When it comes to night photography, you’ll need to know the ins and outs of your camera, it’s settings, and for the best results, manual photography. Below are some night photography tips that can help you capture stunning shots.

Preparation

Before you even leave your house, make sure your camera kit and you are prepared to spend a long period of time outside. Wear warm clothing, take a hat and gloves (it will get cold!), extra batteries as cold weather can drain your camera batteries quickly. Take a torch! Just in case you can’t see all of your camera buttons and settings and makes setting up your tripod easier.

Manual mode

Shooting in manual mode will give you complete control of your camera settings, allowing you to adjust your shutter speeds, aperture and ISO to suit your situation.

ISO

As mentioned above, when adjusting your camera settings in manual mode, you can control and adjust your ISO. For night photography, you will need to set your ISO as low as you can go. The higher the ISO, the grainier your photos will be.

Tripods

Night photography requires long exposures, and therefore you will need to set your shutter speed to 10 seconds or more. As much as you think you’re keeping perfectly still, we can guarantee you’ll have some movement and blurriness in your photos. Having a sturdy tripod can o the hard work for you.

Shoot in Raw

As we’ve mentioned before in a previous blog post, shooting in RAW has its benefits in post-processing. It allows you to edit your photographs to make additional enhancements that you will be limited with if it’s just a standard jpeg file.

We hope these night photography tips help you create some beautiful long-exposure photographs that you can be proud of. But more importantly, have fun with it, experiment and see what results you get from trying different settings.

If you’re a keen photographer, nothing will deter you from venturing out into the cold this winter to capture some magical shots. With the frosty mornings becoming a regular sight, making a glittering blanket of ice on the ground, the misty mornings just as the sun starts to break through the trees. You can truly get some fantastic photographs, and who knows, maybe you can make your own Christmas cards out of them!

Take your family or friends for an adventure in the snow and capture the laughs and giggles of your children enjoying snowball fights, making snowmen and snow angels. Your dogs running, jumping, and making pawprint trails in the snow. Not only will it be a fun time outside, but you’ll capture some ever-lasting memories.

We all know to wrap up warm as the temperatures drop, wellies or walking boots, coats, gloves, hats, and scarves at the ready. You might be all dressed up and ready for winter walking, but is your camera equipment?

Yes, that’s right, your camera needs to be cold weather-ready too!

Wrap up your camera

Make sure to take your camera in a camera bag to minimize its contact with the cold. You can even wrap it in a microfiber cloth before placing it in your camera bag, so the cold doesn’t cause any damage. By damage, we mean moisture. When outside in the cold for some time and then being brought back home where it’s warm can create condensation on your camera, and the moisture of that going into the camera’s body can cause some long term damage. So on your return from being outside, make sure to wipe your camera down.

Bring spare batteries

Many photographers will tell you; the cold kills batteries. If you’re going out for a long day of shooting, you know to take spare batteries with you. Even when not in use, the batteries charge can drain in the cold. To extend their life, keep them warm. Place them in your pockets and use your body heat to keep them at a warmer temperature, or place them in a sock before putting them in your camera bag.

Ready, steady, tripod

If you’re taking long exposure shots or taking photos in low light conditions, you will need your tripod handy for steady and accurate photographs. Shooting in those cold conditions without a tripod can lead to shaky stills if you’re doing them by hand. With a tripod, you won’t need to try and stand still for the prolonged exposure to be done whilst you’re dithering away. The tripod can handle it.

If you’re looking to capture super close-up stills of the pretty frost-covered leaves, a macro lens is a perfect piece of camera equipment to have in your arsenal. We can help you and your camera kit get winter-ready. Pop into one of our branches or take a look at our shop for camera lenses, camera bags, tripods and other accessories that can help you take the photographs you’re after.

Many photographers will say that you’re not a ‘proper’ photographer if you don’t shoot manually. Maybe such things as f/stops, shutter speed, and ISO are putting you off giving manual photography a go? Don’t worry too much if you’re not ready to go full-fledged manual just yet; two partial automatic modes can give you the control you need and a glimpse into what going fully manual would help you achieve – Aperture priority and Shutter priority.

