The word photography means ‘painting with light’, the night presents peculiarities that we must know how to solve. For this we have prepared a list of tricks and tips to try to get the best result when taking photos at night. Visit this site to read articles on Photography.
Large openings, a great ally at night
A quick and direct way to highlight one element over others is to blur the rest, and the easiest way to do this is by using large, or relatively long, focal apertures when appropriate. But this is well known when we talk about portraits or street photography, it has a fundamental advantage at night: more light enters the lens. Which will imply that we can use a faster speed and avoid trepidation. For example, if we are doing night portraits.Click hereto read articles on Photography.
Forget about moving photos ensuring a “safe” shutter speed
Let’s think about night situations such as a concentration of people, street photography, concerts and similar shows. Put in situation, the best trick is to make sure you don’t have a photo moved. To do this, try to ensure 1/125 “at least, remember that according to your pulse you could get to take photographs below 1/60” but it is not usual.
Adjust the ISO well, always check the photographs and monitor the histogram
Three in one. Follow that process closely. Remember that the higher the ISO, the greater the noise and the lower definition of detail, right? Use, therefore, the lowest possible, whenever you can to avoid the formation of digital noise. But the lowest doesn’t mean shooting at ISO 100 always, no. It means the lowest that can be so that the photograph is well exposed (if you have to work at ISO 1600, for example, nothing happens). Therefore, the trick, here is to watch the histogram. Keep in mind that despite the lack of light, at night there may be many other lights that have an impact on our photography. Always check the pictures.
Thinking about the recurring example of concerts or nightly shows, imagine a change of lighting in which the lighting is dimmer, we probably will not notice more than a color change. We repeat the photograph to the singer with the same parameters and see in the histogram that has been underexposed. We raise the ISO and shoot again. The situation can be reversed and the image is overexposed. The histogram will help us quickly decide whether to raise or lower the ISO.
Any camera support is welcome
Any support is valid for our camera. Think of events such as a concert, a demonstration or the Three Kings’ parade, in such situations it is impossible to use a tripod because of the large number of people and the time we would spend moving and using the tripod. We need something lighter; you can then use a monopod. A wall, a good posture, also help. However, if we have space around us the best trick to stabilize is and always will be to use a good tripod.
The flash is a great companion
The previous situation improves in terms of photo quality if we have a flash or some kind of lighting. Knowing how it works and take advantage of it will allow us to bring to the scene a certain amount of light that we lack and, in addition, to do it in a controlled way.
Prefocus, the last resort
A solution that may be a last resort. It is something that some event photographers usually perform in the typical wedding dance. In those nightclubs with many lights using the autofocus can be a real torture. In those cases, we could do the following. We use an aperture of f / 5.6 of / 8 and focus a distance, for example, of about two meters (if we have a tape measure, it can help). Once the approach is done well, we leave the autofocus in manual mode and do not touch anything else. We use, of course, the highest ISO we can.
