Imaging Here's How

Shooting in the Dark

Many amateur photographers put their cameras away as soon as the light fades. They mistakenly assume that no or little light means no photo opportunity. This is too bad because shooting at or after sunset - or before sunrise - can produce great shots. Even mundane scenes are often magically transformed.

There's lots to shoot at night too: people, downtown streets, city and landscapes, floodlit buildings, lighted signs, interiors. You can even learn to make special effects and paint with light or capture dramatic fireworks displays. And while night photography does present some interesting challenges and technical requirements, any photographer with almost any camera can do it. Later in the article, we'll show you how. But first we need to talk about equipment and basic techniques.

The Ideal Night Camera

You can shoot at night with almost any digicam; but some, not surprisingly, are better than others. If you're shopping for a new camera and plan to do night photography with it, here are a few features and characteristics to consider.

Noise: One factor that effects the amount of noise a camera produces is sensor size. The more pixels (individual light receptors) crammed onto a sensor of a given physical dimension, the more it will be prone to noise. This means digital SLRs (single-lens reflex cameras) have an advantage; because they invariably have larger sensors in relation to the number of pixels.

When shooting floodlit buildings at night, take a spot-meter reading off a lighted part of the building (not the light source) to calculate exposure.

Shutter speeds: The range of shutter speeds available will be stated in the camera's specifications. The high end may be 1/1000th of a second or 1/2000th or even higher, the low end, anywhere from one to 30 seconds. For night photography, you're concerned with the low end. Here's why.

In very low light, you'll need to keep the shutter open a long time to get enough light for a correct exposure, even when using the widest aperture. You also often want to use a small aperture to get maximum depth of field, which means keeping the shutter open even longer. Or you may want a long exposure to record the blurring effects of motion.

So the longer the exposures the camera allows the better. Many consumer digicams only go to 15 seconds at the low end, but some let you keep the shutter open for up to 30 seconds. Digital SLRs and a few point-and-shoot models also have a Bulb mode that lets you hold the shutter open for an indeterminate amount of time - minutes if you need it. In Bulb mode, you have to time the exposure yourself.

Shutter release: The great enemy of night photography, or any photography in which you use long exposures, is camera shake, which produces unwanted blurring. This is why a tripod is obligatory for most types of night photography. Even with the camera on a tripod, pressing the shutter button can jar the camera and produce blurring. With Bulb mode, where you need hold the shutter button down for seconds at a time, it's almost impossible not to jiggle the camera.

Solution: Some digicams come with infrared remote controls. Others have remotes available as an option. They let you stand away from the camera and release the shutter by pressing a button on the remote. In Bulb mode, you either press and hold the remote button or press it once to open the shutter and again to close it. If the remote isn't included in the kit, it typically costs less than $50: well worth the expense if you're serious about night photography.

If there's no remote available for your camera, don't worry, you can still take shake-free low-light shots in many situations using the self-timer, which virtually all digicams have. Set the shutter to timer mode, push the button and step back. After a few seconds the shutter will release.

Exposure: Camera auto-exposure (AE) systems take light readings in a few different ways. The most common is matrix mode, in which the system reads light from several points in the scene and calculates an average reading. In center-weighted mode, which most cameras have, the system pays more attention to light from objects towards the centre of the frame. A third mode, spot metering, lets you take the reading from just a very small area at the centre of the frame. This is the most useful for night photography but not all digicams have it.

Because night scenes typically include both brightly-lit and deeply-shadowed sections, matrix and centre-weighted modes are often fooled into giving incorrect readings. In fact, in many cases, you won't be able to expose the entire scene correctly anyway because of the huge contrasts in light levels. Spot metering allows you to zero in and take a reading from just the part of the scene you want to be correctly exposed.

Since that won't always be in the dead centre of the frame, you often need to take a spot reading and then move the camera to reframe the picture. Most digital cameras lock the AE setting when you press the shutter button half-way down. If you're using the self-timer, it is possible to move the camera on the tripod to reframe while holding your finger on the button to keep the exposure setting, but it's not easy. And if you want to use the remote, you'll have to take your finger off the shutter. As soon as you do, or within a few seconds, the camera will recalculate the exposure based on whatever is now in the centre of the frame.

Solution? Look for a camera with a separate AE-lock button. You can take your finger off the shutter button, press the lock button and the exposure setting will stay locked until you press the button again or release the shutter. Now you can reframe the picture at your leisure.

Also look for a camera that lets you make all exposure settings manually, usually indicated with an M on the mode dial. Take a spot reading while in aperture or shutter priority mode, note the shutter speed or aperture indicated and then switch to Manual mode to make final settings. Reframe and use the remote or self-timer to release the shutter.

Focus: Low-light situations can also defeat auto-focus (AF) systems. If the system can't focus on your main subject (because it's too dark or doesn't stand out well enough from the background, one solution is to focus on something about the same distance from the camera as your main subject, then reframe the picture. Pressing half-way down on the shutter button typically also locks focus. But if you take your finger off the shutter button, reframe the shot, and then press the shutter button again or use the remote to release the shutter, the camera will refocus.

