Photography at night. Focus and aperture

Even if you have photographed the streets of your city or the shore of a familiar lake a thousand times during the day, you can rediscover them in the dark. Headlights and building illumination, moonlight and reflections on the water will give you the opportunity to create original and unique scenes.

The main feature of shooting in the dark is working with long shutter speeds, which compensate for insufficient lighting. Therefore, the process of night shooting is somewhat different from the more usual shooting during the day.

For night photography, as for daytime photography, there is also a concept of operating time. When you want to include the sky in the frame, it is better not to have it completely black, as is often the case in the dead of night. Try shooting within an hour after sunset or an hour before sunrise - this will be the “golden” time of night photography. Residual natural light is combined with artificial light, and clouds can be seen in the sky.

Equipmentfor night photography

Many novice photographers believe that shooting at night requires a special aperture lens. lens. This is wrong. You can take great night shots with any lens available to you. After all, the main attention needs to be paid to the settings - then everything will work out.

But what you can’t do without is tripod. Because it will be extremely difficult to hold the camera still during a long exposure. Of course, you can find another stable support (parapet, fence, stump or stone), but this is not particularly convenient - your movements relative to the subject will be limited.

It is preferable that the tripod is as stable as possible, and you do not have to support it with your hands - this will lead to blurring of the frame. If necessary, place weights (bag, umbrella) on the hook of the tripod's center rod.

When you switch to shooting from a tripod, don't forget to turn off stabilization mode Images. The stabilizer lever can be located directly on the camera or on the lens (depending on the manufacturer and model of photographic equipment). The work of the stabilizer is to slightly respond to the movement of the matrix or optical system to compensate for camera vibration in the hands of the photographer. When the camera is securely fixed on a tripod, the stabilization system, however, tries to move, removing the missing vibrations - then with a long shutter speed, blurring of the image occurs. Shakiness may appear when shooting from a tripod, also at a long focal length. Therefore, if possible, get closer to the subject you are shooting. However, sometimes blurring part of the image is an artistic technique.

So, the camera is fixed on a tripod, but there is still movement. It may be caused by your movement when pressing the shutter button. There are two ways to prevent this negative phenomenon:

·Activate the function self-timer(interval shooting) so that it works a few seconds after you press the button.

·Use cable for remote shutter release, then there will be no need to touch the camera at the moment of shooting. Cables (also called remote controls) can be infrared, radio-controlled, mechanical or electronic. Which one you buy depends on personal preference.

Working at long shutter speeds will “land” very quickly. battery your camera. Therefore, when going on a shoot, if possible, take a spare battery with you.

General camera settings

It is most convenient to shoot in the dark in manual mode(“M”), this way you can set the maximum settings at your discretion.

To be able to eliminate minor shooting errors during post-processing of files, shoot in RAW(some photographers call it "raw format"). The format allows you to save maximum color and light information (this is especially important for preserving details in the shadows) without losing the quality of the image during processing.

Most likely automatic focusing at night you will not need it: in insufficient lighting, the automation simply will not be able to focus or will have a serious malfunction. So switch your camera to manual focus.

To ensure that the entire image is in focus, focus at the hyperfocal distance. To do this, roughly divide the scene you are shooting into 3 equal parts and focus on 1/3. As you know, with this method, 1/3 of the frame is sharp before the focus point and 2/3 behind it. This method will suit you if there is no very large object in the foreground of the photo.

White balance in night photography is one of the most controversial issues. If you are shooting a city street, then at night it will be filled with point sources of light with different color temperatures. The easiest way is to set automatic white balance and then adjust the frame in a photo editor. In this case, you must definitely switch to the RAW format. If you want to get pictures in JPG format, then set the white balance to “cloudy” for a warm picture, and set the white balance to “incandescent” for a cooler picture.

By deliberately setting the white balance completely wrong, you can achieve stunning artistic effects.

There is a fairly common misconception that for night photography you need to use large photosensitivity values ​​–ISO. In fact, increasing the ISO value will inevitably lead to a loss of image quality - the appearance of noise, especially in shady areas. If you are shooting on a tripod, set the minimum ISO to 100; the lack of light will be compensated by a long shutter speed.

When you need to photograph moving people at night, you will need a faster shutter speed, which means you will have to sacrifice image quality by increasing the ISO value. This is not critical if the pictures are intended to be printed in standard small formats.

