Techniques and suggestions for night photography

Techniques and suggestions for night photography

1. Ideal camera settings for street photography at night.

When shooting in the daytime, I will set the shutter at 1/320, and the lowest is1160. But not at night. Can you use 1/250 where there is light at night? Shoot at the shutter speed, but in most cases the shutter speed can only reach1160 or even every second? 1/60。 You need to hold the camera very stably, use a wide-angle lens as much as possible, and try to shoot at the shutter speed of 1/60. More practice can increase stability.

It is recommended to use a wide-angle lens, because the longer your focal length, the faster the shutter speed is needed to make the picture clear. With 28mm, 35mm or 50mm is easier to shoot at a lower shutter speed. Moreover, the advantage of wide-angle lens is that it usually has a relatively large aperture, and it can even shoot at shutter speed under the premise of F/4 aperture in some places with more light at night. A large aperture like F/2.8 or even F/ 1.8 will greatly increase your shooting success rate. Finally, improve ISO, and now most cameras have a strong ability to deal with ISO noise. So don't worry about noise. However, there is still a limit, usually ISO3200, with a maximum of 6400.

My own experience:

In Taipei, there are artificial light sources, car lights, neon lights, arcade fluorescent lights, street lamps, shop lights and so on. It's not easy to shoot an evening performance in Taipei. It is not easy because it is too dark, but because the light is too uneven. In some places, the light is very bright, while in other places, the light is too dark. You have to adjust the camera settings at any time, which is a great challenge for street shooting, because you may miss a bunch of good photos when setting the camera. The automatic camera may not have this trouble, because I use a manual camera, so as the author said, it takes a long time to respond quickly. There are also many observations on light sources. Even without a camera, practice observing the light source.

Step 2 find the light source first

Remember to find the light source in the scene you want to shoot, even during the day. It becomes more important to find the light source first at night, because even if the picture is great at night, it is no use without a suitable light source. Therefore, it is suggested to find a light source near the scene you want to shoot, choose your favorite light, and then wait for the picture to happen.

If you aim the camera at the light source itself, the object you want to shoot will become darker, but you can get great signs and dramatic light and shadow on the face of the person. Like the light on the faces of the two people above.

My own experience:

After finding the light source, you should always be ready to focus on the person or thing you want to shoot. As the author said, if you aim the camera at the light source itself, the person or thing you want to shoot will become very dark. Finally, you will only shoot the "neon sign (light source)" mentioned on the left, because when you aim the camera at the light, the aperture of the camera will narrow, and everything except the light source itself will darken. Therefore, it is recommended to be ready to refocus the camera for metering at any time after seeing the light source. Of course, unless you want to shoot beautiful signs, it doesn't hurt to keep the camera pointed at bright signs all the time.

Shooting nightlife

When shooting at night, try to observe scenes that don't happen during the day, such as nightlife. Here are some shooting projects worth watching at night. Cardiff of Maciej Dakowitz? After dark.

My own experience:

Taipei is a city that never sleeps for me. In fact, there are many nightlife scenes to shoot at night, such as clubs, MRT stations, underground streets, arcades and night markets, and some scenes that can't be seen during the day will also happen in these places.

4. Appropriate shooting distance.

Famous war photographer robert capa? Said, "If your photo is not good enough, it is because you are not close enough." But usually at night, I will hold this statement appropriately. I tried to get close to the person I wanted to shoot. But if you step back at night and frame the object you want to shoot and the surrounding scenes, you will shoot scenes that you can't see during the day. This shooting method can usually take the characters as supporting roles and tell a complete story with the overall atmosphere.

The advantage of this shooting technique is that it doesn't need too fast shutter speed while keeping a distance from the subject. It is relatively easy to take a clearer picture. In the distance, you may be able to hold down the moving figure with the shutter of 1/60, but if you are near, maybe the shutter speed should be accelerated to at least? 1/ 125。

My own experience:

I quite agree with the author that it is easier to hold people close when shooting at a long distance, and the closer to the moving subject, the faster the shutter is needed. This not only allows you to capture the whole atmosphere, but also enhances the story by capturing the characters. Kill two birds with one stone ~ unless the object you want to shoot is not moving at all, then you can consider getting closer and adding more details to the picture.

5. tripod and blur effect

The best way to take a street shot is to hold the camera, because you never know when and where what will happen. Holding a camera can make you react fastest. However, there is an exception when you want to lock an area to film people's communication and movement.

At this time, you can try a slower shutter speed, such as per second? 1/8。 The above photo took me a while, because I hope the proportion of people in the picture can be evenly distributed, and I also hope to shoot some interesting scenes in the foreground, just like the girl on the right side of the picture looks at the boy wearing a red plaid shirt, and the boy turns to look at another girl. It took me a little time to take this story-telling photo in Zhang Cai.

My own experience:

I usually take my camera and mirror to the street, plus a backpack, which contains a notebook, spare battery, memory card, a bottle of water, mobile phone and so on. Sometimes I even have a laptop, and the tripod will slow me down and I will be tired after walking for a long time. Besides, your eyesight is poor at night, so you must move faster. And I really have little chance to use a tripod.

