A Primer on Night Photography
Posted August 13th, 2007 in [hide]Night photography 
isn’t that much different from any other type; any landscape photographer will be instantly familiar with everything required here.
The first problem to overcome is darkness, and a tripod is the obvious answer … usually the only answer. Many newer lenses and even cameras include some type of optical image stabilization, which is an invaluable feature, but not suited to quality nightscapes. Night photos require a depth of focus that demands small(ish) apertures, choking off most of the light that would reach the sensor.
You’ll see star-points in outdoor photographs shot in the darkness with point-sources of light. This is a diffraction pattern that intensifies as you close the lens down, particularly visible because of the extreme contrast. As a side note, lenses whose iris contains an even number of aperture blades produce more attractive star patterns, with light rays directly opposite each other. In the sample below, you can see eight rays forming each star, indicating eight blades making up the iris. Bigger apertures ( f/2 to f/5.6 ) will barely show stars, while smaller apertures ( f/8 to f/32 ) will create a more pronounced effect; consider this as you select your exposure.
In short, digestible form, the rules for good night photography are:
- Use a tripod! Without exception. Also, use mirror lock-up (SLRs only) and either a cable release or your camera’s timer mode.
- Shoot at twilight, the border between day and night, when the sky is at the deepest, richest shade of blue. Depending on the time of year, you’ll have anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes of perfect sky; shoot too early and the sky will be washed out, bright as day, but shoot too late and it will come out black and colorless. Timing is everything.
- In most cases you want to shoot on a cloudy night, to give depth and interest to the sky. The only exception I’ve ran into is capturing stars.
- Meter carefully. The main appeal of this genre is the beautiful contrast available; it’s your job to capture as wide a range as possible of that contrast (ie don’t blow too many highlights or leave gaping empty shadows) while conveying the emotional mood you want to establish. If you’re using a digital camera, check the histogram often, and experiment.
- Choose your subject and location well, and visit beforehand. Like with “Golden Hour” landscape photography, you have a narrow window of time to work with, so take care of the details beforehand.
- Because you’ll be using a long exposure, consider car, plane, and even star trails. This could be a good or bad thing depending on what you’re trying to achieve.
- Bring a flashlight or laser pointer to help focus your lens; this can be avoided if you show up early enough, before daylight fades, if you have exactly one image in mind.
You might notice most of these suggestions apply to most genres of photography. Other than the extreme contrast range and point sources of light, this isn’t fundamentally different from any other type of photography. If photography is an art and a science, the technique involved is easy to learn; night photography relies more on creativity than a particular camera or whether you choose to create an “HDR” image.
This photo comes from Qwest Field, in Seattle, Washington, on the day of this post. Let’s see a couple examples without city in them, and one more with:
The preceding photos were from the Eastern Sierra Nevada, Zion National Park in Utah, and Noe Valley in San Francisco.
as if this is “fine photography”
get some good photos
Thanks for the “insightful” comment. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but you know what they say about those… It’s “Fine Art Photography” by the way.
If this were coming from Art Wolfe or Ansel Adams, my feelings would be hurt. But from an internet troll blog-spamming for “yubatube.com” I have to say this means very little. Speaking of “good photos” why is it that every now and then somebody becomes irate after seeing my photos?
For a digital SLR, is there any rule of thumb for choosing the ISO for (very) long exposures? When I tried to take pictures of star trails at ISO 100 I got excedingly high levels of noise which rendered the picture useless.
Thanks for sharing your insights,
Gil
Gil -
What type of camera are you using? And what’s very long?
Digital has some inherent problems with time exposures … some of them do a better job than others fighting this. Even the best of them break down if you give them enough time, though; an hour-long exposure is going to look pretty ugly from the best camera available. Some of them can do 10 minutes no problem; others have trouble at 10 seconds.
If you’re shooting star trails it’s not even worth to try a different ISO value; it’s time you’re after. You can try a digital approach and take a number of shorter exposures in rapid-fire mode, then blend them in Photoshop ( <i>brighten mode</i> ). You’ll wind up doing a lot of work masking layers, but that’s one alternative.
Depending on the composition, if you can get away with a longer lens, that tends to magnify the distance the stars are moving, which gives you long trails in less time … which should help a lot with the noise problem.
I have the worst time shooting at night, especially sports. How can I achieve great stop action photos at night. I want to give up.
Thanks
Stop action at night is one of the hardest things there is to photograph … can you use a flash? The only other alternative is a very fast lens ( large aperture ) and a very high ISO / sensitivity value. Or film speed, if you’re using 35 mm.
The unfortunate thing is, it takes a certain amount of time for the chip or the film to ‘absorb’ enough light to capture an image with. Most lenses, especially zooms, choke off a lot of light on the way back to the sensor. So if you can switch to something … the 135 mm f/2 is perfect, for the Canon EOS system. Anyway, if you can bring your own light, in the form of a flash, you’ll have a much easier time.
Otherwise, try waiting for the action to come under a floodlight…?
Great photography
wasn’t there an article, with a chart regarding night photography exposures? i’m sure it was back in the 1970’s, and appeared in popular photography magazine. anyone out there remember that, and possibly which issue it was?
i’m not a member of the digital world; i’m a tried and true celuloid nut.
Great stuff and good advice. More for me to put in the knowledge bank! I wish winters weren’t so cold here… I love photographing snow covered scapes at night. But when it’s -15 to -30 celcius here at night… You Need To Be Brave!!!!
Cheers & Best in the New Year - Dave
Hi Larry,
One time a tabulator came with Practical Photography again in the early 80s. I do have it lying with me and I wanted to copy using one the DTP softwares. This only gives a starting point for various difficult photo lighting situations.
Some have been bold enough to share what they tried in odd lighting situations. People should appreciate that instead of passing negative comments. If they feel they are great masters then they should themselves post their great work. Great effort to share with us Mr. Forrest.
Forrest,
Thanks for developing the site. For one, I appreciate what you are doing for folks like me who need the help and would be lost without it. As for critics, they will always be there. Typically, they are losers who have never had an original thought. Their comments only expose their desire to have a good idea and once again they don’t. Ignore these thoughtless entities. They only make the rest of the folks with ideas look good. I will close with this. All the ART greats in the world were also criticized in the beginning. We know what happened there.
Thanks
Wayne
Nice discussion…i like the visual of the blog.