Built-in flash It’s not worth using, although many novice photographers are tempted to “illuminate” everything around them. The range of the built-in flash is only a few meters, so it will not be possible to illuminate the entire scene with it, but the foreground will be overexposed and the frame will be ruined.

Exposure settings for shooting at night

For night photography, it is recommended to use median values aperture f8 – f16. Firstly, this will allow you to achieve a sufficient depth of field in the frame, and secondly, it will eliminate the appearance of distortions at maximum f values.

The most important parameter for night photography is long exposure. Its indicator can vary from 1 second to the value required by your creative idea.

It is difficult for an inexperienced photographer to “guess” the desired shutter speed the first time. Therefore, you will have to shoot a couple of test frames, analyze the result, and only then proceed to the main shooting. Over time, you will remember the approximate shutter speed values ​​for different situations, and it will become easier for you to select them.

Let's give an example of the basic values ​​of shutter speed and aperture at minimum value ISO for different shooting situations:

·Night sky - 15"", f 5.6;

·Sky at twilight – 1/30, f 5.6;

·Landscape by moonlight – 4", f 5.6;

·Moon at full moon - 1/250, f 8;

·Building with lighting - 4"", f 16;

·Busy road - 30"", f 22;

Fireworks - 20"", f 11;

Amusement park - 15"", f 16.

When the scene requires shutter speeds longer than 30 seconds (30"), turn on the camera's Bulb mode. When working in this mode, you are free to set the exposure time at your discretion.

By setting long shutter speeds you can achieve a bright, almost “daytime” frame. However, you shouldn’t do this: you went outside to take night photographs, which means that the night in them should remain at night - preserve the shadows and the general tonality of the dark time of day, highlight the light sources.

Camera automation does not take into account your creative ideas, so the built-in exposure meter in the dark will not be useful for you, because may produce incorrect values. This happens because the camera's built-in exposure meter only measures the amount of light reflected from objects. Accordingly, if there is a car (or a glass display case, or snow) in the frame that reflects light, then the measurement will take place on it. And after pressing the shutter, the rest of the scene will be dark.

Function auto bracketing will help you get 3 pictures c different meanings exposures, from which you can select the most successful ones already on the computer.

When you set a long shutter speed, the camera, after closing the shutter, processes the resulting image for some time and eliminates possible noise. There is no need to think that the equipment is frozen - just give it the opportunity to finish processing without pressing all the buttons that come across.

Secrets to getting successful night shots

Night photography in practice

To receive interesting views on night city With high altitude, learn shoot through glass(for example, you can go to the top floor of a high-rise building, or find an observation deck). When you see not very clean glass, which also reflects everything in the room, it is probably difficult for you to imagine how to take a good shot in such unfavorable conditions.

To combat the problem, start by installing the lens as close to the glass as possible. Then take a small piece of dark fabric (you can use a scarf or even a T-shirt) and cover the camera, as if creating a screen for it between the glass and the rest of the room - this will eliminate reflections in the glass, at least in the part where the camera is located .

To prevent dirt on the glass from spoiling your shots, open the aperture (reduce the f number) until the pictures become “clean”. Often f8 is optimal.

Very popular, but no less interesting for that star effect Around light sources (such as lanterns or bright highlights) will help create accents in your night photos. “Stars” is an optical effect that is directly related to the design of your lens’s aperture and the number of its blades. When f is minimal, the kinks between the aperture blades do not affect the photograph in any way. But when f increases, the aperture opening takes on the shape of a hexagon or octagon (depending on the design of the lens). Passing through such a hexagon, light from a point source is displayed in the image as a star.

If you work near a body of water, be sure to pay attention toreflections. Hundreds of night lights will double in size and create an incredible pattern of light and color. Interesting pictures are obtained if the subject itself is not in the frame, but only its reflection. Water and reflections in it can take up to 2/3 of the frame area, but don’t get carried away: don’t forget to show the sky and landscape surrounding the body of water. The most successful and clear-looking reflections are those taken from the water surface level. To do this, you will need to install the camera lower. The highlight of the shot can be the ripples on the surface of the water in windy weather. If there is no body of water nearby, but it has recently rained, then puddles are also an excellent “source” of reflections. Watch and you will find the idea for your best shot.

