# outdoor, nighttime, candle lit scene... how to take a pic of this?



## rubbertree (Sep 30, 2008)

I've been asked to take  pictures of our town's outdoor Christmas in the Park event, particularly of the main attraction which is the lighting of the town's name and logo in candles. They will light the logo up in candles and want pictures of this, which they will use for the town's Christmas/winter cards and for other publications. 
Tripod, obviously.
How much would I have to up the ISO? I really don't want it to turn out too grainy but worry about the result if I don't turn it up enough. The candles arrangement will be done out in a big field and on snow, so that will give a little bit of reflective light.
No flash I'm sure, that would just ruin the effect.
Any insight is greatly appreciated!


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## rubbertree (Sep 30, 2008)

to add, what about white balance?
And what lens? I have:
Nikon 50mm f/1.8
Nikon 18-135mm f/3.5 -5.6
Sigma 70-200 f/2.8
Sigma 10-20mm f/4 - 5.6


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## Sw1tchFX (Oct 1, 2008)

Base ISO, f/8 and be there.


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## jcolman (Oct 1, 2008)

You're going to need a fairly long exposure obviously.  What I would try is shoot several shots at a "normal" iso like 400 and set your aperture to f/5.6 on your 50mm lens.  Start with a shutter speed of 1 sec. and work from there, either longer or shorter, depending on what your histogram tells you.

For a really, really nice shot, you might want to try "painting with light".  Take a strobe, or better yet several strobes and assistants, set your shutter speed to 30 seconds, aperture at f/8 and quickly walk thru the scene, flashing your strobes at trees, buildings, etc.  This is obviously going to take some experimentation to get it right but the results can be fantastic.


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## Mike_E (Oct 1, 2008)

Shoot at twilight and use photoshop to bring up the candles.


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## orly_zailer (Oct 1, 2008)

first of all the iso getting too grainy depends on your camera. with my canon 30s can go up to 1000 and still be ok. you sould mesure the light like this: exposure time according to the ambient (long time) and aperture according the flash measurement, give a little flash light and it will freeze the movement. good luck

www.orly-zailer.com


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## rubbertree (Oct 1, 2008)

Mike_E said:


> Shoot at twilight and use photoshop to bring up the candles.


 
They won't be lighting the candles until after dark unfortunately.


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## rubbertree (Oct 1, 2008)

orly_zailer said:


> first of all the iso getting too grainy depends on your camera. with my canon 30s can go up to 1000 and still be ok. you sould mesure the light like this: exposure time according to the ambient (long time) and aperture according the flash measurement, give a little flash light and it will freeze the movement. good luck
> 
> www.orly-zailer.com



Won't flash ruin the effect?


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## orly_zailer (Oct 2, 2008)

no, you should use manual flash and try just a small amount of its strength.


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## jcolman (Oct 2, 2008)

rubbertree said:


> Won't flash ruin the effect?


 Use off camera flash to light up parts of the picture that don't have Christmas lights.  Painting with light technique will probably yield the best results.


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## rubbertree (Oct 2, 2008)

jcolman said:


> Use off camera flash to light up parts of the picture that don't have Christmas lights.  Painting with light technique will probably yield the best results.



Huh? I'm totally confused. Maybe I didn't explain what I am trying to do properly.
This will be out in a field, they will be placing thousands of candles on the ground to spell out or town name (the town logo actually). They will be lit at night so that the only thing you see is complete darkness and the candles displaying the logo. They want the picture to be the candles spelling out the name (logo) for their Christmas cards. 
I'm not sure how using the paint with light technique helps here.


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## jcolman (Oct 3, 2008)

rubbertree said:


> Huh? I'm totally confused. Maybe I didn't explain what I am trying to do properly.
> This will be out in a field, they will be placing thousands of candles on the ground to spell out or town name (the town logo actually). They will be lit at night so that the only thing you see is complete darkness and the candles displaying the logo. They want the picture to be the candles spelling out the name (logo) for their Christmas cards.
> I'm not sure how using the paint with light technique helps here.



Sorry.  I was picturing in my mind a street shot with businesses, etc with Christmas lights hanging from poles.  

In that case, I would take two shots from a locked off tripod.  The first shot should be taken just after sunset so that you can capture some light in the sky.  The second shot would be after dark with the candles lit.  Obviously this would be a longer exposure.  Merge the two in PS.


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## rubbertree (Oct 3, 2008)

gah! I have Elements. Can't merge in there, can I?


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## jcolman (Oct 4, 2008)

rubbertree said:


> gah! I have Elements. Can't merge in there, can I?


 i don't know.   Buy a book on PS Elements?


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## rubbertree (Oct 4, 2008)

have one. Can't do it.


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## Joves (Oct 4, 2008)

What camera are you using? You dont have it listed. You may try bumping up the ISO in increments and, see what you get.


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## BTilson (Oct 6, 2008)

Question: Are all these candles going to be on the ground? If so, how big is the logo going to be? Fairly big I assume since you said thousands of candles. Are they wanting a shot of the whole logo? Seems to me that you'd need to be up above it somehow. Like in a helicopter or on a tower.


