Introduction skills of night scene photography

The ideal time to take a night photo is not in the real night, but in the evening when there is still a little skylight in the sky. At this time, the outline of the building has not completely disappeared in the night, and the blue and white light will make the tone of the sky look like a dream.

If you wait until it is completely dark, there is only one point light source in the photo, which looks unsightly. It is recommended to arrive at the shooting scene in the evening and observe the surrounding situation before dawn. Special attention should be paid to the safety of the shooting scene after dark and large billboards that are easily overlooked and may affect the shooting. Shooting should start when there is light in the sky, and the settings should be adjusted according to the change of light conditions.

Use Av (Aperture Priority Auto Exposure) mode, and select an aperture of about F5.6-8. This aperture is conducive to improving the resolution and shooting a clear point light source. In addition, when it is still bright, adjust the camera and determine the level of the picture. After dark, it is difficult to see the reference used to confirm whether it is horizontal or not, and it is also difficult to determine the correct angle. It's also a good choice to use a level meter, but it's hard to observe when the surroundings are dark. In order to make the subsequent shooting go smoothly, it's best to adjust the picture to a level in advance. The longest time period suitable for shooting is only 5 minutes, so everything needs to be ready before the ideal time comes.

Skill point explanation

Point 1: Use negative exposure compensation.

The reasonable exposure calculated by the camera when shooting the night scene is not necessarily a good exposure parameter, and the photographer needs to use his eyes to determine the exposure according to the actual effect. When there is still a little skylight in the surrounding environment, negative exposure compensation can be used to shoot the brightness similar to the night scene. In this way, lighting and natural light can achieve a good balance.

The second point: it will be very convenient to have a flashlight.

It will be convenient to have a small flashlight when shooting outdoors. It is widely used, not only to determine the position of the camera button, but also to illuminate the shooting scene to see if there is anything left behind.

The third point: use cable release.

In order to prevent the camera from shaking when shooting night scenes, it is suggested to use cable release when pressing the shutter button without touching the camera directly. If there is no cable release at hand, you can also use the self-timer function instead. Setting the driving mode to delay the release of the shutter for 2 seconds can suppress the jitter caused by pressing the shutter button.

The fourth point: AV (Aperture Priority Automatic Exposure) mode or manual exposure mode?

The shooting mode can be Av (Aperture Priority Automatic Exposure) mode or manual exposure mode. When using Av (Aperture Priority Automatic Exposure) mode, exposure compensation can be used to shoot a scene near night. When using manual exposure mode, the same effect can be achieved by adjusting the shutter speed.

Fifth point: When shooting through the window, the lens should be close to the glass window.

If you shoot in an observatory with a glass window, you need to put the lens close to the glass in order not to shoot the reflection of the glass. Pay special attention to the people behind and the possible reflection of indoor lights.

skill

Flexible use of real-time display function, but pay attention to battery power.

When shooting night scenes, manual focusing is a safer focusing method. Especially when shooting through glass, due to the influence of glass, autofocus may not be able to focus accurately. The way to focus safely is to use the real-time display function to focus manually. Just like the introduction in the middle article, the picture seen through the real-time display mode is the picture actually shot by the image sensor, and the photographer can directly observe the actual picture and enlarge the picture to focus accurately, so the error is very small. Only when focusing in real-time display mode, the LCD needs to be used all the time, and the battery consumption will be faster than expected. Therefore, when shooting in real-time display mode, it is recommended to prepare a spare battery.