There are a few solutions. One is an AF lock button (sometimes combined with AE lock), but few digicams have them. Another is turning off AF and using manual focus. Many point-and-shoot cameras do not have manual focus; and if they do, it's typically not very convenient or accurate. A digital SLR has a distinct advantage here. Most let you focus by turning a ring on the lens and you can clearly see in the viewfinder.

Digital SLRs often have multi-point focusing systems that let you choose which part of the scene to focus on. You see the focus zones or points in the viewfinder as small outlined squares, one or more of which will be lighted. In automatic modes, the camera may calculate correct focus from more than one zone, but you can also choose to focus using just one. If your main subject is off to the left of the frame, for example, you can use camera controls to move the active focus point so the camera focuses on your subject without you having to move the camera.

Having made the case for some fairly advanced digicam features, it's important to reiterate that you can use almost any digital camera for night photography, though the absence of some of these features may limit you a little. Let's look at some different types of low-light photography, starting with an all-time favourite.

Capturing moving lights, like those on this Ferris wheel, can create cool effects that evoke the movement and excitement in a scene.

Sunsets

As the sun nears the horizon, it shines through layers of atmosphere, cloud and smog, creating stunning effects: vivid purples, yellows and oranges, shooting rays and water reflections like liquid gold. The problem with sunsets, as with many low-light and night subjects, is that you typically can't correctly expose both for the sky, which is fairly bright, and the foreground, which is heavily shadowed. If you use automatic-exposure settings on your camera, you'll inevitably end up with an underexposed foreground and overexposed sky.

The best solution is almost always to expose for the sky. If you have a spot meter, take a reading from the sky, away from the sun. Hold the shutter down and reframe your shot before pressing the rest of the way down. Or you can press the AE-lock button or take a note of the settings indicated, switch to manual mode and manually set aperture and shutter speed before composing. If you don't have spot metering, use exposure compensation (EV) controls to reduce the exposure by at least two f-stops from the reading given by the AE system.

Now the sky should be correctly exposed; but much of the foreground, and possibly parts of the background, will be rendered as pure black: silhouettes in other words. You can make very effective compositions by framing the sunset with a silhouetted figure or other shape in the foreground. Most sunset pictures fail because the photographer relies entirely on the light and colour effects for compositional interest. You need something else to give the image depth and perspective. A simple silhouette can provide that.

Reflections in the foreground can also provide depth. Look at the not-entirely-successful shot of a beach sunset. The waves are in effect silhouetted, while the golden reflections in the foreground lead the eye to the horizon.

While the light show on the horizon may be the main attraction, look over your shoulder from time to time when shooting a sunset and notice what the buttery, low-angle light is doing to objects and scenes behind you. The sometimes-intensely orange or yellow light isn't always flattering for human subjects, but it does wonders for buildings and landscapes.

In this sunset picture, the silhouetted waves provide depth and perspective, leading the viewer's eye to the horizon.

Moving Lights

Capturing moving lights as blurry streaks can create very cool effects that evoke - and amplify - the movement and excitement in a scene. Look at the shot of traffic passing through a downtown intersection and the one of the Ferris wheel. They were shot with the camera on a tripod, with exposure times of 2.5 and 10 seconds respectively. The cars passing in the traffic scene did not register because they were in the frame too short a time, but their taillights and headlights were bright enough to register at each point in their trajectory through the frame.

The cars in this scene did not register because they were in the frame too short a time, but their lights were bright enough to register in their trajectory through the frame.

These shots were taken at dusk, in the half hour to 40 minutes after sunset when exposure readings from sky and lighted areas of the foreground are about the same, so you can achieve a balanced exposure. You also want to wait until dusk so that lights show up clearly. At sunset, as we saw, when the sky is still very bright compared to the foreground, and after dusk, when the sky is basically black, it's difficult or impossible to take shots with sky and foreground both correctly exposed.

You will definitely need a tripod for this kind of shot. Set the shutter mode to self-timer. If the camera allows you to configure the self-timer, reduce the time lag to the shortest possible, usually two seconds. Use aperture priority and choose a small aperture to ensure maximum depth-of-field and a long exposure.

Take your reading from a lighted building in the scene, using spot metering if you can. Lock the exposure setting (and focus) and compose your shot. Once you've secured the camera in the tripod, push the button the rest of the way down and step back from the camera. Alternatively, you can use manual mode or experiment with EV settings. If you're shooting downtown, you'll have to time the shot to ensure traffic is actually moving through the scene. I used the traffic lights as my queue. It took several attempts to get this one.

Note two flaws in the Ferris wheel shot. First, I waited a little too long and the sky is now almost black. Also, the foreground street lamp was much too close to the camera, causing light flares around the tree. This is something to keep in mind when shooting bright lights in any night-shooting situation.

