Someone tell me about what digi cam I should be buying for night photography

In My Humble Opinion
1

My current digital camera has recieved the badly written note of the banshee, and placed amongst all of my other electronic devices that I can’t bring myself to throw away for fear I’ll hear of a quick fix for one of them in the near future. I’m not too heartbroken over it’s demise. Most of the pictures on it turned out horrible, the battery life sucked, and it performed like an absolute turd indoors unless it was day time, all the windows were open, all the lights were turned on, and my home was currently being enveloped by a nuclear blast.

I love ambiance, and consider myself a night owl. I like dim, yellow lights cast by poor quality lamps indoors, Van Goghish reflections of my city on our wet streets, deserted, gothic, industrial looking buildings under construction in the downtown area, and how everything has a blue glow to it save for red traffic lights once the sun has gone down behind a deep overcast.

So I’m interested in night photography. Very much so. My budget maxes out at $800 for a good camera. I’m thinking I’d like something with exchangeable lenses…though I’m not really sure what one lense will do different from another. I keep reading about different filters and such, and I do like the option of variety, so I’m thinking an SLR would be good for me. Size is no problem. I like large devices. I would prefer something with a rechargeable battery, and a good or decent battery life at that.

I’ve done a good bit of research on what camera would be good for night photography, but keep coming away with different answers. One thread I found at a photography message board said to find something with a low “F” setting, something below a 2.8 ideally. One friend with who had taken photography classes and actually has a portfolio told me any high quality (and generally expnsive) SLR camera will do the job. Another told me anything with a large lense to catch as much light as possible suffices. I’m wary of the last two bits of advice, and am finding that most descriptions of cameras don’t even mention an aperture, or “F”, rating.

I’m getting real lost real fast looking for the right camera that would suit my needs. I’m not really sure what the standard is while sifting through all of the different specs, and very very few camera sites offer sample photographs that any given camera has taken to show their capabilities. I’m finding makes and models dropped for similiar questions to my own elsewhere, but then the reviews don’t check out so well on Amazon and at other sites…plus many of the threads are a bit dated.

So what’s the straight dope on night photography? Is there any model I can simply grab after dropping into a Best Buy, or am I required to order offline to get the best camera for the best price? And what camera would it be? Just what the hell am I looking for exactly?

2

Unfortunately, unless you are prepared to drop some extremely serious bread, the kind of digital camera you need is the kind that pushes this old-fashioned little plastic strip of film 35mm wide through it.

The stars will be one blurry digitized pixel each. The moon will be an insanely contrasty white-hot orb.

To do anything beyond really rudimentary night shooting you are looking at am 8 to 10 megapixel camera with some very pricey very fast long lenses.

You’re going to drop a few grand on a good system. Sorry…

Cartooniverse

3

The amount of light in your shot depends on how much light the camera is letting in per unit time, how sensitive the sensor is and how long you hold the shutter open. Improving the first two requires expensive equipment, improving the third simply requires you to buy a tripod and have a camera capable of long exposure.

4

Good lord that’s cynical. I’m not looking for stargazing shots here, I’m talking about taking pictures at night in a very well lit city. Surely something within my price range can do at least that.

Gotcha. Thanks for the tips.

5

Sony does really low in low-light, indoor, and night (they suck at action shots.) Most Sony’s have an infrared lamp and will shoot in infrared. They also have nightframing, which uses the infrared to set up and focus your shot and the flashes it. Both, I find, are excellent features, and I think they take excellent pictures.

I have two Sony’s, a V1 and an 828.

Check 'em out on DPreview.com

6

I’ve been taking that sort of photos with my Nikon D50, and I’ve been very happy with it. The body is within your price range, and you can pick and choose which lenses you want to buy. I have a Nikkor, two Sigmas, and a Tomika (which is my least favorite, but that’s probably because I haven’t yet outfitted it with a UV filter and I keep getting snoodge on the lens.) I had all of those lenses for my film camera, which is why I selected Nikon for a digital SLR.

Nikon and Canon both make very good digital SLRs, or so I’ve heard. The D50 is fairly entry level, but it’s perfect for me.

You will want a tripod, no matter which camera you go with.

7

I am finding some good reasonably priced Digital cameras that are good for night photography. Look here at this picture. This is the second night picture I’ve found on Deviant Art taken by the same camera, and I think they both look great. According to www.dpreview.com the price for the Canon EOS 350D ranges from $500- 600. Well within my price range.

8

Hmm…well the Nikon D70 sure seems to be doing it’s job here.

Apparently it was released to go neck to neck with the previous camera I just mentioned. Looks like I’ll be whittling the choices down over the next few days. Thanks for helping me along.

