night shots

[dehuis]

need some advise on shooting night scenes here. everything i try to take photos of night scenes and i meter on the lighted areas that i want to highlight and meter from there, the cam always tell me 10s or more. and the pics come out over exposed ( as in lights are ok but details tend to be lost)
pple have told me that 1-2s usually enuff for night scenes so how come the cam sets so long a time?
where should i meter on and wat sort of metering shall i use? (eg center weighted or evaluative or spot?)

i using film and usually iso200

so as a rule just use 1-2 s or shall i trust my camera? i mean for day shots its quite ok, but night always set me for such long shutter speeds.

advise anyone? thks

 

[showtime]

if you are using a nikon, their evaluative meter, called the 3d matrix meter is one of the best around. I trust that meter almost all of the time.

spot meter might be difficult because, depending on how large your metering spot is on your viewfiner. you might not be metering on the exact loction that you think you are... as in you might be metering on a darker spot than you think, causing you to overexpose most of the brighter locations...

also in spot meter mode, if you are using anything other than manual mode, remember to use the auto exposure lock because as you recompose your shot after metering, the meter value will change as the spot shifts to your recomposed location. that might be why you have over exposure problems.

center weighted metering works well...

why dont you do some tests and learn for yourself...

regards
Daniel

 

[iceman]

dehuis :

sorry if i have hijacked this thread as my questions may have also something to do with night shots.

i am a film user and intend to shot the musical fountain at sentosa. can someone advise how and where to meter?

also, a friend of mine told me that for film, i shoud overexpose by 1 stop. any comments?

thanx

 

[clive]

for the general scenery:
just use MATRIX METERING and FOCUS AT THE FURTHEST POINT IN THE SCENE and set f11 and BRACKET the time


for the fountain:
use matrix metering and focus at the snout and BRACKET w.r.t.
(i) 1 second
(ii)2 second
(ii)4 second
(iv)8 second
(v)16second
or whatever "nice time values" that u fancy