For shooting at night, away from city lights, slightly different rules apply than when shooting in the city. There are no additional light sources other than the moon and stars, but you can add light yourself using the technique painting with light brush. To create a frame, you will need a flashlight or any other device that can illuminate the space over a fairly large distance. Set up your camera on a tripod and start shooting with a long shutter speed. While the shutter speed lasts, smoothly draw with a flashlight beam in space, like a brush, highlighting the main objects of the frame and giving them volume. You can simultaneously use several light sources of different temperatures. For example, draw a path with a beam, or tree branches, or flowers in the foreground of the frame. If you do everything correctly (maybe not right away, but as you practice), the result will be a soft distribution of light and an unusual, mesmerizing shot.

Having left the city, you will immediately discover that away from the city lights you seem brighter and closer. stars, and you'll probably want to make them part of the composition of your shot.

To display the stars as the human eye sees them (shining dots), you need to correctly calculate the shutter speed. To calculate this, there is a rule: “600 divided by the focal length.” For example, the maximum focal length of your lens is 200mm; divide 600 by 200 and get 3. That is, to remove static stars, you need a shutter speed of at least three seconds.

Using photography, you can show the movement of the earth: with ultra-long shutter speeds (from 5 minutes to several hours), they will remain in the frame tracks from the movement of stars across the sky. Using extremely long shutter speeds may result in noise appearing in the image, which occurs due to overheating of the matrix during prolonged exposure. continuous operation. Therefore, use the noise reduction function if your camera has it. If the desired quality cannot be achieved, then try taking several pictures with a shorter shutter speed, and then “gluing” them together in a photo editor.

A holiday in the city can delight amateur photographers with the opportunity to capture bright sparks fireworks in the night sky. Here, it is more important than ever to plan your shoot in advance, set up your camera on a tripod, make camera settings and focus before the program starts - the fireworks will not wait for you. Open the camera shutter after you hear the fireworks and keep it open until the fires go out. The light from the fireworks is very bright, so be careful when adjusting the exposure so that the shot is not too bright. Do a large number of photos so that you can then select some of the most successful ones. Experienced photographers also advise taking into account the direction of the wind when photographing fireworks: if you are close, the smoke from the volley can get into the frame and make it cloudy.

The article uses photographs from official websitesTamron, SigmaAndCanon

The specificity is that long exposures impose certain restrictions on a wide range of subjects. So, in the dark it is almost impossible to shoot dynamic scenes.

The exposition is long enough that the runner on the embankment does not have time to appear in the frame even as a ghost. Ask strangers long time standing still is also not always possible. Therefore, when shooting at night, choose scenes that do not involve rapid movement.

So, on the aforementioned embankment you can shoot a couple hugging, a monument or a parked motorcycle instead of runners or skateboarders.

What sensitivity should I set?

Don’t forget that canons exist to be broken in the name of art, and a talented photographer can turn even outright harm into benefit. For example, blurred movements can become part of your artistic intent. In reportage photography, it is the blurred contours that convey movement. As a result, technical defects that arise during night photography, turns into the “highlight” of the photo.

Photographer: Christopher Martin.

In practice professional photographers Such tasks are often posed. This could be a corporate photo shoot in nature, shooting in New Year's Eve etc. Here it is important to show imagination and find a reasonable compromise. If quality is paramount to you, you cannot increase sensitivity. Shoot at the lowest possible setting.

If you can slightly compromise on quality (for example, you are going to print small photographs or process images with noise reduction), the sensitivity can be raised to 400-800. The maximum value is set when it is necessary to obtain a picture at any cost.

Accessories for night photography

Even the highest sensitivity in the dark is not enough for handheld shooting. So be sure to use a tripod. You can take with you a carbon fiber model that is lightweight. Of course, carrying such an accessory is more pleasant than, for example, a Manfrotto weighing 6 kg. But any tripod takes up some space in your luggage.

However, it is not recommended to abandon this accessory. After all, it is thanks to the tripod that the camera will remain motionless during long exposures. Just install the camera on it and set any shutter speed. Exposure time is limited only by the capabilities of a particular device and your common sense.

But a monopod will be practically useless for a night photo shoot. Yes, it expands the shutter speed range by 2-3 stops, eliminating blur and other defects in the photo. However, a monopod will not help radically solve the problem.

Choosing equipment for night shooting, you must clearly know what each device is intended for. So, if you are able to make the camera still by other means than a tripod, go for it.

