Night and Low Light Digital Photography Tips

Shooting Digital Images at night and in low light situations can produce both stunning and terribly disappointing results. We've searched the net for the best night digital photography tips and tutorials to help us all shed some light (sorry, I couldn't resist) this sometimes tricky aspect of digital photography.

Here are 9 sites on Night Photography.

Also check out Digital Photography School for more free Digital Camera Tips on All Topics.

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RLROUSE has written an excellent guide on Photography At Night - Tips & Techniques which has a series of 20 quality tips ranging from how to be well prepared through to having the right equipment and through to shooting techniques like this one:
Adjust the ISO setting higher on your digital camera to allow the use of a faster shutter speed. The higher the ISO/ASA, the shorter the exposures you can use (very important for good night-time photography).

Digital Camera Guide encourages potential night photographers to begin to by asking what they are trying to achieve - 'Do you only need to capture something that is more of a snap shot? Do you want something very dramatic? Is time a factor? If you are using a flash; What is the range it must cover or what is the distance to what you are photographing?' How you answer these questions will determine what approach you'll need to take in shooting.

Petersens Photographic share their 10 Low-Light Photo Tips (for both digital and film cameras) including this fun one that can give some great results - 'You can get some neat blurred-effect images by hand-holding the camera at a very slow shutter speed�even deliberately move the camera during the exposure. Or, if the subject is moving, mount the camera on a tripod to keep stationary portions of the scene sharp as the subject blurs through it. Experiment with different exposure times, and you'll come up with lots of interesting�and sometimes surprising�images'

Ephotozine tackles the problem of color casting under artificial lights - 'Once again digital cameras have useful ways around this. Look on the menu of a many digital cameras and there's a white balance control. This is set to auto by default and can be fooled when the lighting is a mixed, so there's an override where you can preset the type of lighting you're shooting in. Some cameras just have a series of presets - shop windows and underground lighting is usually fluorescent, while floodlit buildings, street lamps and interiors of stately homes will often be tungsten. Some of the more advanced models have a manual setting where you point the camera at a white part of the scene so it can tell what colour light is reflected and compensate perfectly. You can take the shot and preview to check you're happy with the colouring. You don't have to filter the light to obtain daylight colouring, sometimes it's more effective if you include a colour cast.'

Adobe gives some helpful tips on Photographing Fireworks - 'Shutter speed controls how long light is allowed into the camera. It is also known as �exposure.� The best fireworks pictures have an exposure time between 2 and10 seconds. If your camera doesn�t do that, try using the �nighttime� or �fireworks� features.' They also suggest using a tripod, a low ISO setting and experimenting with different aperture settings (too big and the fireworks will be all white and too small and they will be hard to see.

DP Review has a good, although a little complicated for me at this time of night, tutorial on Removing 'Night Spots' (noise) from digital images shot at night.

Lightning Photography is not specifically written for digital photography, but will give some good insights for anyone wanting to attempt to capture the beauty of a storm.

School of Photography has a whole series dedicated to the topic of Night Photography. Part 1 examines equipment and camera controls, Part 2 looks at techniques for correct exposure and Part 3 talks about using a flash and other special effects.

So there you have 9 Night and Low Light Photography Online Resources. By no means is it an exhaustive list. Suggest your own tips, experiences and resources below in comments.

Check out some of our other Digital Camera Tips:
- Digital Photography Composition 101
- Macro Digital Photography Tips
- Taking Images with Camera Phones Tips
- Depth of Field Tips
- Introduction to Photoblogging and Moblogging
- How to Choose a Digital Camera
- Digital Camera Care Tips
- Cleaning your Digital Camera Image Sensor
- Histogram Tips

Posted by Darren in our Tips category on June 03, 2004

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