The winter is here and the days are not getting any longer. The good news is that colder months are a great opportunity to practice night photography. The challenge of adjusting to unpredictable lighting conditions in manual mode at night is tough. Night photography, in general, is a great genre to tackle for professionals of different levels of expertise. You can experiment with camera settings, try new ideas and be sure that if you succeed in photography at night, day time shooting will be a piece of cake for you.

In this blog, I have compiled a few night photography tips and techniques that will guide you through the possible questions and challenges you might face.

Choose a location  

You may think, this part is the easiest and least important but in reality, it’s an extra step you have to do to avoid losing time during your shoot.

Night photography is very tricky because of the low light conditions. To get a good shot you will have to walk around your chosen location and analyze the kind of lighting you’ll have to work with during your photo shoot. What objects will be in the dark? Is the location crowded at night? Are there any street lights?

Based on this, you will decide on things like gear and composition to save yourself time and have the chance to plan ahead.

Switch to manual mode

When going out for a night time shoot, of course, your aim is to get beautiful but also high-quality images of landscapes or your subjects. 

However, night photography is a totally different world and the automatic mode that worked well during the day won’t be a useful setting anymore. Your camera will automatically focus on glowing objects or even won’t focus at all. The only solution here is to switch to manual mode and adjust all the settings including ISO, shutter speed, and aperture manually. 

ISO

It may seem logical that you shoot with higher ISO, but you’ll have to compromise on image quality. Although you may want to increase the ISO to capture more light, it’s actually not the best idea because of the way exposure must be adjusted particularly with night photography

Try to experiment with camera settings and shoot on the lowest possible ISO, considering the light and weather. If you find a perfect value for a particular composition, you’ll also be able to achieve impressive results and perfect them during post-production.

Aperture

A widely spread technique for night time photography is to open your aperture wide and let as much light in as possible. There’s no need for a large depth of field, so keeping the F-Stop lower is the best practice with low light conditions.

Shutter speed

Once you’ve decided on ISO and aperture settings, you can worry about the shutter speed. It’s less important if your camera is stable, in which case the shutter can be open for as long as you’d like. For night photography, it can be up to 30 seconds.

Bridges and roads look especially fascinating when shot with long exposure settings. But you also should keep in mind that a nice picture won’t be possible without a sturdy tripod.

Night photography is tricky and can be quite frustrating, but every photographer should be up for some experiments. Mysterious and bright images shot in low light look fascinating and force you to even show the things people can’t see with the naked eye. Once you learn to work with the toughest light conditions, night photography can become another medium of self-expression.  If you are interested in learning more about Photography or Videography, please don’t hesitate to reach out! We’d love to hear from you. You can reach The Burnette Agency by email at info@theburnetteagency.com or give us a call at 404-850-2081.