Obviously, in many situations a tripod turns out to be the “third wheel”. For example, when walking with a girl in a park or square, it is inconvenient to carry it with you. But you can put the camera on the parapet and take good night panoramas.

There is little light in the forest even during the day, but there are a lot of stumps. Of course, you will have to place wood chips or twigs under the camera to fix it in the desired position. But you don't have to carry a bulky tripod with you. Thus, imagination can help the photographer out, even if he does not have the necessary accessories at hand.

Optical stabilization

System optical stabilization– a good compromise between quality and laziness in implementation night shooting. Some camera manufacturers integrate stabilizers directly into the camera. Lenses of other models are equipped with “stubs”. This is how greedy manufacturers force consumers to pay for a convenient feature every time they change optics.

Many compact devices from well-known brands also have a stabilizer. Action diagram of this element next. The optical block and/or photosensitive matrix moves in the desired direction at the required moment. In this way they compensate for the shaking of the camera body. However, there are also limitations. For example, with a ten-second exposure, no stabilizer will save the situation.

Most scenes can be shot in completely different ways using the available shutter speed settings alone. So, a minute exposure turns an average black night into almost a day. This is achieved by brightening the shadows.

However, when night photography the night must still remain itself. In photographs this can be achieved by incompletely elaborating the shadows. The latter refers to black areas where a minimum of detail is visible. Also, the transfer of bright areas around light sources will add naturalness to your pictures.

The camera does not know the photographer's intentions. Therefore, it won’t hurt to master exposure compensation. This correction helps trick the exposure meter to achieve the result you want. Obviously, a night photo shoot should only be carried out in completely manual mode (I’m talking about it). In other words, the photographer independently sets arbitrary aperture and shutter speed values ​​independent of each other.

Photographer: Natalya.

Feel free to experiment, because it is much easier to do this with digital equipment than with film equipment. At any time you can look at the pictures you have taken on the camera screen, analyze errors, take them into account and retake unsuccessful shots. Don't be lazy to process images in a graphics editor. Sometimes it’s post-processing that turns an ordinary shot into a real masterpiece.

At night photography Shoot in RAW format. It is available in many amateur devices. And professional cameras all have this mode. The RAW format, also called the “raw format,” provides the opportunity to set some parameters “retrospectively” after shooting. Thus, the photographer can correct mistakes in the editor made during the photo shoot.

• Before you go to a photo shoot, do some research. This event will save time and get the desired result faster. During reconnaissance, evaluate the night lighting, find a suitable shooting point. If you plan to photograph architecture, pay attention to the lighting of buildings. In other words, find a place in advance where the city at night will look optimal.
• When choosing an aperture, stick to the “golden mean”. These are values ​​in the f/8-f16 range. But there is no clear law here. Try to determine golden mean experimentally, selecting best parameters for a specific lens. Even night photography will be carried out using professional expensive models, this is not a guarantee of obtaining a beautiful picture at maximum and minimum aperture values. By setting the settings to medium, you'll play it safe and increase your chances of getting high-quality, sharp night shots.

Photographer: Dmitry Pyavkin.

• To improve depth of field, keep your aperture down to f/16. This will make the background and foreground clearer, turning street lights into beautiful “stars”. This way, night shots will have a special atmosphere.
• Before you take a photo, analyze the scene in detail: which areas are in the dark and which are too brightly lit. Ask yourself: “How will all this show up in the photograph?” Always be mindful of lighting. At night photography It is essential to consider the significant contrast between dark and bright objects. Don’t be lazy to use your feet or the zoom to find a point from which you can shoot the optimal harmonious composition, where 3/4 of the frame will not be “knocked out” by bright lighting or fallen into complete darkness.
• In cold weather, batteries quickly discharge, especially when shooting at long exposures in winter. It doesn’t hurt to stock up on extra batteries so you don’t end up with discharged equipment at an extremely inopportune moment. Keep them in a warm place.
• Often strangers interfere with the shooting. But during a night session, crowds, on the contrary, can add a certain charm and variety. If people are still, use them as “silhouettes.” Moving objects allow you to get a curious blur effect that emphasizes dynamics. Such frames are shot at shutter speeds of 1/2 s.
• IN different time different effects are obtained. Moreover, deep night is not always the optimal period for a photo shoot. Often interesting shots are taken at dusk, when the skies are not yet completely dark, but the night lights are already burning. The combination of residual natural light and full electric lighting will help you capture unique images. If night photography performed too late, you are unlikely to capture beautiful clouds as is possible in the evening.

