I’m a traveller and I enjoy exploring hidden gems in new places. But I also have another great passion—photography! I’m a photography enthusiast and I love taking photos of everything. Recently, I’ve been taking a lot of photos of my kids, but whenever I have the opportunity, I always go out for a night photo walk.
I had my first night photo walk during a trip to London, UK, where I spent a beautiful night out, taking photos around the River Thames. At first I found taking photos at night quite challenging, because I couldn’t see all the colors, shapes, and details of the buildings like I did during the day. The good thing, however, was that the streets weren’t crowded and I could really take my time shooting instead of just hurriedly clicking a picture. I also didn’t have to worry about the light changing, as the street lights and night illuminations were static unlike the moving sun. Although I had some difficulties, the results were stunning and I found the whole experience very rewarding!
Here are three of my beginner’s tips about night photography that I learnt from my London photo walk.
- Getting ready for a night photo walk
Preparing in advance was very important. Apart from my point-and-shoot camera, I grabbed a travel tripod and a small flashlight, all neatly packed in my backpack.
If you’ve tried taking photos at night, you’ve probably noticed that holding the camera with your hands doesn’t produce the same great results as when you shoot during the day. My tripod helped me stabilize my camera to avoid blurring.
The lack of natural light during the night makes it challenging for the camera to focus on small dark objects. That’s why I find it very handy to have a portable flashlight with me to locate it close to a small object when I need to capture it in the dark. The best flashlight for me would be compact, light, and would have multiple lighting modes. The light shouldn’t be too cold or at least there should be an option to adjust it.
- Using the proper camera settings
There are a few useful camera settings that are just as important for taking better quality photos at night as using a tripod. Those are the optical image stabilization, aperture width, ISO, shutter speed, and manual focus.
Optical image stabilization (OIS) is a setting on your digital camera or phone that compensates for any shaking and movement when recording a video or taking photos. But if your phone or camera is placed on a tripod, you may not need to use the OIS.
The aperture width shows how wide the lens is open and how much light passes through the lens. The larger the aperture, the more light comes in. The amount of light defines the brightness of your photo, so it’s better to use a larger aperture when taking photos at night. Aperture is shown as f/number and varies from f/1.4 to f/32. It’s good to remember that a smaller number represents a larger aperture.
ISO is another useful setting that shows the light sensitivity of the image sensor and can darken or brighten your photos. You can adjust the ISO manually by changing the number that appears on your camera or phone screen—it may vary from less than 100 to over 10,000. Lower ISO would result in a darker image, while a higher ISO would brighten the photo. However, keep in mind that if the ISO is too high, it’ll show a lot of grain or digital noise in the photo. My advice is to use a lower ISO when taking photos at night to avoid the digital noise, especially in darker areas in the photo.
The next important setting is shutter speed, also known as exposure time. The shutter speed shows the amount of time the shutter allows light to pass through the lens and to reach the sensor. This impacts two things—the brightness of the photo and the effect of blurring or freezing moving objects. Shutter speed is measured in fractions of a second, so 1/4 means that the shutter closes after a quarter of a second, while 1/1000 means that it closes after just a thousandth of a second! The higher the second number is, the faster your shutter speed gets.
A slower speed would result in more brightness and blur, while a faster speed would make your photos darker and any moving objects would appear static. I found that the shutter speed allows me to be more creative when taking photos at night. I can let the shutter stay open for as long as I need it, capturing the movement of passers-by and rendering beautiful light trails.
Last but not least, don’t forget to set the focus of your phone or camera to manual mode instead of using the autofocus. The lack of light at night makes it harder for the camera to focus automatically. By using the manual focus, you may need to physically move the camera closer to or further from the object you’re photographing, but this will give you even better results.
I like to play around with the different settings, take many test shots at the same location, and keep the ones I like the most.
- Making use of the lights
One of the greatest things about night photography is that even the gray, boring-looking buildings can become amazing and shiny at night, thanks to the many different light sources—a shop window, a lit up bridge, a street lantern, and even light decorations. These could really help you to capture unique photos at night.
Night photography can be a real challenge at times, but I’m happy that I gave it a try! I’d definitely go for more night photography walks, because the more challenging an experience is, the more rewarding I find it.
Do you like taking photos at night? Share your photos and tips in the comments below.
