Hey guys I just got a Nikon D60 and I am trying to learn the manual option on the camera instead of the point and shoot.

I read that for low light you want to lower the shutter speed and get a tri pod for the best results. The only thing is that I will be going to the GA aquarium this weekend and don't really want to carry around a tri pod

Any suggestions on the setting would be helpful, it is pretty much low light through the entire exhibit.

Camera is a D60 with the 18-55mm VR lens.

Thanks

 

Crank up your ISO, carry a monopod, or make a human tripod (jam your elbows into your gut while holding the camera for stability).

 

Yeah I took a couple last night of the car for practice and I had the iso at 1600 and shutter speed at 1/60s. Any lower on the speed and the picture came out blurry

 

Your shutter speed really depends what zoom range your at. If you're zoomed all the way out, you can use a lower shutter speed, thus allowing more light in, thus having a brighter picture.

General rule of thumb is use the next faster shutter speed at your zoom range. IE. If you're at 18mm, use 1/20. At 55mm, use 1/60. Usually you can use one below it depending on how steady your hands are without it blurring.

Also, since D60 raw resolution is 3872 x 2592, you can just zoom all the way out, take your picture, and when you edit, just crop out the stuff you don't need.

If you are going to be shooting a lot indoors, I might suggest investing in the 50mm prime lens. Only goes for about 100 new anyways.

 

Time to get the nikkor 50 f1.7.

 

With a bit of photo experience, i agree with ahero4eternity. The dark lighting keeps the shutter open longer than a person can hold still. Do you have any image stablization? Either hold still or use a tripod. If youre against a tripod, you are probably better off using the auto selection on your camera. Just my two cents.

 

If money is no object, get a Nikkor 35mm f/1.4. It may not have AF but it's really fast for low light conditions.

If the above is not an option, you can always spring for an AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G which costs a lot less than the above. It's still pretty good for low light conditions.

 

Ahh that makes a whole lot more sense that I was reading online


I am not against a tri pod I plan on getting one... I just don't think carrying one around a busy aquarium is very wise

Yes it has image stabilization and the lens is a vibration reduction lens.

I will probably go with that second one since I am kind new at it and auto focus is important till I master this camera. I will have to research though so I am guessing the smaller the mm the better it is for low light?

Thanks for the input guys

 

focal length doesn't affect the amount of light that is let in. if you want a lens for low light then you want a fast lens (the smaller/lower the f/stop number the faster the lens)

 

Okay I see I will have to look into a new lens then so that nikkor 35 mm f/1.8 is pretty good for the price? I did some research for it and it seems like pretty good bang for the buck.

Thanks again ahero!

 

focal length does affect the amount of light coming in.

aperture is just the ratio of the diameter of its lens to its focal length.

it is not the amount of light that will reach your sensor.

of course a bigger aperture will let in more light but

the farther away the lens is from the sensor the less light reaches it.

do a simple experiment.

put your camera in aperture mode.

leave it on a fixed aperture and zoom in and out. you'll see the meter change and the camera will compensate with a slower shutter speed at longer lengths.

its called the bellows effect.

look at a 50mm prime and then a 300mm prime. even set at the same apertures you can just see that there will be less light traveling down the 300mm.

 

Tried it... nothing happened to the meter going from 70mm to 200mm.

 

What? Unless you have a fix aperture, your aperture would change from 70mm to 200mm.

For example, using a 18-55 kit lens (f/3.5 - f/5.6), zoom range is 18, the lowest aperture you could use is f/3.5. With zoom range at 55, the lowest aperture is f/5.6. If you zoom in and out, you will notice the fstop number changing from 3.5(all the way out) to 5.6(all the way in).

Focal length does not directly relate to the amount of light it lets in, but as I stated before, on a kit lens at 18mm will let more light in than the at 55mm at the lowest aperture used. If you have a zoom lens with a fixed aperture, IE L-lenses, tamron 17-50, etc... then it would be a different story as it would use the same aperture through out the zoom range.

Speaking of fast lenses I really want to get my hands on the Tamron 17-50.

 

most of the people here, especially GR? have fixed aperture lenses. In fact you'll notice that once you start upgrading your gear above what came with the camera the majority of quality zooms are fixed aperture.
Also BlindFiring said to leave the aperture the same by putting it in aperture mode and see if the amount of light changed with the focal length so even if you were using the kit lens i would assume you would use a higher aperture then the lowest possible so you could do his "simple experiment" using a constant aperture.

 

I know. I was just stating his experiment is invalid. I didn't want to state the obvious that his situation was based upon the use of a variable aperture lens.

I chuckled when I read the post but I resisted responding with a smart *** post.

 

Ahhhhhh, I see what you mean now. Then you sir, are corret.

I see now, thanks for clearing that up.