Photographer: Yuri Gnatyuk.

• Headlights and traffic require approximately thirty seconds of exposure time.
• When shooting moving lights, the zoom effect looks very interesting. Start shooting at the "short" end of the lens. Without closing the shutter, zoom smoothly, moving towards the “long” end or reverse order. Predict the result night shooting This mode is quite difficult, but it can be very interesting.
• Reflecting the lights in a body of water will double the number of lights in the frame. Even winter photographs can be much more beautiful if you use the reflection of light in frozen puddles or on wet asphalt.
• On moonless nights, when there is no lighting at all, and the shooting takes place outdoors, you can use backlighting. To get effects that are diverse in perception and color, use flashlights that differ in light temperature. If you use a flashlight, do not fix it at one point. Drive it smoothly - this will ensure better lighting and will create a stunning effect.

Photographer: Sergey Sharkov.

• Having opened your RAW frames in AdobeCameraRaw or Lightroom, first of all select the temperature (the so-called white balance). Then add saturation to your photos using Saturation and Vibrance, but be careful not to overdo it. To “resurrect” the exposed areas, use Recovery.

Night Shooting Ideas

Transport and its flows

The lights of moving vehicles always look beautiful. To get this effect, you need to set a long shutter speed. I note that long exposures when shooting at night are more a necessity than a photographer’s whim. But its creative use allows you to get interesting shots.

Everything here is determined by fantasy. If you can't get good pictures, don't think it's just because the equipment you're using is cheap. It is possible that an inexpensive set of filters or a regular tripod will help you.

Photo session in an amusement park

In such establishments there are always a lot of moving lights, be it a Ferris wheel or a carousel with horses. Using a long shutter speed and a tripod, you can get stunningly beautiful images.

The light will merge into one whole, as if the attraction was spun up to an unprecedented speed and photographed.

Heavenly bodies

And romantics, and scientists, and ordinary people have always been interested in the movement of stars. Dedicate yours to this topic night photography. Photos like this look extremely impressive. They prompt thoughts about the infinity of our Universe, the existence of other lives. And they simply delight you with their beauty.

To capture a star trail, exposure can take half an hour or more. Here you can shoot in two ways. Either you take one shot at a very long shutter speed, or a series of shots at a short shutter speed, and then stitch the images together.

To shoot high-quality scenes, use very long (at least half an hour) shutter speeds. Obviously, it is better to conduct a photo shoot outdoors. In urban environments, the light of the stars will be drowned out by the abundance of electric lighting. The result is well worth spending a spring or summer night in a tent or country house.

Photographer: Chris Cook.

The only caveat is that you will need a protective case designed for the lens to protect it from dew.

Fill the background with reflections

A simple and quite obvious idea. But with proper implementation, you will get fabulous photos. After all, the reflections of colored lights in the foreground look incomparable.

Fireworks

Despite the apparent banality, night photography fireworks, when properly organized (I repeat for the hundredth time: long exposure, tripod, filling the foreground) allows you to get unforgettable shots.

Paint with light

In general, the technique of painting with light is quite old and well studied, although it requires some practice. Once you master it, you can completely give free rein to your imagination. For example, you will get the opportunity to capture a cute ghost that traditionally appears at night. There are many other interesting topics that can be covered.

Photographer: Janne Parviainen.

This style is called "freezelight".

Embrace the beauty of nature

After sunset or before dawn, nature doesn't look the same as usual. Cloudy sky, Moon, thunderclouds, fog, lightning - ready-made scenes for shooting. Such objects can make even a banal landscape very colorful and non-trivial (about how to shoot a landscape). A night photography Thunderstorms produce some of the most beautiful images of natural phenomena.

You can even use multiple exposures to add drama and movement to thunderstorm shots. This is a fairly well-known technique among professional photographers. When talking about natural objects, one cannot fail to mention the northern lights. If you live or intend to travel to regions where this phenomenon occurs, be sure to take the opportunity to capture it.

Photographer: Yuri Belegurski.

Having completed night photography, carefully review the resulting frames, analyze errors, if necessary, consult with colleagues, send pictures for criticism to some public social network.

This approach will allow you to constantly expand your skills and knowledge, improve your skills, and perform more interesting, complex and important tasks.