Step 6 flash

Using flash is the most obvious way to shoot at night. But it's easy to attract people's attention with a flash. Personally, I don't like to shoot people with a flash. Don't say that others are uncomfortable. I don't feel well myself. I prefer to use some ambient light at night. But many street photographers do use flash to shoot at night, and if used properly, they can actually shoot good results.

Use the flash to give you more space to shoot at night. You can use faster shutter speed and shallower depth of field, and you don't have to worry about the noise caused by too high ISO. There are two ways to use flash at night. One is to focus on someone or an object, and only the subject will stand out clearly when shooting, and the other backgrounds are dark. Or pull the distance away, let the whole scene in, just make your subject stand out. See what message your picture wants to convey.

My own experience:

As the author said, it's uncomfortable to shoot at people with a flash. Me too. I don't like taking pictures in the street and being noticed. So I won't use the flash no matter day or night. However, some street shooting abroad is famous for using flash photography. Like mark? Cohen, Bruce Gierden, Charlie Kirk, Dirty Harry.

7. About excessive noise and underexposure

When improving ISO, adjust the exposure to the correct value as much as possible.

Many times, even if you think exposure value is tuned correctly, your exposure can't be accurate, because the environment is too dark. It is almost impossible for every photo to have a proper exposure. Most of the time, the advice is to take photos with low exposure, and then use post-production to improve exposure.

For those photos that may have noise or incorrect exposure, I will first adjust the exposure and composition in post-production software such as Lightroom. Of course, many times when exposure value is tuned correctly, there will be too much noise. But there is a way to solve this problem, and that is to use RAW files instead of JPG when shooting.

I will try to remove the noise in the RAW file first, and then add it back, because I like the photos to look a little negative. There are many denoising softwares on the market, such as PhotoNinja. Topaz noise reduction, what else? DxO. Personally, I prefer the denoising function of Lightroom. If I really like a photo, the noise is still very poor, and I will even use Photoshop to add a little blur effect to reduce the noise. Then enter Lightroom and add a little noise to make the photos taste like negatives. Although some people think that noise may make a photo look imperfect, it will have a different taste.

My own experience:

Usually, the noise generated automatically by the camera is very bad, but the way the author handles it can make the noise look like a negative. But personally, I don't spend much time dealing with noise. If the noise is really too much to make the photo too bad, I will have two ways to deal with it. One is to turn the photos into black and white (I think black and white photos are much better at accepting coarse particles than color photos, and sometimes they can add dramatic tension to photos), and the other is to give up the photos directly. One lesson of street photography is to learn not to miss one photo, and the next one will be better.

8. About ambiguity and imperfection

Try to make the photos as clear as possible, but remember that blurred photos are not necessarily a bad thing. Even though they are sometimes blurred, they still have the value of existence. When shooting at night, don't haggle over every ounce. You should take every photo clearly. Whether the content in the picture and the whole atmosphere are in place is the key point you should consider.

Try shooting with a camera with a shutter speed of 1/60 to 1/30. Sometimes you can inject more dynamic energy into the photo when the object you are shooting is a little blurred when moving.

My own experience:

I agree with the author that many classic street photos are not necessarily the clearest one. In addition to blindly pursuing clear pictures, there are many factors to consider. Such as story, composition, atmosphere and so on.

9. The photos taken at night should be dark.

This statement may sound a little natural, but what I want to say is that I think the photos taken at night should be taken at night, right? There will be many dark parts, underexposure and some unclear details in the picture. If you look at the photos taken at night? Histogram (chromatographic curve), you will find that compared with photos taken during the day, the brightness of photos taken at night will be greatly left on histogram G (dark part).

When you shoot at night with automatic exposure, the camera usually misinterprets the dark scene and produces overexposure. At this point, you will want to reduce the exposure by one (most cameras use-1? Representing a lower exposure). There is nothing wrong with shooting at night like during the day, but my point is not to worry that the photos taken at night will look too dark, because that is what night really looks like.

My own experience:

I don't often shoot night shows, but when shooting night shows, I really want to shoot the atmosphere of night shows, otherwise I would like to shoot during the day.

10. Pay attention to safety

It depends on where you live, but it is not always safe to go out with your camera at night. Try to keep it light and be alert to safety at any time. Study your subject before shooting. Don't shoot everything. You can even perform with one or two friends or photographers. You don't want to get into trouble for taking pictures in the street at night.

My own experience:

Needless to say at night, I once went to a deep alley in Ximending during the day and saw drug addicts taking a nap in the corner of the alley. I started walking back. When I was in Wanhua, I also touched some things that didn't look easy to mess with, but I really wanted to photograph them. They came to pick me up, and I didn't shoot them. Going out at night, my eyesight is worse and my environmental mastery is lower. Be vigilant at all times and be sure to pay attention to your own safety.

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