Night photography.

Taking pictures at night brings a whole new set of challenges and opportunities to the photographer.The use of seriously long shutter speeds, artificial lighting and even the danger of night time expeditions are key motivators that send me out at night with a camera.

Firstly it must be pointed out that many 'night photographs' are actually taken in the hour between sunset and total darkness, as the sky still has some colour at this time which often looks more dramatic than when it is fully black.

You really will need a tripod. Long exposures require the camera to be kept perfectly still. Obviously you cannot then hand hold the camera for night photographs.

You need to make sure that your digital camera has a full Manual mode allowing you to set very slow shutter speeds.

However, getting the balance right is a case of trial and error. For every perfect shot, count on about 20 like this where the highlights are blown out

blown highlights

or like this where the whole thing is too dark.

short exposure at night.

Bracket your exposures! This is the process of purposely taking under exposed and overexposed shots in addition to the regular shots. The prime reason is simply to be sure you can get a good exposure from a hard to meter subject or environments such as late at night. In addition there are electronic darkroom techniques for combining overexposed and underexposed areas of diffeent shots together to improve the overall final shot.