Twilight photography

Lilysabie

Lilysabie

Messages
9
Name
Lilian
Edit My Images
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Twilight and dawn photography is generally a challenge, or so I gather. An issue I'm having with my camera, however, is that my videos seem to be coming out incredibly clear and sharp and my photos aren't. Yesterday, I took some photos of a family of foxes at around 9 oclock, as light was drawing away. The video I took is amazing and clear little to no noise, and the foxes are sharp and beautiful. My photos, however, are full of noise and the foxes are barely clear at all. I'm not sure how to fix this, or why the video is so much better?
My camera is a nikon d3500, my lens is an af-p nikkor 70-300mm 1:4.5-6.3G ed.
Help?
 
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Hi and welcome to TP

Firstly, I am not a Nikon user but what you appear to be describing is:-
In video mode the camera is doing a lot of auto settings and likely boosting the colour, contrast and exposure etc
I found this video that covers a lot about the settings & setup for video from 2minutes in
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHzR7atEYzM


Next on to the stills photographs
'We' would need a lot more information and possibly an example image to be able to suggest what might be happening..................but where you say full of noise and not clear that infers too high an ISO number and too low a shutter speed???

Lastly, as you can see by my suggestions ~ the settings matter and the ISO, aperture and shutter speed used by the video settings will not necessarily work 100% for stills...............why, well if the video is at 1/30th Shutter speed that can be way too low a speed for taking stills with your lens (especially at the 300mm end let alone at the 70mm end)

I hope that is of some help and that when you post you can add the settings info etc :)
 
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I'm really curious as to what comes out of this. I'm sort of attempting similar and with foxes hence the interest

Lilly Welcome and al the luck with them

take care
stu
 
Box Brownie said:
Hi and welcome to TP

Firstly, I am not a Nikon user but what you appear to be describing is:-
In video mode the camera is doing a lot of auto settings and likely boosting the colour, contrast and exposure etc
I found this video that covers a lot about the settings & setup for video from 2minutes in
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHzR7atEYzM


Next on to the stills photographs
'We' would need a lot more information and possibly an example image to be able to suggest what might be happening..................but where you say full of noise and not clear that infers too high an ISO number and too low a shutter speed???

Lastly, as you can see by my suggestions ~ the settings matter and the ISO, aperture and shutter speed used by the video settings will not necessarily work 100% for stills...............why, well if the video is at 1/30th Shutter speed that can be way too low a speed for taking stills with your lens (especially at the 300mm end let alone at the 70mm end)

I hope that is of some help and that when you post you can add the settings info etc :)
Click to expand...

Thank you so much, this is really helpful! I think I have my camera in shutter speed mode at the moment (and when I took the photos) so the aperture is automatic - should I be changing this? The shutter speed I had it on was 1/3000 I think. Something I have just discovered is that my lens, when extended to the full 300mm zoom, doesn't have an aperture below f6.3. So that could account for some of the noise, thought it still doesn't explain why the video has so much less noise.

I've done some investigating on my own camera, and the focus mode for the video was AF-S, however the stills focus mode was in AF-A. Could this have made a difference? Should I have it set to something else?
 
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Hi Lillian

As I said I am not a Nikon user................what does the manual tell you about the choices of AF-A and AF-S ?

Do please post an example of the image of the foxes, together with the EXIF data (shutter speed, Aperture, ISO and time of day) will give 'us' a clue as to what you are seeing and expecting from those settings for that subject :)
 
Box Brownie said:
Hi Lilian

As I said I am not a Nikon user................what does the manual tell you about the choices of AF-A and AF-S ?

Do please post an example of the image of the foxes, together with the EXIF data (shutter speed, Aperture, ISO and time of day) will give 'us' a clue as to what you are seeing and expecting from those settings for that subject :)
Click to expand...

Hello again, thank you so much for helping too, I meant to say. Sorry, I was on my phone and couldn't access my images, I didn't realise the autofocus mode was a nikon thing - I'm (as you can probably tell) not a very experienced photographer yet. This is my first DSLR too. I did a quick google search and I don't think AF-A etc. will contribute to the noise.
Damn, the photo is 'too large for the server to process'. I'll try and find a way to upload it.
A quick question, what is the best white balance for twilight/low light wildlife photography?
 
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(I know you're probably very nice people, and I'm 99% sure you are, but you never know on the internet but anyway please don't steal my picture, thank you, sorry...)
I resized the image, but other than that, it is the unedited (except for resizing) jpeg from my camera. This one was one of the first taken, with 'early dusk' light, though I think it may have been a little cloudy too. This one isn't so bad (with noise), but the video was still a lot sharper/clearer with less noise.
The EXIF data:
aperture; f/6.3
shutter speed; 1/2000 sec
ISO speed (though I'm not sure what this is? It isn't automatic ISO, is it?); ISO-25600
Focal length of the lens; full 300mm
(the original dimensions of the image were 6000 x 4000, do you think I shouldn't change that or will it not make a difference?)DSC_0960.jpg
 
Lilysabie said:
Hello again, thank you so much for helping too, I meant to say. Sorry, I was on my phone and couldn't access my images, I didn't realise the autofocus mode was a nikon thing - I'm (as you can probably tell) not a very experienced photographer yet. This is my first DSLR too. I did a quick google search and I don't think AF-A etc. will contribute to the noise.
Damn, the photo is 'too large for the server to process'. I'll try and find a way to upload it.
A quick question, what is the best white balance for twilight/low light wildlife photography?
Click to expand...

