What are the skills for taking pictures at night?

I believe many novice photographers like to shoot night scenes. But at the beginning, it is often found that the effect is not ideal. In fact, as long as you master the tips, you can easily take high-level night photos!

Tip 1: Bring your own tripod.

It usually takes a long time to take a night view, so the camera should be hidden to take a clear picture. In order to avoid damaging the photo effect by vibration, it is best to use a tripod to reduce shaking.

Tip 2: Turn down the brightness (ISO)

I believe everyone knows that high sensitivity brightness can get faster shutter speed at the same aperture value to reduce the jitter problem when shooting, but it will cause noise in the photo. Especially when shooting at night, long exposure will make the dark noise particularly obvious, so if the environment permits, it is best to use tripod and low ISO value to get the best shooting effect.

Tip 3: Take photos with a large aperture lens.

When we put the lens on the fuselage, the aperture of the lens will automatically open to the maximum. In a dark environment, a larger aperture allows more light to enter the lens and makes the picture on the viewer clearer. For example, two photographers shoot night scenes at the same time and place. If a lens with the maximum aperture of f/2.8 and a lens with the maximum aperture of f/5.6 are used, the picture on the viewfinder of the photographer with the aperture of f/2.8 will be obviously brighter, and the photographer can see the clear details more easily.

Tip 4: shoot with a small aperture.

It may seem contradictory. Just now, the author said to use a large aperture lens. Why do you want to shoot with a small aperture now? There is a simple reason. The purpose of using a large aperture lens is to make it easier for photographers to see clearly when shooting, but the aperture is lowered for the following two reasons:

Small aperture can make the depth of field larger, so that the scene will not be blurred by the influence of shallow depth of field;

If there is light at night, shooting with a small aperture can make the light star-shaped and the effect is more prominent.

Tip 5: Long exposure

One of the common methods for shooting night scenes is long exposure (shutter value as slow as 10 second, 30 seconds or several hours), which can be used to shoot car tracks, star tracks, waves and so on. Long exposure can not only smooth waves or record the trajectory of red taillights, but also make some light that is usually invisible to the naked eye appear. The effect is absolutely fascinating. You must try more!

Tip 6: Set the white balance.

It is not recommended to use automatic white balance when shooting night scenes, because in dark environment, automatic white balance can easily become inconsistent, leading to color difference in photos. You can use the white balance of "tungsten lamp" mode when shooting night scenes, but of course you should choose the most suitable mode according to the environment at that time. In addition, saving photos in RAW format allows photographers to adjust the white balance as needed afterwards, which is more convenient.

Tip 7: Beware of overexposure.

If you use automatic exposure (that is, Auto/P/Av/Tv/S/A) mode at night, it is easy to overexpose. The reason for this is that the camera will be misled by a wide range of dark environment, making the photos overexposed. So when shooting the night scene, we can use the full manual mode, or use the B shutter (the shutter is always open until the photographer tells it to close), so that we can set the appropriate shutter and aperture ourselves. Of course, it takes experience to find the right combination of aperture and shutter, and novices can take more photos to see the effect. If you want to know whether the photo is overexposed, you can observe whether the light spots in the photo are clear. In other words, the light spots taken under normal exposure, such as the most common lights, look very clear and distinct. On the other hand, if the photo is overexposed, the light spot will feel "melted" and the lines will be unclear.