Night Photography
Learn how to take photos at night with this quick and easy guide to night photography. This guide will shed light on common questions and popular techniques for taking photos in the dark.
Introduction Night photography is a great way to capture beautiful images with a wonderfully creative look to them. Just like any other type of photography, night photography is all about light. The difference is that you don't have the sun to light up your photos. The basics of capturing great night shots are really quite simple. Let’s take a look at them here. 1. Shoot in RAW To get the best night shots you need to shoot in RAW mode. Shooting in RAW means your images will retain the most ‘information’ possible, which then allows you to enhance your shots in Photoshop, or other post-processing software. RAW is especially useful for night photography as it allows you to change things such as color temperature (or White Balance) or accurately increase (brighten) or decrease (darken) your exposures. 2. ISO Settings The ISO setting you need depends on the type of night photos you’re taking. If you’re shooting city scenes with long exposures, you’ll be using a tripod, so you can keep the ISO at 100 or 200. This will keep noise levels down – ideal for retaining maximum detail in scenic night shots. If you’re shooting an outdoor performance at night and working handheld, you’ll need to bump up the ISO (try ISO 1000 or ISO 1600) to ensure a fast enough shutter speed for capturing sharp shots. 3. White Balance settings If you’re using Auto White Balance, it’s easy for your DSLR to get confused with what it thinks is the best White Balance (WB) setting when shooting under streetlights at night. To ensure consistent results, manually set WB; try the Cloudy (6000K) setting to warm up your scenes (making them more orange) or Tungsten (3200K) to cool down the temperature (making them look more blue). 4. Use Your Len’s Sweet Spot All lens have a ‘sweet spot’ that produces the best results (i.e. the sharpest photos). The sweet spot is usually one of the middle apertures. This is usually between f/8 and f/16, but take test shots to find out. Even pro-level lenses don’t produce the best results when used at their maximum and minimum apertures. By using apertures in the middle of the available range you’ll increase your chances of capturing the sharpest shots with your lens. 5. Use a Combination of Auto and Manual Focus For night shots it’s best to use both autofocus (AF) and manual focus (MF). Use AF to focus on to part of the scene, then switch to MF to keep the focus locked. That way your camera won’t be ‘hunting’ to achieve autofocus if the light or scene changes or a good surge of traffic drives past. When shooting in the dark you’ll need to find part of your scene that is bright enough for your camera to be able to achieve AF. If you’re having problems, switch to MF and use Live View to zoom in on your LCD and check your focusing is good before taking multiple long exposures. 6. Shoot in Manual Shooting in manual lets you take control of your exposure by allowing you to choose the best aperture and shutter speed. Start by composing and focusing your shot, set a narrow aperture around f/16, then dial in the right shutter speed until the Exposure Level Mark is in the middle of the Exposure Level Indicator. Take some shots and review them on your LCD. Remember that what you see is what your camera thought was the best exposure. If your shots look too bright, set a shorter shutter speed in order to lower the exposure by 1-2 stops. Hint: If you want to get a ‘starburst’ effect from a streetlight, set a small aperture (around f/16). Not only will this ensure a deeper depth of field, so your shots are sharp from foreground to background, but it will also make streetlights ‘sparkle’ in your scenes to give your pictures an added magical effect. 7. Use a Tripod Due to the lack of light, shooting at night means you’ll have to use slower shutter speeds. You will find yourself using shutter speeds as slow as 30 seconds – much too slow to shoot hand-held. So a tripod is a must. Make sure you don’t hold onto your tripod as you’re shooting with slow shutter speeds because any slight movement will result in blurred photos. Hint: Image Stabilization (IS) that is built-in on some lenses is useful for reducing camera shake when you’re handholding your camera. But, when a camera is mounted on a tripod (i.e. steady), it can have the opposite effect. The sensors inside most IS lenses actually create unwanted movement as they search for ‘shake’. Switch IS off and you’ll eliminate this unwanted effect. 8. Don’t Touch Your Camera! When taking long exposures at night, even pressing the shutter button can create enough movement to cause a blurred photo. Use a remote shutter release, or your digital camera’s built-in self-timer, to trigger the shutter. Hint: Even the movement of the mirror in your DSLR can cause blurred shots when using a long exposure. To avoid this, enable Mirror Lock-up (look for it in your camera’s menus) to get the sharpest photo possible. 9. Composition at night Carefully study the scene before you start taking photos. Are parts of the scene in complete darkness? Do areas of the shot become more interesting, brightly lit or colorful, as it gets darker? If so, don’t be afraid to zoom in on the most photogenic areas. Zoom in with your wide-angle zoom lens or ‘zoom with your feet’ – just move closer to your subject… 10. Creative Ideas for Including People Most photographers don’t think of including people in their night shots. However, including crowds of people in your night photography can add contrast and interest to your images. If the people are stationary, try using them as a creative silhouette to enhance your photos. Or, if they are walking by, try using a shutter speed of around ¼ to ½ seconds so the people are ‘creatively’ blurred. 11. Light Trail Shots Ever wanted to take a night shot that has light trails from passing cars? Capturing light trails in night photography shots can transform drab scenes into dramatic works of art. It’s actually quite simple to do. Just mount your camera on a tripod and select a slow shutter speed to take creative light trail shots at night. Begin by trying a shutter speed between 2-5 seconds, depending on the speed of the vehicles that you’re shooting. You might find that you adjust the shutter speed to as long as 10 t0 30 seconds to get the best shot. Experiment! Hint: Be Safe. When you’re in a busy area or shooting near roads, wear a hi-visibility vest for extra safety. 12. Reflections at Night To give your night shots some creative flair, look for locations with water in them. A fountain or pond in front of a building, rivers or lakes, even puddles. Reflections in the water will add lights and color to your night images. You might be pleasantly surprised that gloomy wet weather actually turns drab pavements and roads into interesting reflective surfaces, which will add some creative foreground interest to your shots. 13. Digital darkroom tips When processing your RAW night photos in Adobe Camera Raw, don’t be afraid to turn up the Temperature slider to increase the intensity of the lights and colors. Nudging up the Vibrance and Saturation sliders a bit will boost colors too – just don't overdo it. Use the Recovery slider after these tweaks to combat clipped (over-exposed) highlights, which can often appear after you’ve carried out color and tone enhancements. |