Night photography may be the most rewarding photography of all. It gives the opportunity to produce some marvellous photographs that daylight cannot. With lights of a city, star-filled skies, and moonlit landscapes, the ability to master night photography will lift your photography to new heights. In this article, we’ll discover some very basic tips and techniques that can take you into fabulous night photos, even if you are just a beginner.
1. Stability Using a Tripod
Night photography is all about stability. Even when the available light is low, the camera has to take an extended exposure time to capture more light. In low-light exposures, camera shake usually causes unwanted blur. A tripod proved the best friend for these longer exposures, as it keeps the camera flat and perfectly steady against unwanted shake from destroying the shot.
If you do not have a tripod, you need to find some surface that is stable enough, perhaps a wall or a railing for your camera; even a pile of books works. The essence is not to move while on shot.
2. Low ISO Setting
One tends to raise the camera sensitivity by pushing the ISO numbers higher when light happens to be lower. Unfortunately, it may lead to higher ISO levels. Such conditions generate noise (grain) that adversely affects the image clarity. When shooting in low lighting, use lower ISO settings only, yet a correct exposure will also be ensured at this stage.
Begin by setting a little above 800 ISO. Then, while shooting, adapt to the given lighting of the scene. When they become too faint, bring the ISO to around 1600 or 3200. Be aware though that high ISO produces lots of noise. A lower ISO usually makes images turn out good when photographed at night time.
3. Use wide apertures
This aperture determines the extent to which light enters your camera, but if you take photos at night, it means that you require as much light as you can possibly attain so as to expose properly. So for this case, put your camera in wide aperture, meaning f-number is quite low -f/2.8, f/4 and so on.
A bigger aperture creates a shallow depth of field. That’s awesome when you want to isolate the subjects and provide that beautiful blur of the background, or bokeh. Just be careful with wide apertures when taking pictures of landscapes since it will probably not get everything sharp. On landscapes, you can stop the aperture down a little to f/8 or f/11 to achieve a bigger depth of field.
4. Use a Longer Exposure Time
Since the light outside is dimmer at night, you will require a longer exposure to capture enough light to ensure a brighter clear photo. Shutter speed will therefore be slower; you can experiment at any time from 10 seconds to several minutes, depending on the subject’s scene.
Experiment with different shutter speeds to find what works best for the scene. For star trails, for example, you’ll need much longer exposures, while for city lights or buildings, a shorter exposure may work best.
When using long exposure times, make sure your camera is completely still, either on a tripod or another stable surface, as any movement will blur your photo.
5. Focus Manually
In low light, your camera’s autofocus system may not be able to focus properly, so your images may appear blurry or out of focus. For night photography, it is usually best to switch to manual focus mode. Use the camera’s live view or zoom in on a distant light source or object to set the focus.
If this shooting involves landscapes or night photography, then a good focus on a distant object will be the infinity focus. Close subjects can be better focused manually by manipulating the ring.
6. White Balance Corrected
Night shoots can shoot an unnatural colour because nighttime’s lighting is far-off from what humans see during daylight. Street lights can produce orange or yellow tones on whatever, whilst moonlight makes an extremely simple cool tone.
This shall set up the white balance manually. Take it from the “Tungsten” setup on artificial light conditions or the “Daylight” settings in moon light and stars or shooting in raw that will be pliable enough when processing to be able to tweak the white balance without losing an image quality.
7. Star trails Long Exposure
One of the magical effects of night photography is star trails, streaks of light showing the movement of stars in the sky. Such beautiful long exposures can be produced with a very slow shutter speed, usually between 15 and 30 minutes, and a low ISO setting around 800.
Make sure that the camera is stabilized and aimed to the north-if you are located in the North Hemisphere, you’ll be able to take really beautiful shots. In all other respects, you could use the “bulb” camera mode in an attempt to try even longer exposures. In order to obtain most professional photographs you’d be able to use intervalometer or remote shutter release so completely rule out camera shake.
8. Try the Light Trails
Another interesting feature of night photography is the light trails of moving vehicles, such as cars and buses. To capture this, a long exposure time must be used when the vehicles are moving. The longer the exposure, the more dramatic the light trails will be.
Use a tripod and shoot from a place where there is constant flow of passing vehicles. Wide apertures, and play with the shutter speed to get the desired movement effect. Light trails are one of the most fun and creative ways to capture the dynamism of a city at night.
9. Night Photography Post-processing
After capturing your night photographs, don’t forget to edit them in post-processing. Editing will reduce noise, exposure adjustments, and colour fine-tuning to make the images look at their best. Tools that are especially created for night photography are found in software such as Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop. These include noise reduction filters and tools for brightening shadows.
Balancing the night exposures is therefore required, especially avoiding overexposing bright lights like streetlights but, at the same time, brightening dark areas and bringing out some details in shadow areas. Contact Darron Palmer Photography for more information.
Night photography is not so easy to master, requiring plenty of practice and patience besides a firm grip on how to use your camera. For night shots, a tripod, proper ISO and aperture settings, some exposure time experimentation, and a bit of manual focus will do its magic. Star trails, cityscapes, light trails-horizon doesn’t end, I guess. The more one practices, the more he becomes different in presenting his world with new light.