Night Photography Exposure Chart

To determine exposure options efficiently for this long exposure cityscape i made a high iso test at iso 6400 with the lens closed down to f 16 left hand frame which yielded a decent histogram at 15 seconds.

Night photography exposure chart. The ultimate exposure computer. Nighttime landscape under quarter moon 5. How to use and balance aperture shutter speed. Download the free shutter speed chart pdf for reference while reading the in depth photography guide below.

Ev real world situation for proper exposure. It is meant to show you how depth of field changes from f32 to f1 4 what the aperture looks like from f32 to f1 4 how motion blur changes from 1 1000 to 1 2 and how noise changes from iso 100 to iso 25600. Luckily modern cameras provide you with an array of night friendly settings to help get a sharp properly exposed photo of stars planets and night landscapes. Some useful photographic guidelines.

Shutter speed photography settings combined with iso and f stop controls aperture give the photographer ultimate creative control over the photograph the exposure triangle. Within any exposure factor exposure value film speed aperture. The chart does not compare one specific camera setting to another. Shutter speed photography settings control two important factors within an image.

Remember the old wisdom. F32 at 1 1000 is not f22 at 1 500. Night photography introduces many challenges that are easily avoided during the day like noise blurriness and your camera s hypersensitivity to movement. When in doubt lean towards over exposure use the chart for what it is as a cheat sheet and don t follow it blindly just as you wouldn t trust a light meter blindly.

Iso 100 film 1 125. The fact that specific settings line up is arbitrary. Aurora borealis of moderate brightness. Measured in stops or relative exposure value ev.

Because the night sky appears to move from our vantage point on earth capturing a long exposure starry sky image on a fixed tripod may reveal star trailing. Otherwise the image will be blurry. On a bright day ev 15 the correct exposure for any subject is f 16 at a shutter speed nearest to the reciprocal of the film speed i e. 1 this chart assumes iso 100.

One of the best ways to combat star trailing when capturing astrophotography images on a stationary non tracking tripod mount is to use the 500 rule. After adjusting the iso i made an 8 minute exposure right hand. The photography exposure triangle provides a methodical step by step logic. Situations adapted from my own photos and from wikipedia 6.

Night photography simply won t work without a tripod since you ll be using a long shutter speed. Sunny f 16 anchor point. This chart is not for calculating exposure. Again its not an exposure calculation chart.

Exposure factor relationship chart b 1995 2013 fred parker. I then calculated the exposure difference needed to capture the same scene at iso 1 00 a 6x difference from 6400 iso.