DSLR Photography Forum

If you want to take photographs at night, more often you’ll be using shutter speeds longer than that are safe for hand holding. So you’ll need a tripod to support the camera. Night shots taken in city centers, where there are lots of lights, well lit buildings and monuments etc may produce reasonably normal exposure settings, but if you are just starting out it may be little difficult to get a perfect shot. Here are some tips for night photography.

1.Shoot in manual mode

2.Start with the lowest possible ISO setting and gradually change it to a higher number after trying different shutter speeds. Your camera typically has exposures up to 30 seconds and then the bulb exposure mode. Use a remote cable release if you are using the bulb mode.

3. Use manual focus. If your camera doesn't allow manual focus, use auto focus to focus on an illuminated place in the subject, lock the focus and then recompose.

4.Use apertures of around f/11 to f/16.This will increase the area in focus and will give you a greater depth. Remember increasing the f number means restricting the amount of light entering to the sensor. So you’ll have to work around that a little bit.

5. Shots taken when the sun is just below the horizon often work best when you include artificial lighting.

6.When there is some light in the sky the difference in exposure between the sky and land makes it impossible to retain the details of the both. You can create silhouette images making use of this.

7.Use artificial lighting source to illuminate your subject, where possible. You don’t always need a flash. You can use some other external light source for this. For example the car head lights

Even the most basic cameras (ones without changeable lenses) have a no flash setting which will certainly bring home a decent image at night. Again a tripod is vital equipment and a cable release will ensure there is no shake.

In cases where the foreground light is brighter than the background, you can use one of my tricks which is to set up the shot with your hand covering the brightly lit section and then click and count downthe shutter opening. when only a few seconds are left, remove your hand and let the shutter finish.

Youy may have to try several shots to get the light right but it will allow better background illumination.

One thing that I learned is that in low light conditions you should disable the Vibration Reduction setting in the lens. I can't remember the exact reasoning behind this, but since you are (hopefully) shooting on a tripod it won't make much of a difference anyhow.

(Nov 9, 2012, 03:58)kNox Wrote: [ -> ]One thing that I learned is that in low light conditions you should disable the Vibration Reduction setting in the lens. I can't remember the exact reasoning behind this, but since you are (hopefully) shooting on a tripod it won't make much of a difference anyhow.

From what I've read, or seen elsewhere, you should disable VR or IS when using a tripod. Something with mirror slap I think. Not sure about that. DJT

Because with a tripod there shouldn't be any movement and vibration. VR or IS will look for any shake and try to compensate it even when there's no need for that.

I've found that when taking photos of lighting or lightning embedded in clouds, you need to experiment with different white balances. Sometimes I've had AUTO return the best results, other times, daylight and other times shade. If there are stars and you don't want streaking, you pretty much need to keep the exposure time below 30 seconds. If possible, I like to use an ISO of 400 or lower, but sometimes I need to go to 800 or higher. For non-storm nighttime photos, I often use an old manual Nikon 50mm f1.8 E lens on my DSLRs.

Tripod - YES - however, once I was doing a night shot of a construction site in Atlanta when the Marriott was under construction. I set up the tripod, mounted the 4x5 camera, I was on the top level of a parking deck across from the new building. I was about to load a film pack - when I noticed the camera on the tripod was shaking. I also could feel the vibration of the construction equipment and crains effect on the parking deck. Because the subject was down range of the infinity mark of the lens - I did not have to worry about f/stops and opened the lens wide open.
Then exposed for shutter speed the fastest one I could get - I also put my hand on the camera body to stall some of that vibration. To see the results you can visit my web folio at http://www.dandickensneunoizstudio.com/g...esign_pg01

DanDickens2 - the link does not work for us. Thanks for editing your post and we will gladly take a look.

delete anything past (.com) and you will get the site.

LOL! I must have been half asleep this morning - did not notice. Thanks NT73!

There are some really useful tips here. I would like to add that it may be useful to take a preview shot, using a shorter shutter speed and higher ISO, before a long exposure photo, to see what the subject will be rendered like.