Night photography tips

Photography for some is a lifelong passion and a blossoming career for others. No matter where you are on the photography chain, taking shots at night is one of the trickiest challenges you will face. Getting that perfect shot of the moon rising above the ocean, capturing star trails or freezing light trails really is an art that needs mastery but once you get the hang of it, you won’t get enough of it.
Check out these easy yet effective tips that will help you master night time photography:

Master Manual Focus

It’s no doubt that cameras be it point and shoot or DSLR’s come with auto focus to capture sharpness and accuracy of movement, however if you really want to play around with lighting at night time, get into manual focus which will give you sharper photos than auto focus.

This works a lot better with dim light where auto-focus doesn’t give the desired results. In order to better master this, set the camera to Live View and zoom into the subject you want to focus on and play around with the focus ring to get the desired result. This will give you a completely new perspective to your shots.

Capture Stunning Light Trails

Light trails are a visual delight and if captured at the right moment with the right camera settings, they can take your photography to a whole new level. Select a road which has good traffic which is constantly moving and set up your tripod in a safe location. Aperture and shutter speed are the key factors to look out for. Make use of a small aperture (f/16) or even smaller to get capture the right amount of depth. Give it good exposure and the longer the exposure is, the more magnified and longer will the lines appear. Set the shutter speed to about 13/1 and ISO speed at 100 and take test shots. You’ll surely catch that perfect image if done right with the right timing! Once you have learned the tricks, its always better to invest in a decent camera, that will allow you to play more with its settings. This will cost you slightly more but hey, you can grab some decent online deals, like at amazon or  flipkart coupons and earn good discounts. You will surely attain perfection with good practice.  

Play around with ISO

ISO speed determines how sensitive your lens is to the light. Most cameras are set on 100 or 200 but if you’re in a dim setting you can increase the ISO speed to accommodate every ray of light your camera can capture. It might result in loss of depth or color representation but this will help eliminate blurry images or dark images with shadowy patches. The lower the ISO, the brighter should be your light and hence remember to turn back to auto mode when you’re shooting in normal lighting.  

Use Tripod to avoid shaky images

Using a tripod you will be able to achieve good stability and reduce shake or jerks which are further increased for night photography with poor lighting. With tripods you can also get good timer shots as well as shots with slow shutter speed as keeping the hand stable for 15-30 seconds isn’t an easy feat. Ideally go in for a 3 legged tripod for best results. If you think that your hand is enough to get a good stable shot, then you are wrong, there is always a little bit of wobble and it will introduce a blur in your image. Just think of how much of help it can be when you are taking a macro image, where you are so close to the object. Besides holding a camera tripods can also hold flash units, receptors and reflectors. A tripod can cost you anywhere b/w $2 – $2000, and you can get some better deals using amazon promotional codes, and amazon coupons.

Hope you will keep these things in mind and get some stunning night shots.
Have a great day.