Night Photography

As you have probably gathered from my posts I like to share what I learn when it comes to photography.
Just like playing the Guitar I am constantly learning new techniques and styles with which to play around and create my own take on them.

Night photography is something I have been trying to master for quite some time and I have found it very rewarding, not only do you get to experience places that would look and feel different in the daylight, done correctly the images produced can be awe inspiring and representations of light in the darkness.

It can take a lot of practice to get a shot like the one I took above and a lot of research learning which settings to use, I always research the settings other photographers use before setting out to shoot a particular photograph but these settings are never set in stone and can be tweaked to suit the location/time that you are shooting.

for the above shot I used "shutter priority" the large S on the control wheel of the Nikon D60 (similar on most dslr cameras) I used a 30 second shutter speed, iso 100 and set the white balance to daylight, I also used a remote and a tripod to avoid camera shake.

The best time for night shooting is usually just after sun set onwards, in my opinion the darker the sky the better although this isn't always the case, allow for variations in weather or cloud formations to get more dramatic backgrounds.

Always check your lens and sensor is clean too I had to do a lot of cloning with the above shot because of this mistake.

A tripod is essential for night shooting although any flat surface will work as in the next shot which was taken by balancing the camera on a low wall.

This was taken using a higher ISO setting, auto white balance, 5 second exposure at F14 giving a nice capture of the cars rear and front lights as they pass by, please forgive the text on this picture, as this is my most stolen image used without permission by others I have to protect it somehow.

When there is no actual light source available such as street lamps, I find using a high powered LED torch to illuminate the subject can give some very interesting results, the next shot was taken at around 10pm at Sandal Castle near Wakefield, it didn't turn out as well as I had hoped but serves to show what can be improved on.

The shot would have turned out much better if I had used shutter priority and a longer exposure.

Another source of light which could be used is fire.

Flash can also be used to highlight the foreground of a photograph taken at night and will often give the image an almost eerie feel to it.

the above shot was taken using a tripod and a 1.4 second exposure at F5.6 using a high ISO setting of 1600 I set the white balance to cloudy.

The essential things to remember when taking night photographs are:

Always wear something bright, a florescent jacket or something white so you can be seen.

Tripod or flat solid surface is required to avoid camera shake as is a remote or use the cameras timer.

check your lens and sensor are cleaned.

take a friend or a group of friends with you, there is safety in numbers.

experiment with the settings

in locations with no natural or unnatural light use a a high powered torch.