[Photography] Five Common Macro Photography Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Macro photography requires a unique set of skills, but along with these skills comes a new set of mistakes to overcome. Fortunately, many of these macro photography mistakes are easily fixed.

In this article, I discuss five common mistakes made in macro photography. Then I give you the tools to correct them in the field, which will result in instantly better macro images.

1. Shooting in direct midday sunlight

The first mistake often made in macro photography is heading out when the sun is high in the sky (midday). While the light during this time is bright, it’s also very harsh and contrasty. Images taken at this time are difficult to expose well, and colors are far less saturated.

The angle of the sun causes additional problems. It beats directly down on your subject, causing the underside to become shadowy.

I try to avoid going out to shoot on sunny afternoons. This tulip image was taken on a cloudy spring day.

How can this problem be fixed?

You have a few options. First, try waiting until the evening, when the light is warm and soft. This will reduce contrast and light your subject more evenly. You could also cast a shadow on the subject yourself, or find a subject in the shade. This will reduce the extent to which your subject encounters the harsh and contrasty light.

These tulips were photographed in the evening, when the light was far less harsh.

Cloudy days are the third option. Then, the sky acts like a huge softbox, and the light is diffused across the subject.

Another photograph on a cloudy day: notice the soft, delicate feeling and more saturated colors.

If you do decide to go out in midday, you might consider bringing a flash or a reflector to add some punch to your images and reduce midday shadows. While this won’t negate the problems described above, it will reduce them.

2. Shooting dying or dirty subjects

A second common mistake made in macro photography is shooting subjects that are either dying or dirty.

This isn’t really a problem with insect photography, but when photographing flowers, the condition of your subject is something to watch out for. If the edges of a flower are turning brown, I generally wouldn’t photograph it. Same thing if the center has some fraying stamens.

I searched through a number of dahlias until I found one in peak condition.

Flowers can also become dirty, especially if they are low to the ground. A few small pieces of dirt isn’t much to be worried about—it’s nothing that cloning can’t take care of—but too much dirt, and it becomes difficult to get a strong image.

How can this problem be fixed?

The first method just involves inspecting your subject carefully before shooting. If the flower is dying or dirty, find a different flower. You might also consider wiping away small pieces of dirt with your finger or shirtsleeve.

Checking the center of flowers is important; it’s easy to miss anthers that are on their way out. Fortunately, this rose allowed for a few images.

The second method is more difficult and involves hiding the dying parts of the flower through creative compositions. For instance, you can ensure that the wrinkled parts of petals are out of focus, or obscured by another part of the flower.

The outside of this flower was a bit worn, so I chose to emphasize the stamens instead.

3. Centering the subject

This is a common mistake in all types of photography – placing your subject in the dead center of the frame.

While this might make sense from a visual perspective, it generally results in an uncomfortable, less-than-desirable image. The composition feels imbalanced or boring.

How can this problem be fixed?

Placing this flower off center allowed for a slightly stronger composition.

Instead of placing the subject in the center of the image, place it off to one side. Try using the rule of thirds. Additionally, you might add some dynamism to the composition by tilting your camera and placing the flower along a diagonal line. This will ensure a much more dynamic image that holds the viewer’s eye.

4. Using busy backgrounds and foregrounds

A fourth macro photography mistake often made is using foregrounds and (especially) backgrounds that are messy.

For example, messy backgrounds might have splotches of colors, might be crammed with slightly out-of-focus elements, or have sudden transitions from light to dark or dark to light. Messy foregrounds, on the other hand, consist of branches, twigs, or other flowers that distract the viewer and get in the way of the main subject.

While this bleeding heart photograph may seem chaotic, it’s not particularly messy—there is a clear point of focus (the flower) that is not dominated by the background.

How can this problem be fixed?

I write about this a lot, but that’s because it’s such a common (and easily rectified) problem. It involves a bit of measured consideration before shooting. Simply make sure there are no distracting foreground or background elements. As discussed above, these include branches, twigs, or sticks. It also might simply be contrasting colors or dark spots.

Notice the smooth, uniform background in this flower image.