The Auto setting ensures your image is exposed correctly, meaning the highlights aren’t too bright, and the shadows aren’t too dark. Aperture, shutter speed and ISO all contribute to this – your aperture; the size of the opening through your camera lens, the shutter speed; the amount of time the shutter stays open, and the ISO; the image sensor’s light sensitivity.

Mastering Manual

If you’re going from a smartphone to a compact camera or DLSR, you wouldn’t have had to worry about any settings before. In Auto mode, your camera will handle a lot of that for you. However, if you’re willing to venture into the world of manual photography, you will open all sorts of creative opportunities.

So let’s take a look at those manual settings you’ll need to know.

Aperture

Aperture is all about controlling the depth of field, effectively deciding which areas of your image you want in focus. For example, if you’re shooting wildlife or people, you can determine if you wish to keep them in sharp focus while blurring everything behind them or whether you want the whole image in focus.

If you love visiting zoos and safari parks, you could use the Aperture setting to capture beautiful photographs of wildlife in sharp focus whilst their cages are so close to the lens that they would blur enough to disappear from the shot.

For an image with the subject in sharp focus with a blurred background, you will need a wide aperture (a small f/stop number) if you want everything in focus; for example, in a landscape, you will need a narrow aperture (a large f/stop number). Experiment with the aperture settings; it’s up to you how you want to do it.

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed captures motion. Light trails and waterfalls are perfect examples of using shutter speed settings to create magical photographs. Being able to set your shutter speeds, you can slow down movement, or capture fast-moving objects in sharp focus.

ISO

ISO controls the quality of your image. If the sensor is more sensitive to light you will have a high number, so the shutter doesn’t need to be open for so long. ISO helps you get shots in low-light conditions without using a flash. However, there is a downside, the higher the ISO, the more noise your image will have, so it may look grainy. Some cameras are better at handling this than others, but how much noise on your shot is entirely up to you. In general, you’ll want to use the lowest ISO setting you can get away with.

Manual Photography

When shooting a series of images that you need to be the same, the same light level, the same aperture, then shooting in manual is your best option. If you take a series of images in Auto, you won’t get the same lighting, so all photos in your series will be different, which may not be what you want and may need editing further in post-production.

A feature that is incredibly useful in photography is shooting in RAW format. Unlike general jpegs, RAW files contain much more information and therefore can be edited further than the standard jpeg in post-production on programmes like Photoshop.

 

Autumn is a beautiful season that offers a wide range of photographic opportunities. From bright yellows to vibrant red and orange tones in the leaves to colourful but foggy landscapes, it’s easy to see why Autumn is the favourite season amongst photographers.

Here are a few tips you can use to capture some autumnal magic this year.

Sunrise or Sunset

The sun at dusk and dawn have the best kind of light. Commonly referred to as the ‘Golden Hour’, the times around sunset and sunrise are when the light is softest. Landscapes light up with a stunning golden glow, which will help the vibrant autumn colours to ‘pop’ and help create the perfect atmosphere for your shot.

Falling Leaves

One of nature’s most beautiful times of the year is when the many shades of yellow, orange and red Autumn leaves eventually fall to the ground. Some of photographers favourite things to shoot during this time of year are leaf-covered canals, woodland trails, or if you have a little model at hand (children or pets), you can capture some incredible memories. The fallen autumn leaves not only help to add texture and a pop of colour to your photographs, but they will also help as leading lines in your compositions and also convey motion.

Don’t Be Put Off by Bad Weather

I know, it’s easier said than done, those cold foggy mornings, you want to stay in bed. But don’t let the bad weather discourage you; Autumn has the unique ability to provide you with some brilliant colours and contrast. Woodland areas or bodies of water are perfect places to venture to on those overcast mornings.
Before heading out, check the weather and be prepared for anything.

White Balance

Experiment with your white balance settings for those moments that need just a little bit more of a helping hand to capture. If you want to add a warmer look to your photos to enhance the golden glow of a sunrise or sunset, try different white balance levels and adjust to suit.

Autumn photography is a season many landscape photographers love due to the many opportunities as the season goes on, but not without its challenges. Take your time setting up your shots and experiment with your compositions, subjects, perspectives, but most importantly, have fun!