NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS FOR D-SLR
I am sure that there are many tips for night photography on the web. This is my version of night photography tips.
- Use Tripod: Keeping your camera still and steady is a must for night photography, because the camera need more time for light to touch the sensor. Only a little bit of camera shake can ruin you photo. Although modern cameras come with high-ISO sensor, the besting to do in low light is still using tripod.
- Exposure: The trick is to get enough light to touch the sensor. So you can eight set your camera to open the aperture wide, or have the shutter curtain open longer. For the effect such as motion blur you need to choose shutter to stay open longer.
- Using Flash: It depend on what you want to capture. Usually flash will make your subject bright enough, but darken the back ground. Especially using low power built-in flash.
- Manual Focus: Camera’s autofocus system tend to fail under low light. So the best way to avoid soft out-of-focus photo is to focus it manually. However under low light, even your eyes fails. If your camera has the live-shooting function turn it on and manually focus using 5X or 10X magnification.
- ISO: If you have the advantage of tripod, there is no need to use high ISO. You should stay under ISO 400 because higher than this noises will be unacceptable. However if you don’t have a tripod you can go up to ISO800.
- Use 2 seconds timer: Use 2 second delay in shutter release to eliminate vibration when you press the shutter button. Use this to substitute for remote shutter release cable.
- Shoot in RAW: Getting exposure and white balance right is not easy with night photography. So be safe and flexible using RAW so you can enhance the picture later.
- The horizon: Getting horizon right is tricky in night photography, because even with your eye you can’t tell where is the horizon. Most of my mistake in night photography is I focus my attention too much on the subject and light, I forget about getting horizon right.
- Shoot more: Experiment with many shots until you’ll find what you’re looking for.
Night photography can be fun and tricky, the more you play with it the better result next time. So grab your camera and take more shots. I am sure this tips is not complete, if you have more tips please add comment.
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Try to find anything that can stabilize your camera. Be it a bench, or pillar or whatever. I used to shoot the very Independent Monument by placing my camera on the UNESCO fence. With timer, the photos were pretty sharp.
Let’s enjoy slow shutter shooting.
Thanks for you comment. It works, but most of the time you can’t get the horizon straight.
Photoshop it, if it is necessary. Even with fast lens, getting a good piece of night photography handheld is hardly possible. Pro shoot with tripod even during daytime.
But cropping image is like taking some of megapixel.
Sometimes you have to trade off. Beside, current camera generously comes with good megapixel. I prefer cropped photos to blur and noise photos.
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