Night & Attraction Photos w/o Flash

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BamaJenn

Member
I just purchased a Canon PowerShot S3 IS as an upgrade to the A95 I had. So far I am pleased as it seems to have a few more features than my A95 had. I also like the general feel of it over the A95. But I digress...

One of my passions is visiting Walt Disney World (as anyone who knows me on this forum already knows) and this passion, combined with the love of my 10 month old son who will be making his first trip to WDW in about 3 weeks is what pushed me to find a better camera.

A general photography dummy, my desire has always been to set a camera on Auto and point-and-click my way to photographs. Since my son was born though I've been starting to get more interested in some amature photography for scrapbooking his memories with wonderful shots. As such, I've found a few tutorial sites out there that have explained shutter speed, aperture and ISO to me in terms I understood a lot better than the camera manuals provided.

So... after all that babbling, let's get onto my question...

What I'm looking for is some suggestions on settings to take great shots at night around Disney to capture the lights on Main Street or on a specific ride/attraction.

Additionally I'd like some suggestions on how to best take photos inside of attractions using the lighting provided (i.e. theatrical lighting type situations) without the typical blurr problem found when trying to take a non-flash photo on "Auto". Anyone who's been to Disney knows that on almost every ride/attraction they allow photos... just not "flash photography". So I'd like to try to capture some shots of oh say the Carousel of Progress or Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.

Thanks in advance to any of you photography nuts who are also Disney nuts that can give me some help!
 
Turn on IS all the time on your camera. I have the first one. With that being said, your lens is "slower" than mine at the far end of the telephoto.

That means that less light can get to the sensor in the same amount of shutter exposure.

I would set the ISO to 800 (or higher if you have it, but I think 800 is the max.) Don't trust AUTO ISO.

Until you get the handle of it, don't use M mode just yet.

Use the "Av" mode on your camera. Set the Av to the lowest number you can. The camera will then set the shutter speed. With IS on, you may be able to get shots down to 1/10, 1/15 of a second or less and still have acceptably non-blurry photos.

Make sure the flash icon has a line through it, like the no-smoking sign on an aircraft.

Then have fun and fill the SD card!

:)
 
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Forgot to add:

for non-ride pics at night -

T
R
I
P
O
D

For an S3IS, any will do. (those of us with the big 'uns have to worry about the weight capacity)

And if you use a tripod, set the ISO lower, to maybe 100/200 or even 400. Set the Av mode to about 5.6 or 8, let the camera do the rest.

If the pic comes out too bright and blown out, use the exposure compensation and reduce it (negative). If it is too dark, set the compensation to positive.
 
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hi again, jenn....

for starters, the WORST thing you can do is use automatic mode on any camera. the camera will guess at what you are trying to accomplish and tell YOU what you want to do instead of you telling IT what to do.

for the breathtaking night shots i have in my gallery and others have posted on these boards, the answer is simple and here are some tips to get you going...
-it takes TIME to expose the night time shots properly.
-to achieve this, simply use a tripod and set the camera to ISO 100 and Av mode around f/8 or so (you want a bigger f/ number so you get more of the picture in focus).
-if your new camera will accept a remote shutter release (AKA cable release that plugs into the side of the camera), GET ONE! -if not, using the self-timer for long night shots will work just the same, but it will take a bit longer for the count-down. at any rate, what you are trying to avoid is shaking the camera when you hit the shutter, even if its on a tripod.
-make sure you turn the IS off when on a tripod as well.
 
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Dur....Tim's right, turn off the IS if you use a tripod. I see that on Generation #1, IS is a button. For yours, it is a Function Menu item.

But to save you time, you can't use an external release.

But you have an interesting feature with the self timer - ability to customize timer delay and even do a series of shots without touching the shutter again. Could be useful with fireworks pictures. But it comes with a 10 sec and a 2 sec timer built in. If the tripod is sturdy enough, 2 secs is probably okay.
 
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Awesome suggestions! I do have a tripod so I'll do some test shots with setting it on Av and playing with it. I'm assuming setting the ISO high at night will result in a lot of noise so using a tripod is the only real option for great shots.

