6.5 PHOTOGRAPHING AT NIGHT

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You can photograph many different things outdoors at night, so don’t put your camera away just because the sun is gone for the day. Light sources (street lights, automobile lights, neon signs, or fires) or brightly lit areas (illuminated buildings or areas under street lights) will dominate pictures at night because they stand out strongly against darker backgrounds. Plan to use these bright areas as the dominant part of your picture. A tripod will support your camera during long exposures and prevent blur caused by camera motion during the time the shutter is open.

This exterior of the Paris Opera House was shot at night with just illumination from spotlights.

To capture interesting images of fireworks, put people or water in the foreground. It also helps if there are identifiable objects in the image such as an illuminated building or monument to give the viewer a sense of place. Get upwind from the show since fireworks generate a lot of smoke that can become a problem if you are downwind. If you are upwind, the smoke will become part of the image, illuminated by the fireworks. Automatic exposure doesn’t work well with fireworks. Try a series of exposures of different bursts because there is a certain amount of luck involved. You might also use flash to illuminate foreground figures.

Set your exposure for fireworks by switching to aperture or shutter preferred mode and try for a setting of f/2.8 at 1/30 sec. You might also want to try increasing sensitivity, use exposure compensation, and try different combinations of aperture and shutter speed as well as those recommended here.

Fireworks can be dramatic, but are difficult to capture. You need to experiment and a digital camera is perfect for that because you can instantly review your results.

Candlelight provides a very warm glow to whatever it illuminates.

Use automatic exposure at night if brightly lit areas take up most of the scene visible in your viewfinder. If they do not, use exposure compensation to reduce the exposure and darken the image so bright lights aren’t overexposed.

This picture of Chicago was taken just after sunset through an airliner window. A few minutes later the scene was too dark to capture without blurring due to long exposure times.

The U.S. Constitution lies floodlit in Marblehead Harbor.

There is a time at twilight and dawn where there is enough light in the sky so it has the same tonal value as the foreground.