Wayne Lorimer introduces you to the exciting world of night photography and proves that there really is life after dark

Photography at night seems, at face value, to be a rather strange concept. After all, photography is about capturing ‘light’, isn’t it? You get up in the morning ‘at first light’ to take images of the sun rising over the hills and then you shoot all day in the available light. As evening approaches you set your camera up to take some photos of the sun as it sets over the ocean, then you pack up your gear and put your camera away. Don’t you? Well, not any more!

I realise that getting your camera out at night may seem counter-intuitive, but if you’ve never shot at night, you are missing out on a very rewarding photographic experience.

Of course, photography is all about capturing light (set your camera up in a pitch dark cupboard, leave the shutter open for five hours and see what you get). But just because it’s night time doesn’t mean there isn’t light around for you to capture. Of course there is. And plenty of it, too! In fact, sometimes there can be too much light, making exposure calculations very tricky indeed. But I’m getting ahead of myself, so lets back the photography truck up a bit and start at the beginning.

What’s Required?

As with any shooting situation, the results you achieve will be dependent on the gear you have available. And so it is with night photography, where there are a few essential items that are needed to be successful.

A Camera

First you need a camera. “Gee,” I hear you say, “who would have thought you’d need a camera.” Okay, I know the first one is a bit obvious, but you shouldn’t expect to get good results from just any camera. For night photography you need a camera that is capable of long exposure times. By ‘long’ I mean at least 10 or 15 seconds, but preferably up to 30 seconds and beyond. For this you’ll need a setting called Bulb, which allows you to keep the shutter open for as long as it is pressed. This is crucial if you are hoping to give yourself enough time to capture the light available.

The camera should also offer an element of user-control. Ideally you need to be able to ‘trip’ the shutter without touching the shutter button by using a self-timer mode or cable/remote release, and then be able to set the aperture and shutter speeds manually, so that you can expose for a variety of times.

Fortunately, most digicams and point-and-shoot compacts can give you at least a 15-second exposure with a self-timer and some manual control, so you probably do have the ability to make some great night shots with the gear you already own.

A Tripod

The most important piece of equipment (other than a camera) for producing night images is a tripod. I’ve already suggested that the exposure times at night might get up to the 30-second range (and beyond), so obviously a tripod is a ‘must’. What’s that you say? You don’t own a tripod? Well, you march right down to your local camera shop and get one, pronto! It will improve your photography no end – seriously. A tripod is an essential element not only in night photography, but also in landscape and portrait photography.

As a tool, it helps you to secure your camera for those long exposure times for night or landscape photography. But it also has other implications on your photography in terms of composition and visualisation. Putting your camera on a tripod to set up a shot makes you slow down and think about composition and placement of all of the elements within your picture. You can also use a tripod to position the camera comfortably at very low or very high angles (depending on the tripod). This allows you to get images with a unique view of the world that you might not have bothered with if the camera was tied around your neck. Invest in a good tripod and then use it. I guarantee your photos will benefit. If you do end up down at the local camera store looking to purchase a tripod, what should you be looking for? What is a ‘good’ tripod?

This is a kind of ‘horses for courses’ question, but there are a few fundamental things you should look for in any tripod if it is going to be of any practical use.

First, it needs to be a solid support for your camera, so take your camera along and put it on the tripod to get the ‘feel’ of how easy it works for you. If it feels too flimsy and lightweight, don’t buy it. Conversely, if the tripod is so heavy you would never bother to carry it around, don’t buy it either.

Other things to look for? Stretch the legs out to their full extent to see if it is still stable, and make sure it can extend out to a comfortable height for you to use. Ball heads can also be a good idea for the ultimate in useability, so try them out in-store as well.

“Hey, Pal, this is an article on night photography, not tripods. Get on with it.” Yes, point taken. But a tripod is such a fundamentally important piece of photographic equipment for good night photography results, I feel it’s important to emphasise. Nuff said.

When To Shoot

True ‘night’ photography happens a couple of hours after dark, when the twilight has truly faded to black. But that doesn’t mean you should wait until then to start shooting. There is a wondrous time that lasts for about an hour after the sun has gone down, where there is still enough ambient light in the sky to create amazing colours in an image that your eyes don’t necessarily see.

With exposures of several seconds, the night sky that could very well look black to you might appear as a glowing purple or deep blue in your photo. This unexpected intensity of colour in the sky is a feature of night photography and is used by the very best night photographers to create images that amaze and astound.

In reality, it’s quite simple to achieve, although somewhat unpredictable. Any cityscape or landscape with an emphasis on the sky, which is taken during the twilight hour on a long exposure (maybe 10 seconds, although it pays to experiment), can show this radiant colour effect to great advantage. However, if you want to take photos that emphasise the many light sources the night can bring, then wait until the twilight hour is over.