Slow Flash

Many digicams have a slow-flash synchronization feature that allows you to adequately light foreground figures using flash, while correctly exposing highlights in the background, even in low-light situations. When you press the button, the camera opens the shutter for however long it takes to correctly expose the overall scene, and, either at the beginning or end of the exposure, fires the flash.

This is one case where using a matrix or centre-weighted AE mode makes sense. If you're shooting at sunset or dusk, the shutter speed will likely be slow enough that you'll want to use a tripod to avoid camera shake, but hand-holding the camera sometimes works. The shot of tourists crowding around a Bourbon Street honky-tonk in New Orleans was taken at 1/3 second handheld. The flash freezes the figures in the foreground, and the slight blurring of the garishly lit interior adds to the ambience. Note, however, that I was using a point-and-shoot camera with a tilting viewfinder/LCD, which made it possible to hold the camera low and brace it against my body to minimize camera shake.

In this shot of a New Orleans honky-tonk, flash illumination freezes the figures in the foreground, while the 1/3-second exposure captures the atmospheric background.

The range of distances at which a flash unit can adequately illuminate subjects varies according to ISO setting and aperture. Documentation that came with the camera or flash unit should include a table showing optimum distances. You want to make sure your foreground subjects are placed within that optimum range, typically somewhere between five and 20 feet.

Some cameras let you choose whether the flash fires at the beginning or end of the exposure. Fire the flash at the end of the exposure when shooting a subject moving across the frame. Here's why. If the flash fires at the beginning, it will freeze your subject, then the long exposure will record a ghostly blur in front of your subject. To make visual sense, you want the blur behind the subject.

Note: You can also create interesting effects by combining slow flash with the techniques described above for capturing traffic light trails.

Candlelight

Shooting by candle or firelight demonstrates just how little light is actually needed to make a successful image. Light from a flickering flame is also uniquely expressive, evoking romance, coziness, even spookiness. Shooting by candlelight is not that difficult either. You can even do it without tripod in some cases, if you're willing to risk the increased noise of faster ISO settings.

Take a look at the shadowy portrait with this story. The candle lights only one side of the subject's face; and since there is no other light source available, it makes for a very dramatic effect.

In this case, because at least part of the subject's face was at the centre of the frame, it was easy to focus and set exposure automatically using the remote control because there was no need to move the camera to reframe the shot. I used spot metering to take the light reading and experimented with different combinations of shutter speed and aperture. In the end, I chose a wide aperture (f/3.5 at one second) to reduce exposure time so it was easier for the subject to stay still for the duration.

Although it's no longer visible in this edited version of the shot, I did have problems again with lens flares from the candle, which is between the subject and the camera. The best solution would have been to move the camera further from flame and subject and use a longer focal length. I cheated. The flares fell on a part of the image that was completely or almost completely black. I used the clone tool in Corel Paint Shop Pro to copy pixels from another black area of the frame to cover the flares.

In this portrait, the candle lights only one side of the subject's face; and since there is no other light source available, it makes for a very dramatic effect.

Other Techniques

Shooting floodlit buildings at night is relatively easy. Use a tripod, of course, and the self-timer or remote control. A small aperture will ensure good depth-of-field. Set the camera in aperture-priority mode and take a spot-meter reading off a lighted part of the building (not the light source) to calculate exposure time. Lighted signs, store fronts and other urban scenes are also relatively easy to shoot - again, as long as you use a tripod.

Shooting fireworks can be rewarding, but tricky. In brief, you need to use a tripod and a long exposure, typically at least 30 seconds, in order to capture initial explosions and the light trails that follow. Use a fairly narrow aperture to ensure depth-of-field. In most cases, you'll want to use a short focal length (wide angle) to take in as much of the sky as possible, so as to keep the light effects within the frame; but moderate telephoto shots can work too.

You can also paint with light using a penlight or sparkler. Try shooting a subject spelling his name by waving the sparkler through the air. You'll need a tripod, a long exposure time to capture the light trail from the sparkler, and a slow-synch flash to fire at the end of the exposure to light your subject. Or try tracing around an object or person with a penlight or sparkler to create a jazzy highlight effect.

Whatever kind of night shooting you're doing, getting exposure right is especially important and often tricky. Even though you can see your results instantly with a digicam, it's also a good idea to bracket: to take three or four shots of the same subject with different exposure settings on either side of the one you think is correct. It increases your chances of getting one that's correctly exposed.

As usual, we've only scratched the surface here. For more ideas, check out The Complete Guide to Night and Low-Light Photography by Lee Frost, Amphoto Books (pays little attention to digital, but still great information and inspiring examples) or Night Photography by Andrew Sanderson, Amphoto Books.

Article Tags:  camera, light, shutter, exposure, night, button, subject, shooting, focus, foreground, aperture, flash, photography, tripod, frame, using, reading, remote, seconds, scene, sunset, press, reframe, correctly, effects, settings, timer, typically, digital, ce