How about taking a shot on something like Space Ranger Spin... it's moving and a flash will kill the lighting and colors... just set the ISO pretty high or what?
 
high iso and fast shutter to stop the action. you're right, flash will KILL the ambiance and ruin the ride for everyone.
 
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Tim - I'm looking at all the galleries that I am assuming are yours. Do you think with my camera and the right settings I can capture shots like you've taken on say "Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" etc.? I'm actually taking notes on some of the shutter/aperture settings you used as well so I can try to use them and see what sort of results I get.
 
Make sure you try ISO800 before using it. JMHO, the ISO800 on the S3 is unuseable for anything beyond 4x6 print. YMMV, however.
 
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"Kelly Grannell" said:
JMHO, the ISO800 on the S3 is unuseable for anything beyond 4x6 print.
Click to expand...

ah, the joys of digital slr. iso 3200 and loving it.
 
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"Tim" said:
"Kelly Grannell" said:
JMHO, the ISO800 on the S3 is unuseable for anything beyond 4x6 print.
Click to expand...

ah, the joys of digital slr. iso 3200 and loving it.
Click to expand...

Or you could get the Olympus FE-250 and shoot ISO 10,000.
 
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BUT... there is a catch. you can only use iso 10,000 in 3mp mode. cut the megapixels so the photosites are bigger so you catch less noise. i would love to see a 100% crop of an image at that high iso.

then again, if you shoot at iso 3200 and push the raw +2 stops in post, isn't that effectively 12,800? it sure as heck ain't gonna be very pretty that's for sure.
 
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;D

I know! That's why I love dpreview's comment about it: "What makes the FE-250 stand out for us though, is that it scales new heights in sensitivity, offering an ISO 10,000 (yes, that's ten thousand) option (at 3MP). Now we may be jumping the gun here, but we suspect there may be some sacrifice in quality involved. Either that or Olympus has - in a £200 compact - re-written the laws of physics."

Rewritten the law of physics.

hahahahaha

Kodak does the same thing on a few of theirs for ISO 800 - cuts the MPs down.
 
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This is what a few seconds can do for a ride. I guess I was lucky I wasn't on DUMBO when it decided to go 5,000 miles per second.
 
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a point and shoot (pns) is problematic when it comes to shooting inside. the lens is usually pretty slow (though they might be gettign better) but the very small chip inside of the cameras makes high ISO speeds very grainy. my panasonic fz10 had a great lens but was photos were completely unusable even at 400.

you may want to pick up a table top tripod. they are far more portable than a full sized tripod and are quick to set up on a table or garbage can.

to get main street lights you want to shoot at a shutter speed at the bare minimum needed to keep it sharp. basic physics creates a problem. you shake. at some poiint you're shaking will affect the camera. that is usually at the inverse speed of the lens length

so. i have a 100mm lens. everything faster than 1/100th of a sec (1/125th, 1/500). will be reliably steady. now, the IS on your camera helps out 2-3 stops which means you can shoot 2-3 stops (somewhere around 1/50th of a sec) slower than that 1/100th of a sec.

now if you leave youre lens at a wide angle then you should be fine for the hand holding.
then just practice. find that sweet zone (1/50th is a good spot, slower than that and you start to have to try to be steady)and go with it. if you can narrow the aperture to 3.5 or even 5.6 then more things will be in focus. but you don't want to top out the ISO unless you have to,.
 
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here are 2 photos

the bright one is with a tripod. and is 10 seconds at f/8
you can see how moving people become shadows.

the emporium is ISO 1600 (very fast), at 7.1, for 1/125th sec. with an 85mm lens.

which shows main street is quite hand holdable at night. drop the 1600 3 stops to 200 (1600 to 800 to 400 to 200 = 3 stops) means you also have to drop something else 3 stops (to let more light in to take the same photo). so the 7.1 aperture becomes a still acceptable 3.5 or so. drop the 1/125th sec two stops and you can raise the aperture two stops to 5.6 and you still get a sharp, colorful, steady photo.

so main street at night gives a lot of leeway. its very bright.
 
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