Night Time Photography Tips

Photo by @bill.kellerbk

Ever looked up at the night sky and wanted to take the perfect shot but you weren’t sure how to go about it? Or wanted to create light trails on the street? Taking pictures in low light can be tricky but if you follow our five simple tips, you should be able to take pictures of the stars in no time.

1) Use a Long Exposure

With such low light, the camera needs more time to filter light. Use at least a thirty second exposure for best results. When using long exposure, try to use a tripod to avoid shaky shots. Picking a lens with a higher exposure would also be an asset as it can let more light in. Wide angles are also a great option because they allow for you to pick up smaller details in a picture.

Photo by @tylerparkerphotography

2) Manual Mode

The best night shots require that you can adjust your ISO, exposure, and shutter speed. Auto mode will try to use your camera’s pop up flash which will darken the background and create a very bright foreground.

3) Shoot in Raw

Jpegs limit the colour profile of the image as the file size is much smaller than a raw file. Shoot in raw to enhance the image quality and to have access to more of the colour profiles, especially the dark ends of the spectrum.

4) Movement

When shooting with long exposures, anything that moves creates a streak of light. Taking night photos near a road creates texture, colour, and movement within the image. Some great examples of movement is shown with this picture of the ferris wheel at night

Photo by @makahuna

5) Avoid Noise

Noise is the grainy part of a photo that reduces image quality. The best way to avoid this is to shoot with a lower ISO and to use a tripod. Heightening your ISO reduces the sharpness of the image. However, sometimes raising the ISO is unavoidable and the noise can reduced slightly in most photo editing softwares.