That's all for me, friends. I hope you liked the article. If so, then leave comments and watch the video below - I will be glad! See you in the next articles.

Night photography is one of the areas of landscape (and not only) photography, which attracts the attention of many amateur photographers. If during the day the camera “sees” the picture in approximately the same way as we do, then at night familiar landscapes appear in a completely different form compared to what we see with our own eyes.

The main secret of the difference between the perception of a real picture and its photograph is a long shutter speed of several seconds. We cannot look with a “long exposure” - when it is dark, we can only distinguish the silhouettes of objects. The camera can stand with the shutter open for 1, 2, 5, 10, 30 seconds or even more - during this time the picture slowly but surely “appears” in the picture - bright and colorful!

What equipment do you need to have to take such pictures?

Just two things - a camera and a tripod. It is advisable that the camera have a manual mode (M) or at least the ability to set a long shutter speed in shutter priority mode (TV). To shoot late in the evening, you need a shutter speed of up to 8 seconds, but in the dead of night, even 30 seconds may not be enough. With such a long shutter speed, it is simply impossible to hold the camera still in your hands, so you have to use a tripod.

The main requirement for a tripod is sufficient rigidity and weight at least 2 times the weight of the device (so that the camera does not “sway in the wind”).

Misconceptions about night photography

Often on Internet forums you hear opinions, incl. from reputable users that for night photography You definitely need a DSLR with an expensive fast lens. I personally am skeptical about these kinds of statements.

There are certainly benefits to having a fast lens, but you can still take great photos with a tripod without one. The only difference is that your shutter speed will not be 4, but, for example, 8 seconds.

A fast lens provides real advantages in two cases - when you need to shoot without a tripod, for example, on a street lit by lamps, and reducing the shutter speed from 1/15 to 1/60 of a second due to a wide open aperture looks like a very convincing argument.

The second case when a fast lens will be useful is when shooting a night landscape with floating clouds. If the shutter speed is longer than 2 seconds, the clouds will look blurry and not very beautiful. To prevent this, you often have to increase the ISO, which causes noise to increase. A fast lens will keep ISO within reasonable limits.

As for the camera itself, cameras with large matrices - APS-C, or even better - full frame. They have a high working ISO, thanks to which they provide best quality pictures and at the same time give some scope for creativity, thanks to the ability to choose different combinations shutter speed and ISO sensitivity.

Compact cameras with “inch” matrices also cope with night photography quite well, especially if they have a fast lens. But simple amateur soap dishes, even if they have a special “night mode,” can only provide quality for posting photos on the Internet in low resolution.

The second very common misconception is excessive reliance on the image stabilization function. In reality, the stabilizer helps at shutter speeds of no more than 1/20 of a second when shooting handheld. At longer shutter speeds, the stabilizer is useless at best. When using a tripod, the stabilizer must be forcibly turned off, since when using it the picture will “walk”, which will cause blur during a long shutter speed.

How to set up your camera for night photography on a tripod?

1. We switch the device to (manual) if one is present. If there is no fully manual mode, go to (programmed exposure).
2. We set the ISO sensitivity to the minimum possible, usually ISO100. This will reduce the noise level.
3. If the device can shoot in , switch to RAW. This is necessary so that you can later adjust colors without total loss image quality. If the device does not support RAW, set the white balance corresponding to the type of lighting sources - if this Street lights, then “halogen”, if the moon or just the sky, then “cloudy day” (options are possible, best result achieved experimentally).
4. Set up the self-timer on the camera. This is necessary in order not to touch the device when the shutter is released (by pressing the shutter button we move the device, which is unacceptable). Many DSLRs have a Mirror Lockup mode (preliminary raising of the mirror) for this case - the shutter is released only a few seconds after raising the mirror, so that vibration from the mechanism does not cause blurring of the picture.
5. Installing the camera on a tripod
6. We switch to manual focus mode - there is no hope for autofocus in the dark. If you use a point-and-shoot camera, clamp the aperture to 4, set the focusing distance to 2-2.5 meters (at the short end of the zoom). In this case, your depth of field will be from 1.5 meters to infinity. If you have a DSLR, you will have to aim at any light object that is distant at the required distance. After the autofocus is “hooked,” we switch to manual focusing and don’t touch the lens again.
7. We compose the frame properly and fix the tripod head.
8. If the device is in M ​​mode, set the shutter speed and aperture. The shutter speed is usually from 1 to 8 seconds, depending on the lighting. We clamp the aperture to 4-5.6, while most lenses provide better picture clarity.
9. Press the shutter

If you did everything correctly, the self-timer will work first, then the device will stand for several seconds with the shutter open. At this moment, it is important to ensure that the apparatus remains stationary - do not stomp your feet nearby (vibration is transmitted through the soil); if the wind is blowing, stand as close to the windward side as possible to protect the apparatus from the wind.

