Tips and Tricks of Night Photography: An Overview

Photographers with a specialization in night photography are sort of a special breed. This will not appear surprising at all if you realize how much in depth understanding and know-how they need apart from the specialty gear needed to get the work done.

It’s better not to let fancy equipment or the prospect of staying up whole night discourage you of pursuing this type of photography. Here are a few photography tricks for you that will help to master the trick.

Regardless of whether you want to take pictures of the night sky, find out the ways to paint with light or simply need to know the settings for night photography, we are here to help you out. We will help to establish a strong foundation and prepare you to tackle a number of low light photography techniques.

Use a Tripod to Click Sharp Pictures

No doubt, if you are shooting at night, you will never get ample light. Thus, you need to use slow shutter speed. With slow shutter speed, it’s hard to shoot using a handheld. You need to attach your digital camera to a tripod if you need sharp results. Make sure that the tripod is properly set up and is rock solid. Double check if you don’t want to end up with soft images. Do not hold onto the tripod. Leave it alone. As you will be shooting with extremely slow shutter speed, be careful. A slight movement can cause blurred pictures.

Pick Night Photography Locations in Advance

Plan ahead. This will pay off saving valuable time later. Pick up the location well in advance scouting the best spots in your town. Find interesting architecture and lights. If you want to capture traffic light trails, find the busiest roads, the best time and the best as well as the safest position to take pictures.

Use Lens Sweet Spot

Use ‘sweet spot’ range of aperture for lenses. You can take a few test shots to find this out. At times, even the pro level lenses are unable to offer the best results when used at the maximum and minimum aperture. By making use of an aperture in the middle of the available range, it is possible to increase the chance of capturing sharpest shots.

Choose White Balance with Care

An easy and quick camera technique for enhancing landscapes photographed at night lies in using Tungsten white balance preset. This is tuned for reducing the warmth of pictures taken in artificial light. This gives the scenes shot at moonlight a bluish tone, thus accentuating the mood. If you combine it with a touch of underexposure, even scenes shot at daytime can appear as if they were shot at midnight.

Shoot Trails of Light

Classic night photography needs patience and persistence rather than a lot of specialist camera kit. Lock camera off on a tripod so that you can capture the other elements sharply. While shooting the light trails or a burst of firework, it pays to shoot several exposures and then blend them in Photoshop. This allows the pictures to feel fuller as well as livelier.

You can try to use a torch for painting scenes during a long exposure. This is a popular photography ploy used on everything, right from still life pictures to the sweeping landscapes. Make use of a lockable remote release to keep the shutter open while illuminating the subject. Keep the torch moving to prevent hotspots and check exposures using the histogram on rear screen.

Combine Different Elements to Create Artistic Interpretation

You need not capture the night sky alone. Seek out unique elements in the landscape to combine with the night shots. This result into images based upon reality, but containing artistic interpretation of scenes. You can choose elements in different shapes and sizes. It may be anything from the rugged trees to jagged rocks along a placid lake. These elements will not take away anything from the starry skies, but add a focal point drawing the viewers into the image. Make sure to play around with the surroundings until you see the ideal composition.

Don’t Touch the Camera

While taking long exposures at night, touching the camera to press the shutter button can create movements leaving behind blurred results. Use your camera’s built-in timer to trigger the shutter after the button is pressed. This will help to avoid problems. You can use a remote release for shots relying on accurate timing.

Night photography opens up a whole new world in front of us, providing us an opportunity to capture unique images of some of the most photographed locations. Just make sure to take extra care while venturing out since the possibilities of an accident enhance substantially at night.

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Tristan Taylor

Fashion Photographer at Gulf Photo Plus LLC

Tristan Taylor is a fashion photographer. He also takes an interest in architectural photography. He is associated with various photography workshops, seminars and spark sessions. Tristan conducts training courses in photography for the beginners and also for the advanced level. In his latest articles on top photography training in Abu Dhabi he shares some interesting ideas and helpful resources on photography accessories. Tristan found Gulf Photo Plus extremely helpful to extract information regarding photography.