Hi guys, Took my camera out at night and struggled to get the photos I wanted...basically I had this situation: 1.8, 35mm lens (on an crop sensor, so equivalent of 50mm) Night time, but urban streetlighting Subject in the foreground about 2 meters in front of me Monument/buildings in the back ground in the distance My problem is that I couldn't get the buildings in focus. If I drop the aperture then I need a slower shutter speed, but then I can't hold the camera steady to get a sharp shot. (no tripod at the time) Any suggestions? Basically I need to get rid of the bokeh! eg:
That's a fair ask, without using flash to light it and freeze the model in place I'd probably look at focus stacking and some photoshop work... *edit* though there may be other solutions...
If you want to shoot in those conditions but don't want to carry a tripod the you might try a monopod, it's not as good as a tripod obviously but it's easy to sling over your shoulder and better than just hand held, as said above you can bump up the ISO to allow a smaller aperture but that will introduce some noise into the shot. A Gorilla tripod is also small and being flexible you can wrap them around sign posts, railings, anything that's handy to support the camera, also if you can rest your camera on something you can use a small aperture to reduce/eliminate bokeh with a slow shutter and then use the timer to take the shot, this will help eliminate camera shake as you will not move the camera when you press the shutter, if you have a remote shutter release for your camera that's even better.
Make yourself the tripod. Find something to lean on/against. Tuck your elbows in & hold your breath when taking the pic.
I would expect that in good daylight this shouldn't be to much of an issue, however with the primary subject being so close it can impact. Essentially reducing the aperture to f11 and beyond should help, or you could try focusing at the hyperfocal distance rather than primary subject. Try the link below for calculating optimal settings and focusing distances. http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