Let's see what happened

After the shooting is completed, the device processes the photo for some time (reduces noise), and the screen says BUSY (“busy”). It may appear that the device is frozen. The longer the shutter speed, the longer the processing will take. Wait for it to finish.

After the device has shown the result on the LCD screen, check whether the exposure is set correctly using the histogram. The screen may not display the image correctly in terms of brightness and contrast.

It is important to realize that night photographs should be in a dark tone. Do not get carried away with too long shutter speeds - it will most likely be impossible to save overexposed night photographs in Photoshop. It is advisable to shoot the same scene at least three times - usually a little darker, a little lighter, so that you can choose the best option.

Happy night hunting!

Is it possible to take photographs in low light without a tripod?

Yes, you can. The photo above is proof of this. With a long shutter speed, the waves on the river would be blurred by movement and the water would appear matte, but in the photograph all the waves were worked out.

To take photographs like this, you need to increase the ISO sensitivity so that the shutter speed is no longer than 1/20 of a second if the lens is with a stabilizer and 1/60 of a second if without a stabilizer. In such cases, it is precisely in such cases that positive traits cameras with large matrices and fast lenses. There are many subtleties and nuances when shooting in such conditions, which are described in detail in the book. Photography in difficult conditions.

Read other materials on the topic:

Taking a beautiful portrait while walking through the city at night is quite difficult due to insufficient street lighting or too bright flickering background in the form of night city lights.

But it is still possible if you follow our simple tips for photographing people at night .

1. Bring the appropriate equipment:

- SLR camera. It’s quite difficult to take a good portrait in the dark with a regular digital point-and-shoot camera, so if you don’t have a DSLR camera, rent one from a friend or rent one from a photo salon.

- fast lens with aperture f1.4-1.8. It has no equal when it comes to taking low-light portraits.

External flash. The built-in flash of the camera emits a very small amount of light, so you will have to photograph your model at a distance of 1-1.5 meters, and at such a distance, even if you want, you cannot take a full-length portrait. In addition, the built-in flash gives quite hard light, which makes the photographed person’s face visually flat, without pronounced features.

- flash diffuser. It is not required, but is still preferred if you want the light from the flash to be diffused and soft.

Monopod. You can use a tripod, but it will be inconvenient for you to carry it around the city, so it is better to use a lightweight monopod, and plus remote for better image stabilization.

2. Work in aperture priority

It is better to shoot a night portrait in Aperture Priority mode. This will make it easier for you to control the blur of the background, and you will no longer have to think about shutter speed, because. The camera itself will select its optimal value.

3. Use an external flash

It is better to take photographs at night with an external flash at a distance of two meters from the subject, but no further than five meters. Be sure to pay attention to the flash power. Too much flash at close range can whiten the model's face. To avoid this, use a flash diffuser or simply adjust its power by accessing the camera menu. There is another option: point the flash not at the model itself, but at white wall or a photo reflector located on the side of the model.

4. Creative approach or how to make a truly beautiful night portrait?

Do you want to take a truly beautiful night portrait? Find first appropriate place for shooting. This could be a street well lit with lanterns, a bridge from which the city at night is clearly visible, or a central street of the city where the traffic flow does not decrease even at night. Place your model so that the lights of the night city are behind her and subsequently turn into the same beautiful background as in the photo below.

Next, adjust the camera so that you get the same beautiful bokeh effect : ISO highest value(800 – 1600 units), maximum open aperture (f1.4 – f3.5), shutter speed (if you shoot in manual mode) 1/20 – 1/30 sec., focus mode – single-point.

5. Take night portraits without flash

Unfortunately, not all novice photographers have an external flash, so many of them use the built-in flash, after putting a homemade white paper diffuser on it. We suggest that you abandon this idea and shoot a night portrait without a flash, because it can be replaced by bright city lighting, car headlights, and even LED flashlight. To avoid image blur, use a tripod or monopod.