The interiors of most of the buildings on my layout are illuminated by microlights, and I also placed street lights around the town. I would like to photograph the layout as it appears at “night.” Can anyone tell me the correct camera settings, filters, and light source required to produce the intended effect?
Maybe the best thing to do would be to get a short roll of film and do some tests.
If your camera has an automatic setting, you could just let it do the work. Set it up on a tripod, use a cable release, and crank the F stop to the smallest apature. Use only the layout lighting, and let the camera decide when the film has been exposed long enough. The experiments could include different F stop settings. Write down all of the different things you try, and see which results you like best.
Good luck.
I would put some blue lights above and behind the area you want to photograph…place the lighting where there is the least amount of shadows around buildings and on the horizon… Since it’s dark you need to have a very long shutter speed…the longer shutter speed will gather more light enhancing the picture clarity…Don’t let anything move when you use the longer shutter speed (you should mount the camera on a tripod to keep it motionless while the shutter is open) unless you want the picture to come out blurry…Chuck
Thanks, Eliot and Chuck. By the way, I’ll be using a digital camera, if it makes any difference. And, if the scene is lighted with blue lights, wouldn’t I need a filter (maybe blue) to cancel out the blue light? Should have paid more attention in physics class[banghead]
A big part of the answer is what are the capabilities of your camera? Can it shoot long exposures? Most point and shoot digital cameras will go down to several seconds, which may or may not be long enough.
I recently took some photos on my modules at night. The in scene lighting did not provide enough illumination, so I bounced a 60 watt bulb off the ceiling. This provided some ambient lighting so much of the scene isn’t a black hole. The microlights you refer to supply very little light. I have a cutaway building on the edge of a module in which I spent lots of time installing microlights - hiding the wiring, etc., only to find they provided almost no lighting. So I added a grain of rice lamp up in the trusses, and this provides enough lighting so the interior details can be seen. And the microlights can also still be seen.
I shot my scenes with my Canon Digital Rebel, using f:22 for the maximum depth of field, and had the ISO speed set to 400. With the camera on aperture priority, this resulted in shutter speeds between 4 and 10 seconds, as determined by the camera meter. I used the self timer so as not to disturb the camera when pressing the shutter. The only other thing I did was to set the camera’s white balance to tungsten lighting.
One thing about digital cameras is that you can try different settings and see the results right away.
Good luck!
Bob Boudreau
Canada
Thanks, Bob. I have the same camera. Nice, isn’t it? I’ll try the same settings and lighting. Appreciate it.
Glad to help! I’ve posted three of my night shots on a web page in case you’d like to see what I’ve done:
http://www.geocities.com/fundynorthern/2ndModuleNighttime.html
Bob Boudreau
Canada
Bob, very nice. Thanks.