Tip 1: bring your own stand
Night shooting usually requires long exposure, therefore the camera must maintain stable to take a clear picture. Due to vibrations and damage-free photo effects, it is better to use a tripod to reduce shaking.
Tip 2: reducing brightness (ISO)
We all know that the high brightness can result in faster shutter speed under the same aperture value when shooting to minimize shake problem, but then the picture taken would have white points, especially when shooting at night, long exposures would make the points evident. Therefore if the circumstance permits, it is better to use a tripod and a low ISO value for best shooting results.
Tip 3: use a large aperture lens for view finding
When the lens are mounted with the fuselage, the aperture of the lens will automatically open to the maximum. In dark environments, larger aperture will enable more light to enter the lens, which makes the viewfinder image clearer.
Tip 4: use a small aperture to shot
Large aperture lenses are used in order to enable the photographer to see more clearly when viewing, while apertures go small when shooting is due to the following two reasons:
Small aperture can provide greater depth, so features will not change under the influence of shallow depth of field to become blur;
If there is the lighting in the evening, using a small aperture can turn light into a star type, which makes photo effect more prominent.
Tip 5: long exposure
One of the common techniques of night shooting is the long exposures (shutter value is slow to 10 seconds, 30 seconds or hours), which can be used to take the car,star track, wave and so on. Long exposes not only makes waves smooth or record the vehicle trajectory of red tail lights, but can make usually invisible rays appear, and the effect is absolutely fascinating.
Tip 6: setting the white balance
It is not recommended to set automatic white balance when shooting the night, because in a dark environment, auto white balance could easily become inconsistent, making the photo have chromatic aberration. In shooting night, you can use the “tungsten” mode of white balance, but of course you have to select the most appropriate mode according to the environment. In addition you should save photos in RAW format so as to allow the photographer to adjust the white balance as needed.
Tip 7: Be aware of overexposure
It is quite prone to appear overexposure when using the automatic exposure mode at night, for the camera will be misled by the wide range of dark environment. So, when shooting night, we can use full manual mode, or using B shutter (shutter is open until the photographer turns it off), so you can set the appropriate shutter and aperture.
I’m a junior in university and interested in shooting.
