photographing floating lanterns.......at dusk

[ricstew]

any tips? advice? They will be at floating along a fairly slow moving lake and I think there will be a lantern parade on land as well?? I am thinking tripod and f8 ish and about 200 as the shutterspeed.....or maybe not?
cheers
Jan

[pmack]

it's impossible to answer this question without knowing how far away you'll be shooting from, and what focal length.
the correct answer is to take one photo, chimp, and then adjust your settings.
1/200 is pretty quick shutter speed for dusk, and at f/8 you're not letting much light in at all.
for that to work i'd imagine you'd need to up your iso pretty high, at least iso800 which could start getting noisy depending on your camera.
If you're using a wide angle, you won't likely need to stop down to f/8 to get enough DOF.
something like f/5.6 or less might be more appropriate.

and maybe try one with a lower shutter speed that shows the lanterns as blurrs?

[accesser]

Just experiment IMO -

I think this could be a good chance for Video if you have the ability sounds like it cold be very pretty

[ricstew]

Well it worked .......sort of :( I still have to go thru it all. I did try video too.....the biggest issue was they left it till it was too dark and the moving lanterns need a faster shutter than the stiller one......or something like that. I missed the ones on the water worse luck. They still hadn't happened by the time I need to head off.....still it was very pretty and I am sure I will have a couple of decent shots :)
cheers
Jan