How to take good night scenes in low light environment

Introduction: When shooting in low light, the most important things to pay attention to are exposure, focus, and the configuration of light and dark parts. The following will tell you the shooting techniques of night scenes and interesting night shooting locations that we often overlook, so that you can take photos again. Not afraid of the coming of night.

Exposure rules for night scene photography

Exposure is particularly important for night scene photography, and it is also one of the more difficult factors to control in night scene photography. The light ratio contrast of night scenes is relatively strong. If you use the camera's average metering, it may lead to overexposure. This is because the overall light brightness of night scene photos is often insufficient, and the metering system overexposes the picture in order to restore 18%. In order to ensure that the photo reflects the atmosphere of the night scene at that time, it is recommended to use the following methods:

The Egyptian Pyramids in the World Park (F8, 8s, ISO100, focal length 50mm)

1. Right A mid-gray brightness area is used for spot metering. Because the ratio of light and dark in night scenes is not fixed, average metering is not reliable.

2. If you use average metering, you can use the replay function to observe the shooting effect. If it is not ideal, you can adjust it by increasing or decreasing exposure compensation.

3. If you are not sure about the exposure, you can try to use exposure bracketing. In this way, you can get several photos of the same night scene with different exposures, and then choose the one with the correct exposure.

Auto focus and manual focus

Shooting the parade (F4, 1/125s, ISO800, focal length 17mm)

Since ordinary digital cameras are sensitive to low contrast and Low-brightness scenes are difficult to focus accurately, and night scenes are often low-contrast and low-brightness. Therefore, when shooting night scenes, you should first focus on the bright scene, and then lock the focus for composition. This can improve Shooting success rate. Sometimes the camera's autofocus function is insufficient for night scenes. In this case, the manual focus function can be enabled to make up for the shortcomings of the autofocus function.

Light and dark control of picture elements

Photo of the Forbidden City Corner Tower with foreground (F4, 1/20s, ISO800, focal length 18mm)

One of the characteristics of night scenes The contrast between light and dark in the scene is very obvious. If you can skillfully control the contrast between light and dark, you can create a unique picture. For example, the turret of the Forbidden City is more eye-catching at night than during the day, because the sky is dark and quiet at night. Under the illumination of the light, the majestic outline of the turret is exaggerated, and the details at each level create tones, making the turret very charming. In order to further improve the depth and expressiveness of the picture, you can choose an appropriate foreground to set off the main body of the picture, and use the dark tones of the foreground to highlight the splendor of the turret, forming a light and dark contrast between the picture elements, which is very contagious.

Choosing the best shooting time

Is night view shooting only after dark? In fact, it is not the case. The scenery when the sun sets is very beautiful. Because the sky has not completely darkened at this time, and the lights have just started to turn on, the final picture of the photo taken at this time will have beautiful sky color light, and the ambient light will make the dark parts of the photo have more details. Precautions for shooting are as follows:

Nightscape photos taken at sunset (F11, 1/2s, ISO100, focal length 35mm)

1. Use a wide angle as much as possible. Most digital cameras have the deepest depth of field at the wide-angle end, and the minimum shutter speed that can be tolerated when handheld is larger than that of medium or telephoto, but of course it is best to choose a camera with optical anti-shock or CCD anti-shock function.

2. No white balance adjustment is used. When taking night scene photography, if you do not use white balance adjustment, the light waves generated by the neon lights decorating buildings and scenery can appear on the photosensitive element more brilliantly than what you can see with the naked eye. The sky in the evening can also appear on the photosensitive element. Brighter colors. If you use automatic white balance adjustment, you will lose the bright colors of the scenery.

Choosing the right shooting object

The office building is brightly lit at night (F11, 1/2s, ISO100, focal length 35mm)

Selection of night scene shooting objects Mainly consider the beautiful scenery and the theme expressed by the atmosphere created by the light. The photo was taken of one of the many office buildings in the city. Because overtime is common for urban office workers, office buildings tend to have more lighting effects than residential buildings. When night falls, most of the windows of the office building are flashing with lights, and the position, quantity, and distribution of the light in the picture present a formal beauty.

Silhouette under night cover

With the naked eye, the shooting scene is not a night scene, but in the photos taken, the brightness of the sky and ground scenes is much lower than what is seen by the naked eye. Many, very close to the visual impression of the human eye during night scenes. This is the result of the dual effects of the digital camera's exposure latitude and exposure compensation functions.

In the picture, the afterglow of the sky sets off the outline of the subject, and the backlight creates the tall silhouette of the iron tower. Together with the houses on the ground, it presents an ideal picture with both light and dark contrast and tonal levels. The warm tones of the lights on the ground contrast with the blue tones of the sky without losing coordination. Although you can use a mid-range lens to photograph the tower, shooting with a wide-angle lens will help enhance the grandeur of the scene. The shooting process is as follows:

Communication tower on the top of the mountain at night (F8, 4s, ISO100, focal length 28mm)

1. The camera is fixed on a tripod.

2. Focus on the tower.

3. The aperture is approximately F8 or F11 to ensure depth of field.

4. Perform spot metering against the sky.

5. Use the 2-second Selfie function to complete the shooting.

Busy and noisy night scenes in downtown areas

Pedestrian streets in bustling metropolises (F4, 1/60s, ISO100, focal length 24mm)

Shooting night scenes in downtown areas At this time, the main expression is the bustling atmosphere of the city at night, taking in the colors, lines, and contours of the scenery, emphasizing the echo between the close and distant views, and the interaction between the street scene and the flow of people. Because the scene is large, it is suitable to shoot with a wide-angle lens. Beginners can choose night scene mode, which generally achieves satisfactory results. When shooting handheld, if you want to show the bright and bustling street scenes, you need to ensure a certain shutter speed to improve the stability of the camera when shooting. Increasing the camera's brightness ISO value can speed up the shutter speed, which is beneficial to the stability of shooting. But at the same time, increasing the ISO will bring noise to the photos and destroy the image quality.

Busy construction site night scene

Busy construction site at night (F4, 30s, ISO100, focal length 19mm)

In addition to common streamers, the scene selection for night scene photography In addition to the colorful and unique buildings, sometimes you can also find another way to shoot some scenes that are inconspicuous but look interesting at night, such as construction sites, brightly lit stadiums, parks at night, etc. When shooting night scenes, due to the dark sky and high contrast in the photos, some scenes that damage the picture are often hidden by the darkness. However, the main part of the subject or scene can be highlighted by appropriate lighting, which can bring the viewer more perspective. A vivid impression.

Creative zoom creates an explosion effect

The effect obtained by zoom shooting during exposure (F22, 5s, ISO100, focal length 17mm)

Facing the light-decorated You can zoom into scenes such as colorful neon signs to get fascinating color patterns. The secret to creating the zoom explosion effect is as follows:

1. Night time is the best time to shoot the zoom explosion effect.

2. The effect of using a wide-angle zoom lens is much better than that of using a telephoto zoom lens.

3. First secure the camera on the tripod so that the zoom lens can be pushed and pulled more smoothly and ensure straight lines.

4. Use a small aperture to ensure depth of field.

5. The shutter speed should be slow enough to ensure that the zoom operation is completed within the exposure time.

6. You can pause for a while before starting to zoom. The pause time depends on the length of the exposure time. For example, for a 4-second exposure, you can let the shutter open for 2 seconds before zooming, highlighting the subject in the lines of the zoom explosion in the picture.

7. First push the lens to the shortest focal length, then release the shutter, and then smoothly and steadily zoom in on the lens zoom ring to the longest focal length.