Night Photography Tips and Settings

Have you ever tried to take photos in the night, your settings of your DSLR probably resulted in dark, dull pictures. We are here to help you use these settings for night photography which will ensure you get those exposures correct every time.

Night Photography Trivia:

In the early 1900s, a few notable photographers, Alfred Stieglitz and William Fraser, began working at night. The first known female night photographer is Jessie Tarbox Beals

Equipment needed for Night Photography:

Before we talk about camera settings for Night Photography, let’s talk about the equipment you’ll need.

You’ll need a camera that goes into full manual mode. This will enable you to take full control of the camera settings.
You will need a good sturdy tripod to take the weight of your camera. As it’s dark, exposure times shooting the night sky will be long, therefore your camera needs to be dead still.
A standard zoom lens for night photography

Night Photography DSLR Camera Settings:

Below is how to set up your DSLR camera for night photography:

M – Manual mode.
Shutter Speed – 30 to 60 seconds. In the dark, a longer shutter speed will give enough time to let a lot of light to enter the camera. If you find your photography coming out too dark, increase the time, if your photos are coming out too light, decrease the time.
Aperture – f8, f11 or f 16. This is to create what’s called a long depth of field and allows you to create an image that is sharp from the foreground to the background. As with the shutter speed, you can make your shots lighter or darker with the aperture. Start at f11 and if the image is too light, go to f16, if it’s too dark, go to f8.
ISO – 100 or 200. This is to reduce noise. Noise in an image creates a speckly look with dull colours. To get a clean crisp and colourful night photograph, you will need as little noise as possible.
Set White Balance to Auto. Night photography usually has lots of different light sources with lots of different colours. Shooting in Auto White Balance gives you a good middle ground which can be adjusted as needed back in post-processing programs like Lightroom. Another option is to set the camera’s white balance to Daylight. This will capture colours as they are, but I find the photos come out too orange when doing it this way.
Manual Focus. As it going to be dark, your camera will find it hard to focus onto something. To tackle this, focus onto something lit in the distance, then switch lens to manual focus to fix the focus point.
Shoot in Raw. This is optional but highly advised. Shooting in Raw will give you much more scope when, or if, you post-process the shot.