Night photography is a gorgeous art form, and with the affordability of digital cameras at an all-time high, you may find yourself wanting to get started with it.
No matter who you are or what kind of camera you have, you can do night photography! It just takes a little bit of work.
Follow these helpful photography tips for night shooting and you’ll be able to wow your friends and family with your artwork.
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Night Photography Tips
Explore Your Camera’s Shooting Modes
Digital cameras have a large range of shooting modes, each of them optimized for a different type of picture.
You may not have explored them, either because you don’t know how to use them or because you don’t see any particular changes when you switch to a different mode.
However, those different modes are incredibly important if you’re looking for the most crisp, colorful photos possible.
Instead of shooting in an automatic mode, try Aperture Priority to be able to control everything in-camera, letting you make creative choices that you couldn’t otherwise.
Use Manual Focus
Night sky photography tips tend to be highly focused on exposure length and lens type, but a simple addition that can forever change the way you shoot nightscapes is manual focus.
The automatic focus has come a long way, and it’s incredibly accurate in most modern cameras, but if you don’t need to capture rapid-fire action, there’s no reason to take the lazy route.
Use manual focusing for all of your cityscape photography, and you’ll be able to add a little bit more creative function into your pictures.
It’s just one of those quick night light photography tips that will change the look of your pictures, and it’s really not all that difficult.
Use Your Extra Tools
During the day, you will more than likely be using your camera in a handheld fashion, hanging it around your neck and shooting pictures as they come to you. But you should really follow these night photography tips and use extra tools for those glorious nighttime shots.
A tripod will eliminate shaking hands, even if that shaking is minimal, and will let you take long exposures that can lead to some really cool after effects.
A portable light can let you illuminate the edges of a close item, which is an interesting visual addition to an already-interesting photograph.
Use those tools that you have but don’t use very frequently. Even if you’re not completely sold on all of these photography tips for night shooting, you can’t deny that it’s fun using hardware that you don’t get to use a lot, if at all.
Take Lots of Test Pictures
When you’re taking pictures during the day, or during an action-packed event, you’ll want to take plenty of pictures and sort out the issues later.
However, an important thing that you’ll see repeated in plenty of night photography tips is that you shouldn’t shy away from taking picture after picture of the same thing, so you can get the perfect shot.
You don’t have just one chance when you’re taking cityscape pictures. Check the pictures you’ve just taken; if you’re not happy with them, take another one!
You want the best pictures possible. Fill up your SD card and filter through them later.
Shoot in RAW Format
Most cameras shoot either in RAW or in JPG, and it’s not infrequent for people to shoot in JPG to keep the file size down so they can shoot as many pictures as possible. However, at night, you need to be sure you’re shooting in RAW.
Something that you may have glossed over while looking for night light photography tips is that RAW format allows you to actually capture more colors, especially colors at the dark end of the scale, leading to a richer picture.
Just make sure to bring some backup SD cards!
Get There Early
This might seem like an obvious one, but it’s worth adding to your repertoire of photography tips for night shooting.
If you’re planning to shoot a scene that’s widely-known for being very beautiful, get there early. Not only will you have time to set up your equipment without feeling rushed, but you’ll also be able to get the best spot.
Always overestimate how much time you’ll need; there’s nothing worse than having to cut corners in order to get your shot.
Night photography should be fun and exciting, not a race to get your pictures so that you can look at them later.
Ready To Try Night Photography?
Nighttime photography is gorgeous, and if you have a digital camera and an eye for art, you should definitely get in on it.
However, it can be very difficult to get the shots that you’re looking for, and even if you get them, you need to do it right, or you’ll be disappointed.
With these night photography tips, you can make all your pictures look a little more sophisticated, and that can be the difference between a good picture and a great one.
