A Complete Guide to Night Time Photography

Night time photography, especially handheld, can be challenging. Focusing in low light and managing high ISOs often result in noisy, low-quality images.

However, using a fast lens (with an aperture of f/2.8 or wider) can open up exciting creative opportunities, particularly when paired with city lights.

The high aperture not only allows more light but also creates a beautiful bokeh effect, keeping the background out of focus and drawing attention to the silhouetted subject in the foreground.

If you don’t have a fast lens, consider embracing long exposure photography to capture stunning night-time images. Shooting RAW (the camera captures and stores all the data, there is no compression, for example .jpg files).

Night Time Photography: Writing with Light

This is quite and common and easy technique.

• Setup: Place your camera on a tripod to keep it perfectly still. Set the ISO to 100 (or the lowest setting available), the shutter speed to 30 seconds, and the aperture to f/16.
• Action: Have someone write a word in the air using a torch as you start the exposure. Writing slowly often yields better results.
• Adjustments: If the image is too bright, narrow the aperture (e.g., f/20). If it’s too dark, widen it slightly (e.g., f/12).

As your confidence grows, you can experiment with sparklers for a new challenge, especially around events like Halloween. Expect to take several attempts to get a favorable result. Once satisfied, you can flip the image horizontally in Lightroom or your favourite photo editor for the final touch.

Night Time Photography: Capturing Cityscapes at Night

The city at night offers endless opportunities for long exposure shots. While a tripod is ideal, improvisation can work in a pinch—use your car roof, a cardboard box, or even your camera bag to stabilize your camera.

• Settings: Lock the ISO to its lowest setting and experiment with aperture and shutter speed. A small aperture and a shutter speed of 10-30 seconds work well in urban environments.
• Tips: Adapt to your surroundings. For instance, when photographing a busy street, time your shots between traffic light changes to capture smooth light trails.

Mirrorless cameras provide an advantage with their digital viewfinders, which offer a live preview of your exposure settings.

Night Time Photography: Photographing Fireworks

Fireworks offer unique creative opportunities:

• Silhouettes: Use the fireworks to silhouette interesting foreground subjects.
• Light Trails: Employ long exposure techniques to capture the streaks of light from fireworks.

A tripod is almost essential for this, as your camera will be pointed skyward. Typically, exposures under 20 seconds are sufficient for fireworks photography. Be prepared for some trial and error to time your shots perfectly. Again lock the ISO and find something on which to lock focus. In the above images I set the focus on the monument and the bridge.

Editing Night Time Long Exposure Photos

Editing long exposure images is often minimal. Here’s a basic workflow:

• Adjust Blacks and Contrast: Slightly lower the blacks and increase contrast to enhance details. For instance, a preset with +2 contrast and -2 blacks can serve as a starting point.
• Use Presets: Create or apply a Lightroom preset tailored for night time long exposures to streamline your editing process.

Mastering Night-Time Photography Techniques

The key to mastering night-time photography is experimentation. Whether you’re exploring high-contrast handheld shots or delving into long exposures, every outing presents an opportunity to learn and improve.

Best of all, you don’t really need specialised equipment—just a bit of creativity and patience. So grab your camera and start capturing the magic of the night!

Links

The long Exposure eBook
What is Bokeh? Understanding Depth of Field
FlixelPix Lightroom Presets
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