Shooting a cityscape, light trails from cars, fireworks or neon signs are very effective against a black background. Again the exposures may be between two to 30 seconds or more, so experimentation is the name of the game.

Safety First

Winter is perfect for night photography because darkness comes early, while other natural phenomena such as mist can add to the ambience. However, this can bring up a few safety issues you should be wary of before setting out.

You don’t need me to tell you that this time of the year can be cold. Maybe not sub-arctic, but cold nonetheless. Therefore dress warmly, with gloves for your hands and take a thermos of something hot to keep the chill from your bones. Get as comfortable as you can, because if you are too cold you aren’t going to be concentrating on creating beautiful images are you?

Also, be aware of your surroundings. Don’t get carried away shooting car trails on the freeway and then realise you’ve wandered onto the side of a busy road! If possible, take someone with you when you venture out at night. There is, as they say, safety in numbers. And you don’t really want to find yourself alone in an unfamiliar neighbourhood at 1am with hundreds of dollars worth of shiny new camera equipment. Sad, but true.

Some of the most interestingly lit areas at night can be industrial areas, such as railway yards, ports and power plants. These might make excellent subjects, but can be hazardous at the best of times, and even worse at night. So again, take someone with you and think safety first at all times.

What To Shoot

I’ve already covered some of the subjects that make for good night photography, but it may pay to look at some of them a little more in-depth, as each has its own unique settings and situations.

Landscapes

These are possible, especially during the twilight hours and with a good source of moonlight for illumination. However, large vistas may be uninteresting, so you might want to concentrate on the foreground and introduce your own light to make certain subjects stand out.

This is called ‘painting with light’ and can be achieved by using a flashlight or off-camera flash setup.

If it is very dark, and there isn’t much in the way of a light source, leave your camera open by using it manually on the Bulb setting, lock open the shutter with a cable/remote release and walk around your subject ‘painting’ it with light. Cover the whole area with a flashlight, as if you were painting it with a brush, or give several bursts from your flashgun at different angles to cover the subject.

Once you’ve covered the subject with light (try to stand out of the way of the camera as you do it), close the shutter and review what you’ve done on your LCD screen. This can be a lot of fun, and once again, experimentation is the name of the game.

Fireworks

The same photographic technique can be used with firework sparklers to create an interesting portrait. In a dark area of the backyard, or even inside the house if you’re careful, set your camera up on a tripod. Open the shutter – again with the camera set to Bulb – with an aperture of about f5.6. The person holding the lit sparkler can then start ‘drawing’ around themselves, writing their name or generally just scribbling in the air. Once they have finished, close the shutter and review what they have done. If they have written their name, it may appear backwards in the photo. Don’t worry about this, as it can be ‘flipped’ easily on the computer or by your lab when you go to output the image. Another technique to use when capturing big bursts of fireworks in the night sky also relies on leaving your camera open (you can see how useful a lockable cable or remote release might be in night photography).

Because fireworks displays tend to happen late at night, when the sky will render as black no matter how long the exposure, there is a simple trick for capturing multiple bursts on the one frame. Point your camera up at the sky with a wide to mid lens (35mm to 100mm), with an aperture of about f5.6, and lock the shutter open in the Bulb setting. Trip the shutter just as you hear the rocket take off into the sky and then wait for three or four to follow. This technique allows you to capture multiple explosions on the one frame by simply leaving the camera open for as long as it takes to capture all the bursts.

Cityscapes

Cities can be wondrous, amazing places at night, full of potentially beautiful images. There is often a huge mix of light temperatures (from cold blue to blazing orange) and these can be used to enhance the magical quality of shooting lights at night. You could try to get rid of these colour casts by setting your camera’s White Balance to something other than Auto, but then you’d be defeating the purpose. Leave your camera’s White Balance on Auto and marvel at the range of blues, greens and oranges that appear in your photos.

In terms of the range of exposures needed, these will vary depending on how well lit your subject is. In downtown Las Vegas for example, you may get exposure readings from your camera similar to daylight because there is just so much neon around. Whereas in a small rural town at night you may have to start at five or even 10 seconds to get a good result. Once again, experiment and review the results of each effort once you’ve taken the shot. If you need more exposure, then simply give it more. Another consideration when shooting in a busy city is vibration. Now, now – keep thinking photography here, this is a family magazine.

All those cars and people passing you by in close proximity create vibrations on the road or footpath, no matter how subtle. With long exposures this can affect the sharpness of your image. Use a sturdy tripod, weigh it down with your camera bag if you have to, and try to take the image when the movement around you is at a minimum (if that’s at all possible).

Star Trails

You’ve probably all seen the striking images of the night with arcs of light trailing across the sky. These are star trails and are captured using extremely long exposures. If you are going to attempt this type of photography on a digital camera then you will need to have some way of hooking your camera to mains power. Camera batteries can last from anywhere between half-an-hour up to a couple of hours with the shutter left open. But that’s not really long enough for a star trail image, which can last all night! Film cameras also can have trouble with exposures of this length, as many of them also draw power from the battery as long as the shutter is open.

