How can I achieve this?

[krizzle]

I'm quite a noob to more artsy shooting than point-and-shoot candids. So please forgive me for posing questions that may seem stupid.

New D70s here, and I wanna play around a bit. I want an effect kinda like this:

perhaps on a city scape, where I would set the camera on a tripod and get some nice taillight trails. I've tried a few tinkers with ISO, Aperture, and shutter speed, but never quite achieved the same type. Backgrounds always look waay too over-exposed.

I know it's all dependent on the lighting, but what are the main setting combos to achieve something like this? small aperture + long shutter speed? ISO?

Thanks for any input.

 

[SouthPaw72]

You'd need a long shutter speed, like 2 or 3 secs or longer ever to get that effect but you'd need to compensate for the amount of light coming in by adjusting the aperture the opposite direction.

 

[BillLeeLee]

For long exposures, you'll want a slower ISO, like 100 or 200. You'll want a small aperture so you can use longer shutter speeds.

This is one of my favorite shots that I did over a month ago.

I think I did it at F/22, 30 second exposure, ISO200.

Oh, and tripod.

 

[krizzle]

That is awesome!

The lowest ISO setting on my D70 is 200 i believe... you think it's still attainable?

 

[BillLeeLee]

Hehe, look at my sig - that's the camera I used to shoot the picture with. *cough* D70 *cough*

 

[Bugalaman]

here's one of my fireworks pictures. This is with a D70S, and the 18-70 lens, ISO 200, F/11, in bulb exposure mode. I used a remote, so as long as I held the shutter down, it kept taking the pic.

this is actaully in the landscape mode, but because it was so dark, the shutter was open for like 5 seconds and there was nothing i could do to stop it