Moderator: pilfi
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NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY
by Deryk Baumgärtner
TUTORIAL:
Many many photoSIG members ask me about my work of capturing night images including photoshop adjustments, post editing etc. Many of them told/ motivated me to write an article about night photography.
Although english is not my native language and certainly it´s not easy for me to explain that theme in english language I will give it a try
OK folks, for good nightshots you just need a tripod, a camera which alows shutter speed with more than 4 sec. and a remote-control release (not essential if you have time release).
If you have an analog camera then better use a warming filter because the photos looks greenish if you go higher than 8 sec. exposure time. With a digital camera you haven´t that problem.
Next rule: Don´t try to make night shots when it´s completly dark. Most of the time there isn´t enough light to get some beautiful shots (Exception: N.Y. Skyline, sceneries with lot of lights etc...
Try to make nightshots during the so called "blue hour" because there is enough light to receive some beautiful results like EXAMPLE 1.
Next don´t use the highest or the lowest F-stop. Use a mid F-stop like 4 or 5.6. By doing so you reduce the star glow in the lights which looks very unnatural to me. Thats also a reason why you should doing night shots during the blue hour. If the range between the darkness and bright lights is too high you get also star glows like EXAMPLE 2.
Don´t use the shutter speed or F-stop mode of your camera. Switch in manual mode and make a serie with F-stop 4 or 5.6 and shutter speed with 4, 6, 8, 10 and 15 sec. (with digital camera) and a serie with 6, 10, 15, 20 and 30 sec. (with analog camera). If your camera doesn´t allow to go higher than i.e. 10 sec. shutter speed set the camera to "B" bulb-mode use the remote-control release and count manual. Try this a few times for the beginning. After a while you get a feeling which is the right shutter speed for your night shots (depending on the ambient light). Now and in the future it is necessary that you make a serie of about 3-5 photos to receive best results. If you have some experience then try to use a tobacco or grey graduate filter as you can see in EXAMPLE 3. Most of the photographers here think that filters are useful only at daytime
TIP: Try to make nightshots when the sky is cloudy. The contrast of the buildings etc. in front of the sky looks much better than you doing night shots after a beautiful day with no drawings in the sky. By doing so you receive some very nice dramatic night shots (EXAMPLE 4).
TIP2: Sometimes you stay in front of a nice skyline etc. and say to yourself: "hmm, no it´s too dark to make at this time some beautiful night shots". That´s wrong. The lens of the camera in combination with long exposure time sees things better than the human eye do.
The Cathedral of Cologne and the bridge in EXAMPLE 4 is really low lighten during the night hours. Many of you wouldn´t give this scenerie a chance if you saw this in real. But a tripod and 15 sec. shutter speed show the whole beauty of this fabulous cathedral
Post-processing in photoshop ?
Normally it´s is not necessary to post-editing night shots if you have a digital camera. You can if you like sharpen your photos in PS. But photoshop is a powerfull tool for the analog camera users. As I say it before, if your shutter speed is higher than 8 sec. sometimes your photos looks a little bit greenish or yellowness.
A usefull tool in PS is the so called colorbalance and/ or variation -> in PS - /edit / image / colorbalance and variation (hope I translate it correct from my german version of PS
You just need to reduce the green or yellow color parts with the throttles. Try it, it´s really easy.
That´s all the secrets about night photography. Nothing special - everyone can do it. Hope this small tutorial helps you a little bit.
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