Taking Night Photos

We've all seen amazing night photos of star trails or city lights but would you believe that after taking ten minutes to read this article you too will be able to start taking photos that you will be proud to display. In this article we will cover the equipment you need and recommended settings to get started. In later blog posts I'll go over how to edit your photos in general and specifically the night photos you take between now and then.

Equipment

A good tripod will be your most important piece of equipment. This will allow your camera to remain steady and focused on your subject. Additionally you will need a remote shutter release (wired or wireless). On most cameras you can use your camera's timer setting to take pictures with exposures up to thirty seconds, but a remote is a valuable and inexpensive piece of equipment.

A flash and extra batteries are always good to have on hand as well. Make sure you know what type of batteries you flash, remote, and camera require (long exposure photos drain your camera's battery more quickly).

To get the highest quality photos possibly you should use a hood for your lens and use and eye piece cover to keep unwanted light from entering your camera body.

A flashlight will also be valuable for helping you find your way in the dark, illuminating your subject so that your camera can focus, and to create special effects like light painting.

Lastly, it will be critical to your check your local weather conditions and the lunar cycle. You would be disappointed if you planned a photo excursion just to get rained on and your star photos will be effected by light pollution from the moon.

Settings

I cannot stress how important it is to learn your camera settings inside and out. Taking night photos can be easy if you have spent time understanding how shutter speed, aperture, and ISO work together.

If you have already determined your desired focal length and composed you photo it is normally best to put your ISO on the lowest setting in order to obtain photos with the least possible amount of noise.

Next determine you aperture based on the depth of field needed to get all of your subject in focus. If taking photos of landscapes or stars where the nearest object your would like to be in focus is more than a quarter mile away you can open your aperture as wide as possible which will allow you to get the maximum amount of light onto your camera's sensor.

If your camera is having trouble focusing due to low light conditions you can use your flashlight by illuminating your subject to help you focus but it is a good idea to practice manually focusing.

The last setting left is to select your shutter speed. I suggest relying on your cameras meter to start and then you can deviate to create desired effects. For example say you would like to take a sunset picture with some soft and blurred waves I would suggest using a three second exposure in which case you would have to adjust your aperture and ISO accordingly. Or if you are trying to get a good picture of the stars without start trails I would recommend using a thirty second exposure if your are using a focal length less than 20mm. Note that the longer your focal length is the more star movement your camera will record and therefore a shorter exposure will be necessary. On the other hand this is also an easy way to get start trails if you do not have a remote.

At this point you are ready to take some test shots. Take a 6 second exposure at 6400 ISO to make sure everything is in focus. If everything looks good you are ready to capture the stars with exposures at or below thirty seconds and create star trails with exposures from at least five minutes up to as long as you desire. Note that by turning on your camera's long exposure and high ISO settings it will take you camera usually as long as the photo was exposed to process the picture (i.e. one minute photo, one minute until your camera is ready to display the image and continue shooting).

Finally when reviewing your picture on your camera's LCD screen at night it will seem brighter than it will look on your computer (like viewing your screen in a dark room as opposed to viewing a laptop screen in direct sunlight). So utilize your camera's histogram to help your determine if your picture is bright enough.