Hi, I was wondering if anyone here, has ever shot traffic lights at night. I think it would be cool having, green, yellow, and red all in one shot. One question though, I know I should use a tripod, but approxmatly how long should the shutter be open for"?
It would depend on the light itself. A lot of signal lights change at different rates. You may have to experiment with it a little. Hope to see some shots if anyone tries it.
It would most likely depend on what traffic light, seeing that most are different. I would catch it when the green is turning to yellow then to red and time how long that takes. As far as shutter speed, I am not an expert in that area, but I am guessing (I could be way off) poribably in the realm of 5-7 seconds maybe. But really, I like the idea, let me know how it turns out. Good luck.
During the shot for LA at Night, I got several yellows reds. The timing should be very end of a green run, ie watch the crosswalks. Click seconds before the green ends, then let it go for about 5 more seconds to get the yellow, then red. Timing is everything and just experiment.
well, you might end up having to do multiple exposures to get all 3 colors. here the traffic lights stay the same color for about 30 seconds... to get an even amount of red & green, i'd need a 1 minute exposure (yellow is only a couple seconds... that would be the toughest color to capture) ... i'm sure it can be done, but will require some work and experimentation for sure :)
Ram's suggestion is pretty good, you can get away with a much shorter exposure and get all 3 colors.. but your timing will have to be JUST right on the green.
This would probably be easier for our members in Europe since, if I recall correctly, the green stays on when the yellow comes on. Then they are both replaced with a red. At that point, open the shutter as soon as the yellow lights, wait 3 seconds for the red to come on, then another 3 seconds and voila. All three colors in a 6 second exposure time.
