BALLOON NIGHT GLOW CAMERA SETTINGS?

[D40xUSER]

I will be attending the night glow at this years Bristol Balloon Fiesta and would like some help with my cameras settings for it. I will be using a Nikon D40x with the Sigma 10-20 and will have it fixed to a tripod. I am a little concerned I may not get the balance correct between shutter speed and exposure. I want the light and colours of the balloons to stand out clear and the blacks to be as black as possible and for there to be no motion blur from the balloons slightly moving in the wind or the crowds moving. Aslo will RAW be preferable? PLEASE HELP !!!

[Rustyknight]

You don't say if you've been to the Fiesta before, but bear in mind that the night glows are very very popular, so finding somewhere to set up the tripod without being jostled by the crowds can be a nightmare.

The few times I've been there I've used a monopod as it takes up less room than a tripod, and is far easier to alter the camera's viewpoint.

Also, once the "glow" begins, it can be pot-luck which balloons are lit at any one time. They tend to fire their burners for only a few seconds at a time, so focusing on the right balloon (or group of ballons) at the right time can be a bit hit or miss. Having said that, there are normally a few short periods where they're all lit up together........ it's just a shame they don't tell you in advance when these periods will be.

Definitely shoot in RAW, as the burners tend to make most colours look orange. If shooting jpeg, you'd have limited options for correcting that in post-processing, but the RAW file can be tweaked to give you something that looks a bit more colourful.

Here's a pic from last year takne on a Canon 30D with an EF24-70 f2.8 USM lens.....



The focal length for the shot was 35mm, with the camera set for Aperture Priority and Evaluative Metering. Aperture was 2.8, and the ISO set at 1600. I'd set the Exposure Compensation at -2/3 in order to try and give me a semi decent shutter speed (which in this case was 1/30th).

The RAW file produced did turn out a touch dark, but teaking the levels a touch seems to have done the trick.

Playing with the WB could bring out more colours, but to my mind it looks quite more natural "as is".

Hope that helps......

[Bettina]

As Rustyknight says, a monopod is probably better than a tripod. Also, if you are using shutter speeds of, say, 1/30s, you can probably handhold, too. I think that is what I did a few years ago even though my camera only went to ISO 1250. The wide angle lens is definately a must.