And I was planning on a tripod. I read that it’s pretty much required for many night shots.

9

I presume you’re trying to do something along the lines of this. That was shot with a Canon EOS 350D and the kit lens, and a tripod. It’s amazing how much having a tripod opens up possibilities when shooting at night. I would also second getting a DSLR, because of the low-light performance and the manual control. I loves me my little Trinity! (Yup, I name all my toys. You got a problem with that?)

More examples of night shooting here, here and here.

10

I have a Canon 20D, and although I don’t have any night shots handy to impress you with, let me recommend it for this reason…

Last Halloween, the family was out carving the pumpkin on the back deck. We took some lovely photos of my daughter covered in pumpkin seeds.

The next morning, I opened the back door to put out some compost, and there, sitting on the barbecue, covered in night’s worth of light rain and drizzle, was my beloved camera, not even close to paid off.

My heart sank, my stomach churned, my inner big-brother mocked me relentlessly for being such a huge freaking doofus.

Still, I thought, I might as well try. After taking it apart, and putting in front of a big fan for 12 hours, I turned it on, and it worked! 14 months later, and it is still showing no ill effects from its night in the rain.

11

While I understand what you’re trying to say here, I have to disagree very much.

The Canon XTi will suit your needs fine. It’s around $800 for body only. It’s 10.1 megapixels. The D50 (a 6.1 megapixel camera) will do as well, and you should be able to get a body and lens for $800 or less.

You do not need a fast lens unless you plan to handhold all your nighttime images. If you just want to take cityscapes and the sort, you’ll want to use a tripod and the lowest ISO possible for maximum fidelity. You’ll also want to be shooting at around f/8, f/11 or so, usually, for decent depth of field and lens sharpness (although lens sharpness tails off a bit at the maximum and minimum apertures.) This, of course, is assuming you don’t have any moving objects that you don’t want blurred.

If you want to take low-light hand-held shots, you’ll want a camera that performs well at high ISOs and you’ll need fast lenses (nothing slower than a 2.8, generally). Both the Canon XTi and D50 do well at up to 1600ISO. I own both Canons (the 5D) and Nikons (2 D200s, a D70), but Canon has the better reputation for high ISO imagery. This is certainly the case from my cameras, although I don’t know about the consumer-level models. I do know that the D50 is one of the best Nikon cameras for high-ISO performance. At any rate, I think you’d be happy with either the Nikon or Canon even up to 1600ISO. They both look better than film at the same ISO.

The main problem you will run into with digital, and Cartooniverse alluded to this, is high-contrast. Because of the way digital sensors and imaging processing works, digital files have more contrast than negative film. In many ways, the response of digital cameras is somewhat like slide film.

So, yes, the moon will be a contrasty orb. However, the moon would be a contrasty orb with negative film, too. At night, the contrast difference between the foreground and the moon is even outside the range of negative film, unless you burn the hell out of the moon. Most of those nighttime images you see with the moon and a cityscape in the same frame are manipulated. The old way to do this was to take a properly exposed shot of the moon, usually with a telephoto lens to exaggerate the size, superimposed over a wide shot of the city. Nowadays, you can just do this digitally.

The key to night shots, though is balancing this contrast differential. For the most part (remember, there are not “rules” in photography, only guidelines), the best night shots are not taken at night, but just before night. Too late in the evening, and you lose all sky detail and all foreground detail excepting decently lit areas. Too early, and it doesn’t look like night. At some point, there’s a sweet spot of about 15 minutes where ambient light and artificial light are balanced perfectly so the night scene looks like night, but there’s still enough detail in the shadows and dark midtones to add interest.

Anyhow, so, yes Canon 20D, XTi, Nikon D50, D70, D80…all of those will be perfectly fine for night work.

12

That is a beautiful photo, as is the one you linked to above. I’m not a photography guru by any means, so I’ll let pulykamell get into the technical details, but it sounds like you’d be happy with any of those Nikons of Canons. They’re flexible enough to let you play with settings and learn on.

I did a few night shots last night, which I’ve posted on my blog, and there are some others a couple of pages back.

13

As everybody has already said, a tripod is what is going to make most of the difference between black frames and impressive pictures. Even my lame arse little pocket camera
(a Pentax Optio WP, which I love for different reasons) can take some decent pics if you give her 3-4 seconds to take it.

Get a tripod and start borrowing your friend’s and relative’s cameras to see what works and what doesn’t before you commit to buy. Think more on what camera is better suited to your lifestyle pictures (clubbing, dining, whatever it is you do by candlelight) and as long as it has a long exposure option, you should be able to do fine enough with you night scenes.