City Long Exposure Night Photography

Pay close attention to streetlights when you are doing night photography.

City long exposure night photography. I have taken long exposures using everything from 18 200mm travel zooms to 50mm primes. Don t be afraid to experiment and you ll be rewarded with stunning images you ll be. Taking pictures at night can be quite challenging for beginners. Flash is useful however in night time portrait photography.

While night photography is generally synonymous with the slowing of time two camera settings can effectively help keep your exposure time in check. In terms of lenses use whatever your composition demands. You don t need a cable release to capture night photography but as you get more advanced it can be a nice piece of gear to have. The golden hour image is a combination of two long exposures blended using luminosity masks.

A fast lens generally f 2 8 or wider is a particularly valuable staple of a night photographer s tool kit. It s very difficult to focus accurately at night and when using a low f stop of 2 8 it s very important to get the focus right. A useful technique in night photography is the long exposure. We can very easily blend the city lights from a night scene into a golden hour scene giving the image more depth.

My choice of lenses or focal length is determined by my composition. Taken at night during a camping trip into the backcountry of ocala national forest this long exposure shot captures the power of the moon and stars to light up even the darkest scene. Cable release and shutter remotes are useful to avoid touching the camera during a long exposure. The night time exposure was shot 45 minutes after the golden hour image.

Remember that if your lenses have image stabilisation to turn this off for the long exposure. The most important tool that you will need is a sturdy tripod along with a dslr camera that allows for long exposures. It requires you to manipulate iso aperture and shutter speed among many other things. Night photography simply won t work without a tripod since you ll be using a long shutter speed.

Below you can see the 2 images we ll be blending. With long exposure night photography however the goal is to keep the shutter open for significantly longer enabling the camera to capture light as it moves through the scene over a set period of time. F 11 8 secs. You can also use special filters at night such as a star filter that makes lights look like they are small stars.

Follow these eight useful techniques to help you shoot in the dark. Otherwise the image will be blurry. Once you learn the basics you ll find out that night photography is really fun. Therefore the photographer has tremendous creative control in determining how the final shot will come out by being able to play with.

The effects that can be captured with a long exposure are stunning and have an ethereal quality.