Auto focus modes are 'titled' slightly differently depending on the manufacturer................if you were a Canon or Olympus user I would have been more on the ball.

Using a dSLR has a learning curve and it can be quite steep ;) Please remember no TP member can second guess you, that is why any feedback that has a question is simply trying to point the way and aid your understanding.....

Noise is typically due to too high an ISO number (think about it like the volume control on a radio................turn it up too loud and you can no longer hear the details because the volume is overwhelming the bits you want to hear, noise is akin to that) that is why anyone looking at 'a noisy image' needs to know what ISO you shot it at?

White Balance ~ I typically use Auto WB but note I photograph raw not JPEG, so when I post process my pictures I can pick whatever WB I want in the software to correct an Auto WB mismatching. It is something you have to experiment with because there is no twilight/low light setting..............but maybe "Cloudy" if it is overcast might be a choice.
 
Same EXIF data for this one, but this was when the light began to darken more.DSC_0990.jpg
 
These last three were taken when the light had become classic twilight. I'm still trying to figure out how to attach the videos.DSC_0006.jpgDSC_0006.jpgDSC_0027.jpgDSC_0052.jpg
 
Lilysabie said:
(I know you're probably very nice people, and I'm 99% sure you are, but you never know on the internet but anyway please don't steal my picture, thank you, sorry...)
I resized the image, but other than that, it is the unedited (except for resizing) jpeg from my camera. This one was one of the first taken, with 'early dusk' light, though I think it may have been a little cloudy too. This one isn't so bad (with noise), but the video was still a lot sharper/clearer with less noise.
The EXIF data:
aperture; f/6.3
shutter speed; 1/2000 sec
ISO speed (though I'm not sure what this is? It isn't automatic ISO, is it?); ISO-25600
Focal length of the lens; full 300mm
(the original dimensions of the image were 6000 x 4000, do you think I shouldn't change that or will it not make a difference?)View attachment 283795
Click to expand...

1/2000
f6.3
ISO 25600

The fox is tiny in the frame and it looks like you missed the focus as the shed in the background looks that much sharper!
Shooting at ISO 25600 even where, as appears in this case, the noise does not look that bad for such a high ISO figure, is IMO way too high.
Next time see if you can drop the shutter speed (you may need to work on the camera holding skills) to around 1/500 or maybe as low as 1/320 and that will bring the ISO down (scratches head) to around ISO (is set on Auto ISO has you are saying) I think 3200......much better for getting a more usable image :)

It does look like some work in post processing will make it a tad more pleasing
 
@Box Brownie
I don't know why I didn't change the auto ISO, I vaguely recall someone saying something about not needing to change that when I first got the camera so I've just ignored it. I'm so annoyed with myself! I wouldn't have spotted that had it not have been for your help, thank you so so much!
I did wonder if that was the case, thank you so much! I will try dropping the frame rate a little and experiment with that too, and the ISO, now that automatic is turned off. I cannot believe I hadn't spotted that. Rookie mistake I suppose. I do need to work on my holding skills, I'm not the steadiest. Again, thank you so much!
 
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In the other posts you are quite simple 'losing the light'.

How the video is creating a watchable movie??? Other than to repeat what I said (here I surmise that the settings on the camera will tell what they were for the movie mode) the video mode apart from shutter speed, aperture and ISO, is likely doing its own in camera 'fairy dust' processing ?
 
@Box Brownie
It would appear it is!
Again, thank you so much
I've dropped the ISO right down to 100, do you think it needs to be any higher?
 
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Lilysabie said:
@Box Brownie
I believe I figured it out! I think I was just being stupid to be honest, the ISO was on automatic so the ISO speed was indeed as high as it could go. I don't know why I didn't change it, I vaguely recall someone saying something about not needing to change that when I first got the camera so I've just ignored it. I'm so annoyed with myself! I wouldn't have spotted that had it not have been for your help, thank you so so much!
Click to expand...

A hint for you to consider ~ the longer the lens the more difficult it is to hold the camera steady on the subject, so you need to choose as higher shutter speed as you can get away with for both the reason just mentioned.....................and when the light starts to go the shutter speed can drop too low to shoot a long lens handheld.

You will likely see mention of ~ use the reciprocal of the lenses focal length for the minimum shutter speed. In your can @ 300mm use a minimum of 1/300 of second but at 1/300 you may struggle to catch the movement of the fast running fox. Though is 'he' is standing still you may even be able to use as low 1/100 to drop the Auto ISO nice and low.

I did say that it was a learning curve :D
 
Lilysabie said:
thank you for all your help!
Click to expand...
You are welcome and there are many Nikon users here at TP, so do keep posting as there are no such things as bad questions...............but do read the manual and learn about how to operate the camera.

Though tiny in the frame and maybe a poor choice of settings, you did get the fox running and that technique to follow a moving subject but to get some blur in the background is called panning. If you can choose in daylight other subjects to practice on, do so.

Here is one to illustrate from back in 2008
1/64
ISO 100
f9
Focal length 120mm
scurry_4196.jpg

All the best with developing your understanding and appreciation of photography.
 
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