EOS R10 Tips for Shooting at Night

[Cantrell]

All,

We have permanent lights on our house.Took some pictures at night of the lights. One of the pictures was in the manual mode and the other two in the FV mode.

[Danny]

Hi, Cantrell!  Did you have a question about your Canon gear or were you just looking to show off your photos?  Please let us know so we can make sure your post gets the attention it needs!

[Cantrell]

Danny,

Looking for suggestions on improving my ability to use the R10 in low light. No bragging intended. R10 with the RF-s 18-150mm lens made the FV mode in two of those shots and manual mode in the other. I do not use the manual mode very much.

[ctitanic]

Without the EXIF data in those pictures is hard to give you any advise other than you need to have the lens wide open and the shutter speed the lowest you can to capture the most amount of light possible. The RF-s 18-150mm is not the best lens for the task. Probable a 50mm f1.8 would have performed better.

[Cantrell]

ctitanic,

Thank you for the suggestion. I have the Sigma 50mm ART lens. I will give it a try. The camera is a R10 which is a crop which means the 50mm would be a 80mm.

[p4pictures]

I downloaded the images in the post and found the following settings for shutter speed, aperture and ISO

IMG_0956 - 1/2 sec, f/4, ISO 6400

IMG_0957 - 1/2 sec, f/4, ISO 6400

IMG_0961 - 1/15 sec, f/4, ISO 6400

First image has lots of camera shake, second looks a little less camera shake and third on is darker but sharper. All were taken at 18mm on the lens so the maximum available aperture would be f/3.5 though it only allows a little more light in.

For this kind of shot, you will need to mount the camera on a tripod, to avoid the camera shake. Even with the image stabilisation in the lens, 1/15 is borderline and 1/2 sec is not going to be possible. If you don't have a tripod put the camera on a solid table or chair and use the self-timer to allow a delay after you press and touch the camera for the vibrations to subside, before the photo is taken.

Such night time exposures are often a challenge. With a solid tripod I would reduce the ISO from its current ISO 6400 to around 1600 or even 800. You will need to counter this reduction in sensitivity with slower shutter speeds. So for ISO 1600 it's two stops slower so the 1/2 sec exposure becomes 2 seconds. If you go to ISO 800 then the exposure is 4 seconds. You will find that some experimentation in manual mode with a fixed ISO and the aperture around f/5.6 is a good place to start. Learn from the experiments by looking at the settings of the pictures that are not successful as much as the ones that work.

[Cantrell]

p4pictures,

Thank you very much for your review and suggestions. The information is very helpful.

[kvbarkley]

I like "handheld night scene" mode. It takes 3 shots and averages them so that each individual shot can have a shorter shutter time:

[Cantrell]

kvbarkley,

Thank you for mentioning that mode. I believe the R10 has something similar. I will give it a try. Been using the FV mode and wanted to try the shutter priority and then manual in this low light situation.

[Cantrell]

kvbarkley,

Have you used the "handheld night scene"? Happy with the results? Thank you.