Hi i just need some advice about taking pictures at night. Firstly here's 2 pics ive taken

The 1st one taken at f22 30 seconds on a D70

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b308/4eighty/DSC_0027.jpg

and the 2nd one taken at F18 5seconds on a D80

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b308/4eighty/Skyline.jpg

In my opinon the 1st one is sharp the 2nd one a little fuzzy. When taking pics at night what is the best way to ensure the pic remains sharp and full of detail without it looking over exposed in some areas and really dark in others ?

Hope that makes sence ?

Thank you for any advice you can give me on that :)

Are the images showing ? they wont load up on my bloody dial up connection :ohno:

You're using some really small apertures there - you don't need to close down that much unless you're trying to get foreground and background in focus at the same time. For shooting wide angle at infinity focus like these photos, f/5.6-8 will do the job and get you sharper photos with shorter exposure times and less noise.

When taking pics at night what is the best way to ensure the pic remains sharp and full of detail without it looking over exposed in some areas and really dark in others ?That's the classic digital/slide night photography question. Bright city lights against dark night skies tend to produce dynamic ranges beyond the capacity of digital sensors. A few ways to work around this:

1) Try to shoot in the blue hour (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_hour).

2) Use HDR or graduated ND filters to even out exposures.

3) Take photos on cloudy nights - clouds tend to reflect city lights and help you avoid getting the black skies that can mess up an urban night shot.

The two photos you've posted are excellent - keep shooting at night and posting here!

Thanks for the reply. But the reason i use small apatures is to,,,,, like you said keep both foreground and background in focus.

I also like the little stars it can create (street lights or any stationary light scource) If i have a large aperture it will make street lights look like blobs of colour........

Although i will try your advice next time....ive never shot in manual focus mode and setting it to infinity before but and ill try that aswell. The only reason ive not done it is because i thought it would be hard to see if the picture was really sharply in focus when doing it manually because of the subject being dark, you know what i mean ?

On the 2nd shot i have CPL filter on it which helped darken the sky

I also like the little stars it can create (street lights or any stationary light scource) If i have a large aperture it will make street lights look like blobs of colour........

Although i will try your advice next time....ive never shot in manual focus mode and setting it to infinity before but and ill try that aswell.Sorry mate, I think I was a bit confusing. What I meant was that the photos you posted had all their compositional elements at infinity, so you don't need the small apertures to get everything in focus. And most lenses are better around f/8, and shorter exposures make less noise, so it's generally good to shoot around the sweet spot of the lens for night stuff.

For getting street lights to look like stars rather than blobs, shooting with a lens with an odd number of aperture blades helps - and you're right, stopping down can be handy.

Sorry i was confused aswell lol what i meant was i use small apertures so that theres maximum depth of field.

I normally keep it a F8 for daytime shots, but ill use ya advice and try it at night aswell.

oh and heres some other night shots ive taken, as per your request, these are about a year old now, i need to get out and take some more. All these were taken on a nikon D70 (which by the way i think is better than the D80)

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b308/4eighty/DSC_0939.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b308/4eighty/DSC_0156.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b308/4eighty/DSC_0036.jpg

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b308/4eighty/DSC_0024.jpg

This last one was taken during a storm

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b308/4eighty/DSC_0051.jpg

the same shot during the daytime, you can notice how many buildings are on the skyline but cant be seen through the dense clouds

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b308/4eighty/DSC_0017.jpg

Hi!
You’ve mentioned camera models and that is important point here as single pixel of CCD of D80 is significantly smaller hen one on the D70.
But another very important information is missing – what lens do you use. This is really determining thing!
All lenses have a sweet spot where they are sharpest – have best resolution and normally it is somewhere around middle of its F range. And NEVER at F22 of even F18 more like F8-11. At very high F settings picture will soften due detraction. You should check some reviews about the lens you use to get the idea of it sharpest F and also sharpest focal range. In some budget lenses these numbers may vary dramatically from 1100 to 2000 LW/PH. D80 with it’s 10Mpix will hit that resolution limit of almost any lens as it can , at least theoretically resolve 2350 LW/PH. Most lenses will be within 1600-2100 LW/PH.
And one thing that is absolutely crucial for sharp night shot – good, steady tripod! This is really important thing. One what you can avoid vibrations resulting from mirror flipping during the shot if you raise it prior to the shot. Not sure though if D80 can do it. D70 can’t for sure.

hi, all but one of the shots were taken with the kit lense 18-70mm the other one (the 2nd pic in the 1st set) was taken with an 18-200mm vr

Like i said b4 the only reason i have used such small apertures is to get maximum depth of field in the shot. So i dont know how different they would look with a bigger aperture

During the day i normally shoot between f8-f11 so its funny you mention those aperture to me lol.

Im going down to wellington in a few weeks and up to Raumati beach just up the coast so hopefully ill be able to get some nice sunset shots aswell
(i cant be bothered to drive 50kms to the nearest western beach when im in auckland, so this time ive got no excuse)

Also what you were saying about the tripod being steady, my lense is a VR, so wouldnt that take out most if not all the movement made by the mirror moving ?

Oh and another thing, when i was sayin that i think the D70 is a better camera i didnt mean for its sharpness. As many D80 owners have complained before...the way the D80 metres is to meter for shadow rather than highlight...the outcome of that being you have to always use exposure compensation in order for it to look right. It a pain in the arse i hope they change it if/when there are firmware updates

So how do you like your 18-200mm? I'm thinking of getting one myself as go-around lens.
At some zoom levels and apertures it has been show to have huge falloff in resolution in the center of the shot and on the sides - almost twice! But I guess this is very much the issue of sample per sample...
http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/lenses/nikkor_18200_3556vr/index.htm
Depth of field issue is relevant when you have objects in shot in very different distance (some are close and other far away) when all of them are far, say 20-1000 m then they'll be in focus anyway.

I really like it. I heard before buying it that there were some problems with distortion, but to be honest i didnt really take much notice.

I read a really good review on www.kenrockwell.com, i do tend to trust what he says.

The reason i dont tend to take much notice of what they say on distortion is i dont think its that noticable.
I think you can notice it if you are analinzing it but to anyone else i dont think they would notice (does that make sence)

The only minus points id say about it is its quite heavy when you're are using it for a days shooting, also if you want to photograph something that's up in the air (top of a building for example) then you have to hold on to the barrel of the lense if ya zoomin cos it'll keep moving back down, there seems to be very little resistance.

what i just said maybe REALLY stupid lol but its the 1st kinda big zoom lense ive owned and i dont know if other lenses do that ??????do they ?????

very interesting what you said about depth of field....i for some unknown reason assumed that if an object is about 1km away then it would be best to use a small aperture, but maybe now ill opt for a better sharper aperture.

So in your/or anyone else's opinion is it ok to use a mid range aperture..say F11 for shots with subject about 1km away ?

(im still learning if ya havent noticed lol)