EOS R6 Mark II Settings for Colored Lights in Night Pictures

[Cantrell]

All,

Happy 4th of July! I have a R6M2 with a RF 24-240mm lens. Our house has permanent attached colored lights underneath the eaves. I took pictures of the house after we turned the lights on red, white, and blue. Each light had a series of 25 lights. The white lights were very bright and overwhelmed the pictures. ISO was set at Auto, shutter speed was 1.5 to 3.2 seconds, and F stops ranged from 5.6 -11.0. The ISO at one setting was 25600.

Any suggestions on correcting the settings so that the white lights do not overwhelm the pictures. Going to be taking pictures tonight.

Thank you in advance for any and all suggestions.

[shadowsports · Accepted solution]

Greetings Cantrell ,

Welcome back. Your RF 24-240 has a variable aperture f4 through f6.3.  it jumps to f5 & 5.6 pretty quickly and then anything above 105 mm is f6.3.  This isn't a bad thing but something to be mindful of.  The great thing about the R6 Mark II is that it has an incredible sensor and wonderful ISO.  Your focal length is going to directly impact the maximum aperture available to you.  Start by capping your ISO at around 6400.  Incrementally increase your shutter speed.  You can use an aperture above f6.3 depending on your depth of field requirements.  The camera's going to struggle with anything above f8.  This (or a little less) should give you enough DOF.  If your ISO goes too high, the pictures are going to get noisy.  You may need to adjust your metering settings to spot so the white lights don't blow out your images.  This should be a starting for point for you so you can find a sweet spot.  If you want to post some of your images, we can make further recommendations.  

[Cantrell]

Ric,

Thank you for your response. I will set my ISO to 6400. The other thing that I did was instead of having 25 lights of the same color, I changed to having one light each in a sequence. Hopefully this will help. The 25 white lights was blowing out the picture. Thank you for your reply.

Reese

[shadowsports]

Experiment with your exposure triangle.  🙂

[stevet1]

Cantrell,

Another thing you van do is play with your white balance a little.

A warmer setting like cloudy or shade will help emphasize your reds, and a cooler setting like Tungsten will emphasize your blues.

Steve Thomas

[Cantrell]

Steve1 and Rick,

Thank you very much for the suggestions. It is appreciated.

Reese

[Cantrell]

Rick,

Thank you for the suggestions. I set the ISO at 6400 and F stop at 6.3. I adjusted the shutter speed from .5 seconds to 1.5 seconds and got better results. The pictures were a little darker than Friday nights pictures, but the white lights did not blow out the other colors. You could see the red, white and blue lights.

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

You're definitely on the right track 🙂. Good work!

[FloridaDrafter · Accepted solution]

Hello, Cantrell!

If you're expecting to take more images like this in the future, be it low light indoors or decorative lighting, you may want to consider looking at some lenses with a wider aperture, like f/2.8 or f/1.8. The R6 mark II, which I have, is a light sponge with excellent higher ISO abilities. Still, you need to help it out by getting more photons to the sensor 🙂

The apertures of f/4-f/6.3 are causing you to have to use a very slow shutter and much higher ISO than I would use. This, in turn, is over exposing your images (oversaturation), or more specifically, the brighter lights. The ISO Rick suggested is a good starting point for this particular lens, but don't be afraid to raise it to get your SS a little faster to avoid oversaturation. I just get better results with faster shutter speeds. Also, keep your aperture as wide as the focal length will allow. As mentioned, distance will effect your DOF but either f/4 or f/6.3 are going to give you a decent DOF.

Here is an example at f/2.5, 1/60th, ISO 2000. Shot with an el cheapo 50mm f/1.8. These were taken using an EOS 5D mark IV, but the lens is the important part. I processed these in DPP 4 and did reduce highlights a bit to keep the white lights from blowing out, but it was a small adjustment.

50mm f/1.8, 1/125th, ISO 2000

Canon makes an excellent EF and RF 24mm f/2.8 prime. I have this lens in the EF version for my DSLR's, but when I bought into MILC's I went with the RF 15-35mm f/2.8L IS USM which is quite expensive for its class. I also bought the RF 50mm f/1.2L USM so I'm pretty well fixed for low light. I haven't shot the lights with the MILC's but have shot lots of low light subjects like night sky clouds and landscapes illuminated by the moon. My profile pic was taken with an adapted EF 50mm f/1.8 on an R5 with just the full moon as illumination 🙂

Newton

[Cantrell]

FloridaDrafter,

Thank you very much for your response. It is very informative. Your pictures are fantastic. I can only hope to be that good. Shadowsports and yourself have provided me with numerous things to consider.

What does MILC mean? MILC=Mirror Less Camera?I am not very good acronyms. The fastest lens that I have is a Sigma 50mm ART lens F1.4. I took some shots of my house that morning and I had to stand in their front yard to get the entire house into the frame. If I use your suggested settings I would not need a tripod or would you suggest that I use a tripod.

I enjoy taking pictures of my dogs, grandchildren, and when we have the house decorative lights. Our entire of our house is on the dark side. 

Reese