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Subject Topic: night time tours Post Reply Post New Topic
Message posted by Susz on August-08-2006 at 7:23pm
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Susz
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We have been asked to do a tour of a limo at night. Can anyone give any tips for setting the camera/tripod up. Are there any settings in particular that you would recommend? We use the Nikon Coolpix 800 and AgnosMrotatorB.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Message posted by RuddersUK on August-09-2006 at 5:22am
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Keep the tripod very stable as you will require a long exposure, your normal settings should be fine. If your camera has noise reduction make sure that is switched on, but this will double the exposure time.

Message posted by 360texas on August-09-2006 at 8:33am
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Turn on the Limo's interior lighting.

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Message posted by Gen. Lee on August-09-2006 at 10:48am
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Gen. Lee
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This will be tricky.

I would avoid upping the ISO at all costs. If you do only go up one setting say from 50 to 100 or if 100 is the lowest setting go to 200.

Use the largest aperture possible. Probably F2.8 if you are using the FC-E9 lens.

You may have to use shutter speeds up to 8 seconds long depending on how much light you have to work with. Definitly turn on every single "mood" light you can.

You might consider using several flash light (2 d cell) and put them on the floor in locations that cant be seen by the camera. Point them at areas that are very dark. Cover the flash lights with some white paper to get the light to diffuse more so it wont make a hot spot and to lower its intensity. The idea here it to create "mood" lighting not "spot" lighting. Light that is spread across the floor and bounces off the sides of the interiror cabnits to simulate what the actual lighting does inside the limo. You should study the light available in the limo before you do the shoot and test out locations to put the flash lights.

The inside of the limo probably has overhead lights used to make it bright inside for cleaning purposes or just so people can see when getting out. You can mask these lights with some diffusing material to reduce the intensity.

You should take at least 5 or more shots using different shutter speeds and one with an increased ISO. I would bracket these at 1 stop apart. To get the really dark parts and shadows to have some detail will take a long exposre and this will blow out all the lights or at least make them all little solid white blobs which dont look natural at all.

You can then use HDR to combine them into one image. This image will have much more data to work with than a single exposure. Now you can tweak the image in photoshop to bring out any shadow areas you need to.

If you will have people in the limo the will have to be absolutly still. So make sure they are sitting in a comfortable position and understand why they have to be still. ANY movement at all will make them blur especially at the shutter speeds you will be using. If you do have people in the limo I would limit that 2 or 3 people at the most and make sure they are dressed up and have some props in there hands like a champaign glass or something. A really pretty cocktail dress would give a focal point of interest and make the scene come together. Set the camera close to this person.

One last idea is to do the shoot at dusk so you have some natural light to work with. This time should still make it seem dark inside the limo but allow areas around the windows and top of the seats to have some lighting from the windows. It may also make the veiw out the window have detail if there is a susnset or something. This would be better than a solid black window.

When you finsh the shoot post back so we can see how it came out.

Good Luck

General Lee

 

 


Message posted by VT360 on August-11-2006 at 11:52pm
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i wanna see how this tour came out.

btw, i dont think theres a need to do the tour at pitch total darkness.

just as is getting darker but not full black...go for it. that way you have a little bit of light and can see out the windows.

you'll still have a nice interior effect.

as a matter of fact, limos are so dark inside that you can do the tour during the day

and darken the windows on photoshop to give the night time illusion.


Message posted by Gen. Lee on August-13-2006 at 3:03pm
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Gen. Lee
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Hey VT360,

Doing it during the day and purposly making the exposre darker is a great idea.

I think setting up in a shadow of a building where the suns iris isnt beeming on the car would do nicely. Near dusk is even better. Then take the exposre so it comes out under exposed slightly. With a little photshop work it could turn out just right.

And shooting RAW would really help as you could control not only white balance but specific color spectrum so you can tweak the "mood lighting"

In the "limo" shot its all about lighting. Light is what makes the image to begin with anyway. But the proper lighting is what will make this kind of image really scream "great"

General Lee

 


Message posted by Susz on August-15-2006 at 3:03pm
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Susz
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Thanks for all the info guys - I will let you know how it goes.

Message posted by WideEyes on August-16-2006 at 1:39pm
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WideEyes
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Hi

I did a yellow HUMMER H2 a while ago (se it at my web page www.wideeyes.dk) and is about to do a couple of limos during the next couple of months.

I made a test shot of a dark limo standing in a garage. I used a coolpix 8700 and the fc-e9. I turned the ISO up to 100 and F2.8 BE AWARE. This did NOT give a good result. The shoots was very unsharp and filled with noise. No matter how much photoshop I used the result never got acceptable.

I used different exposure times but even with 8sec it was underexposed. Next time I will shoot in RAW to have more to work with. But the suggestion about doing the shot in daylight and then manipulate the windows sounds like a really good idea. You should also consider getting a small tripod.  

A note to the wise: I also tried experimenting with different locations for the camera. I tried both in the middle of the limo and at both ends. The shot at the end facing the driver worked best. In the middle the limo looks to small I think.

 

Also you should not make the limo to bright. It is rather dark in a Limo. If you make the limo too bright it will not be a realistic picture.

 


Message posted by spinem on August-16-2006 at 2:11pm
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spinem
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hello,
I did not read all of the above replies. but anyway, i'll give my advice as a photographer in first place then panoramarer (?! heh) in second place.


so, what you really want to do when shooting at night is this. Shoot at ISO 100 and f 13 or higher if possible. don't be afraid to use longer exposure.
of course you'll need a tripod. you might want to take the shoot twice or three time just in case the camera was shaken by the wind. be sure to either use a remote switch or timer to avoid camera shake.

when shooting at dark you want to use lowest iso possible to avoid grainy noisy pictures. ALSO when shooting higher iso for mapnorama there will be some weird noise when spinng the panorama in QTVR.

also, using the settings I mentioned you'll be able to get rich colors in your panoramas. if you happen to be on a street that have been just washed or after it rained. thats even a bonus cuz you'll get some amazing reflections surrounding your subject.

regarding the post by the dude above me, he said the pictures were really noisy at iso 100. umm... if that is a true case, then he should never shoot again when its dark, because in anyways the higher in iso he goes, the noiser its gonna get.

good luck.

Message posted by marktold on August-23-2006 at 9:49am
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May-09-2003
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Best way to do it for me would be.

Shoot it at bright daylight and photoshop the outside in.

www.marktold.com/panoramas/mercedes.aspx

They just would not let me drive the Mercedes up on the green of hole 18. So I took the approach of shooting in a parking lot and Photoshopping the backtground in.

A bit more work but the car will come out nice and the regular user will not notice the fake on first sight.

Regards Markus



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Nikon D70s, Sigma 8 mm, 4 to 12 shots, Agnos MrotatorTShort, PTGui, PS CS3, and lots of other software :-)

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