Ok we all know that when ya pop the bonnet on a foggy night you get some awesome looking shots. With my top 4 I get 6 distinct beams... but I can't figure out how to get that to show up with a camera. What do I need to do? I got that panasonic FZ30 you guys told me was good, now what do I need to change to get some shots... yes I am using a tripod...

-Josh

 

Tripod, with a long exposure, from far away would be my first try, never thought to go out and shoot in the fog sound like it would be really cool. I treat photography like driving, the more I do>the more I learn>the more I like my photographs, the more I drive>the more I like.

 

If pictures are too dark you have an exposure lock point the camera at the beams set the shutter and aperture, the you can add the car and take your photo using those same settings. If pictures are to bright point closer to the lights set the exposure and frame the photo accordingly

 

you have no idea how greek that was to me... but i' will go with your first post... more time taking pics = better pics

 

Can we see what you got to begin with?


Here's what I think though since I've only tried photographing in fog during the day.
From what I've read about driving in fog, they recommend that high beams should not be on. Something about how all that light reacts with the "molecules." (refraction, blah, blah, blah, etc.)

From this I would assume you'd have to sacrifice one way or another. Either you expose for the light beams in the fog (which will make your MINI a silouhette) or expose for the car (in which case the fog will look to washed out).

I'm sure there's a happy medium out there.

 

this is what I am looking for and how to take the pic...


-Josh

 

Light fog, slow shutter(amt. of time the sensor was exposed to light, low ISO=low noise(those specs you get when it dark). Something like this I thik the would have taken the light reading off of the trees, framed the picture and snap.
My first thought-ooh lots of MINIs, second wonder what it looks like from the air, third how many locals reported ufo landings that night.
neat photo- who gets credit?

 

dont remember whose it was... its at MOTD from this past year... *shrug*

-Josh

 

Its hard to tell but from the green light trail, it looks like someone had it on a tripod and set it manually to a timed exposure. Its the same thing you do to get fireworks shots. The only thing strange is that that the people look like they are not moving but it might be just a short duration ... a sec or two.

 

My experience, with my camera that has many auto features, would tell me to avoid the auto-focus (if you can) because the fog (dust in my case) would ruin the shot.
I've been wanting to try fog with bonnet up!

 

I should have mentioned that. The shot would have to be ALL manual. Time exposure with manual focus on the cars.

 

Hey Josh, Check out the owners manual, for your camera, and see if it has "autobracketing." If it does, follow those instructions. The camera will take several shot consecutively (usually 3-5) at different exposure levels. That would be the easiest way. I'm not sure you could call that sample picture a "long exposure" since the people in the picture are relatively sharp.

CB

 

Ooh I wonder if my camera has that option. I've just been setting diferent times manually. When we shot the futureQueenofNebraskas car it was dusty sort of like fog and I noticed it didn't show up to well on film. But that wasn't what I was shooting at so I don't have a good suggestion.

 

well first of all, the manual focus is one of the key features of the fz30... use it! I also think that too long of an exposure will wash out the car. maybe go full manual and close the f-stop all the way... then force a longer exposure than necessary. try messing with that a bit. Either way try a few things and post them so we can see what you're working with. I have the FZ5, which is basically the FZ30's little brother, so I may be able to look at the settings and give you some tweaks... either that or I'll play with the 30 on wed. or thursday night when I work at the camera store.

hope this isn't all greek to you.

 

i think i took that photo. look in my gallery to see if it is. just use a tri-pod, and long shutter time with no flash. i am sure there is other things i could do to make it better, but i am not a pro at this, but learning some good points.

 

Since I took this photo, I'll tell you my secret, but you're not going to be happy with me!

I have a 5 year old point and shoot Minolta Dimage F-100. I laid down in the road, steadied the camera on the road surface the best i could, and pressed the button!

 

Cheapskate (like me) techniques, I love it! Now I see the stripe on the road.

 

This is not to say that I don't have any training. . .I did take photo classes for 3 years in high school and 3 more in college. . . . but now I just like taking snapshots. Since I am too cheap to buy a serious digi-cam, I just do the best I can with a decent camera that I know inside and out. . . .

 

In general, autoexposure will tend to overexpose shots like these. Remember that the camera meter is assuming an "average" scene and, when it sees something with lots of dark areas, it'll try to make them brighter. Yucca's camera did a decent job in this instance, maybe because the bright headlights balanced out the large dark areas. So, with a digital point and shoot, I'd try a shot, see how it looks, and probably end up (if the camera allows it) dialing in some negative exposure compensation.

With an DSLR, I'd probably spot meter off something of approximately medium brightness (18% gray) and use that, or spot meter off whatever you want to be the brightest area that still has detail and isn't blown out and open up about two stops. Again, with digital, you can chimp and adjust as needed. I'd probably also shoot with the camera set to lower contrast and bump it up later with curves and levels in Photoshop.

Mark

 

WOW



Seriously, I am impressed. It looks like a timed exposure.

 

Really just a matter of knowing my camera's settings and also being lucky. I took about 20 other shots and this is the one that came out well enough to share. . . Others looked like blurry squiggles or worse!

Sadly, the high quality version was lost when my laptop crashed.