Mastering Night Photography: Tips & Tricks

Night photography has many unique perks and is an incredibly fun and creative outlet.

But… it also has its challenges.

Taking photos at night is completely different than taking photos during the day. Let’s start with the main source of light for daytime photos: the sun! At night, you lose that important light source, instead relying on ambient light or additional artificial light.

Here’s the cool thing: night photography provides the photographer and the viewer with another perspective of a scene they don’t get during the day. For example, thunderstorms, meteors, northern lights, and fireworks, are much more brilliant—or just plain more visible—during the evening hours.

If you’re interested in adventuring outside with your camera at night, we’ve compiled some night photography tips that will help make your evening photo shoot a successful one.

Recommended Equipment for Night Photography

First, let’s talk about your tools. The equipment listed below is immensely helpful in night photography.

If you’re serious about taking photos at night, you’ll want to consider investing in these pieces. Some of these are must haves (camera, tripod, and remote shutter release), some will just make your life a little easier:

• DSLR or Mirrorless Camera
• Tripod
• Remote Shutter Release (aka Remote Trigger)
• Extra Camera Batteries
• Flashlight
• Lens Hood

DSLR or Mirrorless Camera

The first item is the most obvious. But it’s important that you have the right kind of camera.

When shooting at night, you’ll want to manually change your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. It’s important to have a DSLR or a mirrorless camera so that you’re able to adjust these settings. “Point and shoot” cameras and smart phone cameras may have a lot of megapixels that allow you to take great photos during the day, but you can’t fully customize your settings.

Although most smart phones have a “night mode” or the option to change your aperture, it’s not the same; this is a digital version. Much like digital zoom can’t beat an optical zoom lens, a digital aperture adjustment isn’t the same as an optical aperture adjustment.

Tripod

A tripod is necessary in certain situations like long exposure photography. But not all-night photography is long exposure photography. If you have a lens that opens wide (aperture) of 1.8 or lower you may be able to do some hand-held photography with a high ISO. A general rule of thumb is if your shutter speed is slower than 1/50 of second then you’ll want a tripod.

On windy nights you’ll want to use the hook in the middle of your tripod. Many tripods have these so you can hook a sandbag to help weigh the tripod down, giving it more stability in the wind.

Remote Trigger

Also known as a remote shutter release, this tool is very helpful in long exposure situations. Since your camera needs to be completely still, physically pressing the shutter release button can move the camera, even in the slightest. This can make your image blurry, and nothing ruins an awesome shot like some unintentional softness.

While you don’t need a remote trigger, this is the only way you can successfully use the “bulb” setting on some cameras.

Extra Camera Batteries

While extra batteries aren’t necessary for night photography, they can come in handy. Here’s why:

• Long exposures can cause your camera battery to drain at a higher rate than normal.
• Temperature can also affect battery life, so keep this in mind when shooting in cold temperatures.

Keep extra batteries close to you (like in your pocket) so your body heat can help keep them warm on cold nights. Or keep the batteries in a warm place and retrieve them as needed.

Flashlight

A flashlight can be helpful for finding your gear, finding your way, and safety reasons. You can also use a flashlight to “paint light” into your foreground. For example, if you’re taking a picture of a scene and exposing for the night sky, you can use a flashlight to brighten up the foreground to give your image some more depth.

Lens Hood

This is a tool that screws onto the end of your lens that helps block light that hits your lens and causes lens flares. Lens flares often happen when you shooting directly towards the sun during daylight hours, but it can happen at night too. If there are a lot of artificial lights around it can sometimes be hard to avoid light rays hitting your camera lens. A lens hood helps with this dramatically. You don’t need this to shoot at night but it is helpful to have.

Technical Night Photography Tips:

Now that we’ve discussed the equipment that’s helpful in your night photography adventures, let’s move onto tips to use while you are shooting at night.

Shoot in Raw

Yes, shooting in raw causes large files and is not ALWAYS necessary, but it’s helpful if you want to do non-destructive edits.

When practicing night photography in urban or suburban areas there are often many different types of artificial lights. These different light sources can cast different colors on your scene, depending on the type of bulb that’s used. If you’re using auto white balance or are unsure of what white balance setting you should use, shooting in Raw will help with adjusting that color in post processing.

Use Manual Mode

You’ll want full control over your camera settings for the best night photography. Shooting in manual mode at night is a great way to get to know your camera and its capabilities. Utilize your internal camera meter and adjust accordingly. If you’re shooting in an urban setting, you may find yourself surrounded by artificial light. Using a small aperture, (F22 or higher for example) will give lights a “starburst” effect to the rays of light it emits. This can be a cool-looking effect in your photos.