9780817439392: Amazon.com: Books


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