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## rubbertree (Oct 7, 2008)

Joves said:


> What camera are you using? You dont have it listed. You may try bumping up the ISO in increments and, see what you get.


Nikon D80. Yes, I will have to bump the ISO some, but I really want to avoid too much noise.


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## rubbertree (Oct 7, 2008)

BTilson said:


> Question: Are all these candles going to be on the ground? If so, how big is the logo going to be? Fairly big I assume since you said thousands of candles. Are they wanting a shot of the whole logo? Seems to me that you'd need to be up above it somehow. Like in a helicopter or on a tower.



Yes, they will all be on the ground and it will be fairly large, the description says "thousands of candles". I would imagine I would be situated on the roof of a nearby gazebo in the park to be able to get it, or up in the cherry picker. They decorate some of the live trees down there and use it to get to the top.


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## JerryPH (Oct 8, 2008)

I suppose another option would be to bracket your pictures, meaning take several pictures at different exposure levels and merge them into a tone-mapped picture.  I don't want to use the word HDR, but it is possible to take a HDR program like Photomatix and make tasteful HDRs that look natural.

Another possibility to consider is stitching... taking multiple pictures and interconnect them together to make one larger one.  AutoPano is the most powerful software out there that handles panoramas with ease.

In the end, a lot is going to depend on:
- your equipment (specifically quality of the lenses available to you)
- the size of the object(s) you want to get into the frame

The bigger the picture, the trickier things will get, as the candles will get smaller and smaller until they are nothing much more than tiny points of light almost that are individually indistinguishable, or if done correctly, could come out looking like one mass of light, if arranged to form a word or design.

Without really knowing the specifics of the area, what the goals are and the is available to you, all we are doing is effectively shooting in the dark (lol) with guesses.

You mention a roof or cherry picker as a location to shoot from... a flat roof would be better, because if you wished to fuse multiple layers, unwanted movement becomes a strong issue in a cherry picker whereas a roof is not something I expect would shift around from picture to picture over time if your camera was placed on a good tripod.

Think safety above all.  Even falling from a 9-10 foot height is enough to cause some serious damage to your equipment and (more importantly), your body.

As far as settings, I do know that best results will be met if you understand how and what to meter against and use full manual mode.  Once set, it will not change the exposure from frame to frame and this could be likely the most important factor in the end.


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## manaheim (Oct 8, 2008)

^^^ in addition to what everyone else said.

Remember you won't be able to re-do this so be sure to cover all your bases... get multiple exposures and be sure to deliberate both under and overexpose some of them (yes, DO overexpose some by at least a couple stops...)

Shoot in RAW so you have some margin of error on light color and exposure.

Use a tripod.

Is it on a hill or something?  I'm wondering how you're going to get the right perspective of the candles.  

I hope the fire dept. will be standing by.


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## rubbertree (Oct 8, 2008)

thanks for all that! 
Yes to RAW
Yes to tripod
Yes to multiple exposures.
Yes to full manual. I'm a M kinda girl.
Meter against the candlelight. Spot meter or matrix? 
I am going to contact the coordinator for more information as to what my location availabilities are.
Ooooohhh, stitching together a pano... I've never done it but have time to practice... that would look nice on a Christmas card...
These are the lenses I have:
Nikkor 18-135 f/3.5-5.6
Sigma 70-200 f/2.8
Sigma 10-20mm 4/5.6
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8


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## Kegger (Oct 8, 2008)

Center weighted metering will probably work best as the focal point is the candles. Matrix will try to light up the whole frame and point metering can throw off the exposure depending on if it's a bright spot or dark spot.

Take both the 10-20 and the 18-135. Never know how big it'll actually be or how far from it you will be.


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## manaheim (Oct 8, 2008)

I think you're going to find that your meter is going to lie to you massively.  Take a reasonable guess, look at your results, and adjust.


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## rubbertree (Oct 8, 2008)

will do. Thank you all.
What I am equally concerned about is how to keep the noise down to a minimum without having to drag the shutter too long. I would like to have images with both clear, crisp flames and also with flowing flames. Don't know how reasonable it is to hope for the first with little noise.
I have done full moon shots with great results before, I will go back and look at my EXIF data on those. I should be able to get the same effect in candles I hope?


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## manaheim (Oct 9, 2008)

rubbertree said:


> will do. Thank you all.
> What I am equally concerned about is how to keep the noise down to a minimum without having to drag the shutter too long. I would like to have images with both clear, crisp flames and also with flowing flames. Don't know how reasonable it is to hope for the first with little noise.
> I have done full moon shots with great results before, I will go back and look at my EXIF data on those. I should be able to get the same effect in candles I hope?


 
Use low ISO settings and you shouldn't get too much noise.  (depends somewhat on the camera... D100s had more noise on long shots than my D300 does, for example)

Also erring on the side of overexposure will help noise a bit.


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