With all of the night shooting I’ve mentioned so far, the exposure times have been reasonably long and many have required leaving the shutter open on Bulb during the process. This will suck battery life quickly, so always make sure you’ve got a spare set on hand. Over the course of the evening, you’re bound to need them.

Night Portraiture

Portraiture at night – are you serious? Well, of course I am, and some manufacturers are even including a night portrait mode into their cameras. Imagine for a moment that you want to take a photograph of Mum and Dad in front of a beautifully lit fountain at night. If you switch the camera to portrait mode and take their photo, the flash automatically pops up, fires and the photo is taken. The result is okay – Mum and Dad are well exposed, but the fountain itself is a bit dark and the background is black. Now instead, place your camera on a tripod (because you brought one recently, didn’t you), set the camera to night portrait mode and take the photo. The flash still pops up and fires, but it does so in what is called ‘slow sync’ mode. What this means is that not only does the flash illuminate Mum and Dad, but after it has finished the shutter stays open a fraction longer to capture some of the ambient light from the fountain as well. Thus you still get a well-exposed subject and you get detail in the background as well. This mode can also help when shooting portraits indoors, where there are large open spaces that would be black otherwise eg, churches.

Extras

Special effects filters can be fun and there are certain filters you can use that have been designed specifically for night photography. Star burst filters have tiny scratches across their surface that act as prisms, reacting to the intense points of light from street lamps and other lights at night to create colourful burst effects. While not for everyone, they can be fun to play around with. If you don’t have a filter holder that will work with your lens, then simply hold them up to the front of the lens to see the effect. If you like it, then shoot the image either by holding it in place for the required time, or attach it carefully with tape before taking the image.

Digital’s ‘Dark’ Secret

So is there a downside to shooting night images with digital? Yes, and it has to do with long exposures. The longer the exposure with digital capture, the more noise is introduced. Noise begins to appear in the darker areas of the image (of which there can be quite a lot with night photography) and up-close it looks like little coloured specs. This will interfere with overall smoothness of the image and can be quite distracting.

Some cameras (Canon dSLRs for example) handle long exposure noise better than others, but at extremely long exposures, this noise becomes unavoidable. To help combat this, you can use a software program like Noise Ninja, or check to see if your camera has a noise reduction process in-camera.

With noise reduction (NR) set, any exposure greater than a second has a filtering process that takes a second dark image and corrects the coloured pixels – thereby getting rid of the noise. Very clever and very effective. The downside to this filtering process is that it basically doubles the time it takes the camera to process the image, so you will definitely need to use a tripod! On some camera models, having noise reduction set all the time can also lower the camera’s frames per second speed, so only turn noise reduction on when you really need it.

Give It A Whirl

I realise that night photography can be counter-intuitive and most people who see photographers wandering around with their camera at night must think they’ve gone barmy. But if you haven’t shot at night, then you’re missing out on a worthwhile experience. Apart from the noise issue (which can be largely resolved), digital cameras were made for night photography. There’s no more guessing long exposure times, as feedback is instant. Just perfect for creating images with loads of interesting, spectacular and otherworldly light.

Fast Lenses

Faster lenses – those with wide maximum apertures such as f2.8 or f1.8 – are good for low-light photography because they allow the use of a faster shutter speed with a smaller aperture. If you are shooting movement, this faster shutter speed will prevent blur. In addition, the shorter the exposure time, the less noise the camera will create.
If you can’t afford a fast lens, and your digital doesn’t have built-in image stabilisation, an image stabiliser lens could do the trick.

TEN Tips for Night Photography

1. Night photography uses long exposure times, so a good solid tripod isa must-have.
2. Use the self-timer setting, or better still a cable/remote release that can lock the shutter open for long periods of time.
3. Start shooting at twilight to capture the beautiful range of colours that can appear in the night sky after sunset.
4. When it gets really dark, switch to shooting the lights of the city or car light trails with dark backgrounds to emphasise the colours.
5. Set your camera on Bulb if you have it and start with 5, 10 and 15-second exposure times at f5.6. Experiment with these settings.
6. Point your camera skywards and leave it open to capture several bursts of fireworks on the one frame.
7. For city shots, set to Auto White Balance (WB) and let the colours go wild! For indoor lighting, consider other WB options eg, tungsten/fluorescent.
8. With the shutter open and set on Bulb, use a flashlight or flashgun to ‘paint’ areas of the foreground to help accentuate your subject.
9. Set up the tripod and choose the Night Portrait or Slow Sync settings on your flash to give your night portraits more light and better exposure.
10. Finally – keep safe! Wrap up warm, take a hot drink, and bring a friend, especially if you are wandering around unfamiliar places at night.

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