Night Shooting

Night shots are one thing that can be very difficult to try and save.  Lots of people like shooting at night.  When I ask for friends to submit photos to be processed to see how it works more than half of them have a night shot they want to try and save.  Many can be improved, but they could be a lot better if the camera was setup for doing some night shooting.

Setting up for a Night Shoots

(Handheld)

There are all levels of camera.  Some have special settings which can be turned on or activated for low light night shooting.

1. Set the ISO to 1000 to 2000.  This will increase the noise but get the subject matter
2. NEVER HAVE THE CAMERA IN AUTO ISO
3. Set High Noise Reduction to “ON” if you have that setting
4. Don’t go for sharp details.  You will need to remove noise post process, details won’t survive.

(Tripod/Monopod)

This is the way to go if you really want to get good clear, detailed night shots.

1. ISO 200 should provide good clear detail and a minimum of noise.
2. Use a remote to trigger the shutter
3. Set the F-stop between 5.6 and 8.

If you don’t have a remote use the self timer.  This will give the camera time to stop moving from your pushing the shutter before it opens.

If you have a camera with a “mirror up” setting which will let you put the mirror up before taking the image use that as well.  It is called mirror slap which can also add slight movement to the camera.  It might not be noticable at all but taking every step to remove vibration and movement from the camera will get you sharper images.

Long Exposures

The longer the exposure the more noise.  Finding the best exposure time might take some trial and error.  What looks good in the small image view might look terrible once you get the image on a computer screen.  This is why you want to take more than one exposure and change up the shutter speed to let in enough light to capture the image you desire and keep the noise to a minimum.

Go for the Butter

Even in a night shot you can go for the butter.  I call this the creamy pastel watercolor look.  Lines are soft and areas blend together.  You won’t get this look in camera.  In post you can use high noise reduction to get rid of the grain and purple spots and create a smooth watercolor look to your image.

In this example you won’t see a huge difference.  There was quite a bit of noise in the original image.  Using noise reduction the softer look becomes evident.

Display Small Images

Have you ever been browsing a flickr photo stream and your eye is caught by a picture you really like, but when you go to view it larger it is out of focus, full of noise and in general not a very good photo. But if all you need is a small photo. . .

Knowing what your final product will be helps a great deal.  If all you need is a small photo for the web or on an MLS listing, don’t worry about the noise or how sharp it looks.  The butter look will convey the idea, even a sharper noise filled image small will do the job in many cases.

Setting up the camera before shooting night shots can go a long way in getting the results you need.

Tags: high noise, night shooting