James Carren - Landscape Photography: The Ultimate Guide to Landscape Photography at Night

LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY

The Ultimate Guide to Landscape Photography At Night

James Carren

2015 Sender Publishing

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Id like to preface this by saying that, while I am a professional photographer, I am not a landscape photographer. I do have a particular love for night photography, however, and do have experience with it. In this book, Im going to cover the difference between Astrophotography and Night Photography. The focus will mainly be night photography, since you do need pretty specific equipment to be really successful at Astrophotography.

I want to start out by just giving a general run down of tips for photographing in low light situations. In this section Ill discuss things like selecting the proper ISO and camera settings, as well as why its important to have and make use of a tripod.

Next, well tackle the difference between astrophotography and night photography. The main difference is that astrophotography focuses only on formations of stars and planets, while night photography incorporates the surrounding landscape or cityscape, as well as people in some cases.

Did you know that the quality of your night photography can be affected by something as simple as where youre located on the earth? While you may not be able to alter this particular factor, Ill talk about some ways that you can affect it to get the maximum out of your exposure. This includes things like using specific camera settings and filters to enhance your exposure.

The gear you need to use isnt absolutely necessary; if you cant get your hands on all of it, not to worry. There are still ways to make your shot work for you. This section is simply a collection of equipment you should have and equipment that might be beneficial to have.

Whether youre shooting night or astrophotography, you really have to plan for these types of shoots. Ill explain how different times of year and even night can affect the outcome of your shoot.

Specifically, there are different techniques you can use to get a different look out of your night photography. There is a technique for making point stars and for making star trails. Ill teach you how to do both.

Finally, you might be under the impression that landscape photos are exempt from needing retouching. Ill explain how landscape retouching differs from the retouching we most commonly think of, and why you need it.

So, lets get ready to delve into the wonderful world of night and astrophotography. Shall we?

Before we get right into night photography and astrophotography and their differences, I want to talk a little bit about the skill that is low light photography. If you have never done any night photography before, you might want to start with at least a little bit of light and work your way up to it.

Some factors that you need to know are that: your camera will require a faster ISO than usual, and that you will need either a slower shutter speed or a wider aperture, and in some cases both. You should also make use of a tripod in low light situations, whether indoor or outdoor, and you definitely need a tripod in full darkness.

So, what do your camera settings need to look like? Well for one, I might suggest that when you first get to your location, you do a meter reading of the overall space and of the object that is your middle grey. The middle grey will allow you to get an accurate exposure as opposed to metering off of your subject, which may be overly light, (or in this case probably dark) for accurate exposure. If you dont have access to a professional grade meter (theyre very expensive) then you have one of two options, and personally I have found both to be pretty successful. You can either:

• Set your camera on program mode and let it provide you with an accurate exposure, which you can then adjust (take a reading both for the scene as a whole and for middle grey, to see which will work out the best)
• Take a meter reading with the app Pinhole Assist. I believe that this app costs between $1-2. However, I would recommend paying it because its the only metering app that provides consistently accurate results.

Even if youve used program mode to get an accurate exposure, you might have to adjust for a wider aperture or a longer exposure, depending on your preferences. And you still also have to determine the proper ISO for the situation. ISO determines how sensitive your camera sensor is to light, and your ISO setting also affects the amount of noise youre going to have present in your images. Naturally, we all expect night photography to be a bit grainier than we would normally like to have, but lets talk about some ways to counteract this. I cant count the number of times Ive seen photographers go completely overboard with ISO, and the camera manufacturers are certainly not helping that problem. New DSLRs go up to ISOs I cringe to even think about, even though as the technology develops the grain is getting smoother and smoother. Even so, you have to think about the fact that an increased ISO is going to cause an increase in noise, and no matter how good the technology, so much grain that it becomes distracting from the actual image is never a good thing. So hold your horses and resist that urge to pump your ISO all the way up to 6400 or more. Assuming that most people shoot in a range between 400 and 800, and thats good and smooth, we dont want to go too many stops beyond that. Find your right exposure, start at your normal ISO, and find the lowest one that works well. This might take some experimenting, test shots, and lots of adjustments.