How to get accurate exposure parameters for night photography?

It may be difficult to find a suitable exposure for night photography, and it needs to be tried and tested repeatedly in photography. In this article, we will introduce how to get correct exposure and take good photos in night photography.

1. What do you need for night photography?

If shooting at night, the shutter speed should be long enough (1 to 30 seconds or even longer anyway). Because it is absolutely impossible to keep the camera still in this case, a stable tripod is needed to keep the camera completely still during exposure. In order to increase stability, photo bags (or other heavy objects) can be hung on the tripod hook, especially when shooting night scenes in windy conditions.

Long exposure of street lighting plants at night, ISO 400, aperture f/4, shutter speed 30 seconds, white balance incandescent lamp, 50mm f/ 1.8 D nikkor lens.

Take a picture of a golden plant illuminated by a street lamp at night, ISO 400, aperture f/4, shutter speed 30 seconds, white balance incandescent lamp, 50mm f/ 1.8 D nikkor lens.

Remote shutter

Under long exposure, any movement of the camera will damage the photo frame, making it soft or fuzzy. Use the remote control to release the shutter (trigger) to ensure that the image is clear. It is best to use this type of remote controller, which can also be used as a remote timer. If you don't have a remote shutter, please use the self-timer in the camera. The only disadvantage of selfie is that the shutter speed can be set below 30 seconds. If the light is insufficient, you can increase the aperture (decrease the F value) or increase the ISO at any time to obtain a faster shutter speed.

O 200, aperture f/5.6, shutter speed 30 seconds, white balance fluorescent lamp, 24 mm F/2.8 d nicol lens.

Second, the camera settings for shooting at night

Raw beat

Considering the picture quality, it should be shot in RAW format. RAW stores more information about pixels and does not compress images at all. RAW provides more post-processing options for photos, including white balance correction; If the photo is overexposed or underexposed, it can be easily corrected if the RAW format is selected.

International organization for standards

It is important to use a lower ISO(400 and below) and a longer exposure time when shooting with little available light, because too much noise (graininess) will not be obtained in the image; In addition, make sure to use long exposure noise reduction in camera settings.

Shoot yellow leaves and clouds at night, ISO 200, aperture f/5.6, shutter speed 30 seconds, white balance incandescent lamp, 50 mm f/ 1.8 D nikkor lens.

Use manual mode

When shooting in low light, the camera may not be able to read the scene well. So it is best to use manual mode, which can control the aperture and shutter speed. To find the basis for proper exposure, you can use the following techniques:

Set ISO to 6400.

Set the desired aperture.

Set the shutter speed to 1 sec.

Use these settings for test shooting to understand the concept of photography. Note that these settings are almost equivalent to ISO 100 exposure 1 min, ISO 200 exposure for 30 seconds, and ISO

400 hours exposure 15 seconds, and so on. If these settings make the scene too bright, what happens after half a second. Exposure and 6400. This is equivalent to 30 seconds at ISO 100 and 30 seconds at ISO.

It is 15 seconds at 200 and 8 seconds at ISO 400, so it is easy to determine the shutter speed to be used.

If you use the above techniques, you won't waste time shooting for a long time. Before taking pictures, please make sure to set the ISO back to 400 or lower.

In scenes with sufficient light (such as places with many street lamps), aperture priority mode can be used instead of manual operation.

Third, finally.

Shooting at night is challenging and requires a lot of practice. Over time, you will feel the amount of light entering the night scene, and you can browse the settings relatively easily. I hope the information in this article can help you capture high-quality long-exposure photos without too much post-processing.