5. Capturing a subject as the subject

This final macro photography mistake is a bit less straightforward: capturing a subject as that subject.

What do I mean by this? In truth, it’s not all that complicated. Basically, macro photographers often see an interesting subject and attempt to photograph that subject efficiently. The problem is that the subject then lacks interest. It feels like it’s part of a snapshot when you want it to feel like a deliberate photograph.

How can this problem be fixed?

If you photograph a flower, don’t try to just capture it as a flower. Look for interesting aspects of the subject. What is it that made you want to photograph it in the first place?

Try to go beyond that basic “it’s a flower” essence, and communicate something about the flower. Does it have a photogenic center? Colorful petals? A beautiful shape? Emphasize this through your photography.

I chose to get extremely close to this dahlia in order to emphasize the pattern of its petals.

Conclusion

I have discussed five common macro photography mistakes, as well as a number of simple ways to fix them. By following these guidelines, you should be able to enhance your macro photography and ensure consistently better images.

Know any mistakes that I missed? Let me know in the comments!

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[Photography] How to Choose the Right Color Profile For Sharing Images Online

Many people have problems with the color of their photos when they publish them online. There are several reasons why this might be so, but the most common culprits are the color space of the image and whether or not the profile is embedded. Both color settings can radically affect web browser color and how your photos look.

Let’s look at some of the potential pitfalls more closely.

The Importance of Embedding the Color Profile

Whenever you edit your photos in an editing program like Photoshop, you are doing so using a specific RGB working color space. To be sure of preserving the color you see when you’re editing, you need to embed the profile before saving the image.

In simple terms, the ICC profile is a translator. It enables different apps and devices to interpret the color as you intended. If you get into the habit of embedding profiles into your images as you save them, you’ll reduce the chances of color looking wrong on the web or in print.

The rich color in this ProPhoto RGB image will look okay in many browsers despite not being sRGB as normally advised. If it looks muted and drained of saturation to you, it’ll be because you are viewing it in a non-color-managed browser. By embedding the profile, I’ve given it the best chance of looking as intended to the majority of people. On a wide-gamut monitor, the colors will pop a bit more.

Embedding the profile into an image adds about 3-4 kB to the file size, so the only time it makes sense to exclude it is when you’re uploading vast quantities of photos to the Internet.

If you must leave the profile out, making sure that the image is in the sRGB color space will limit any resulting damage. Two or three of the more popular browsers will still display the color faithfully because they automatically guess the profile correctly (i.e. sRGB).

Although most browsers have improved in their handling of color recently, it’s still good practice to embed the profile. Don’t leave it out without good reason.

Because the profile has been left out of this same ProPhoto RGB image, the brightness and color will look terrible in most browsers and on most monitors. By contrast, a missing profile for an sRGB file would be undetectable to a large number of people.

How to Embed the Profile

Embedding the profile into images is usually just a case of checking a box when you export the photo. If such an option doesn’t exist, the default will either be the predefined working space of the program, or it’ll be sRGB for web-specific output.

If you want to check the color of your web images before publishing, open them directly in a browser (preferably a reliable one like Chrome) and see how they compare to the original in your photo-editing program. Be a little wary of uploading images to platforms that strip out the profile, though these will not typically be photo gallery sites.

Embedding or stripping out profiles usually only requires you to check or uncheck a box when saving. This is the “save as” pane in Photoshop.

Converting to Profile

You can use “convert to profile” in Photoshop to create an sRGB image, which is the safest color space choice for the web. Be sure not to overwrite the original file and save it this way, because larger color spaces are a better choice for outputs such as inkjet printing.

Do not use “assign profile” for profile conversion, as it causes a color shift and is not meant for this purpose.

Using “assign profile” in Photoshop to convert between profiles will cause a color shift. Color in the right-hand image above has gone flat as a result of assigning an sRGB profile to an Adobe RGB image. You must use “convert to profile” if you want to create an sRGB version of your photo for the web.

Why Monitor Gamut Matters

Color management needs at least two profiles to work (image profile and monitor profile in this case). If you publish images without profiles embedded, you’re relying on the viewer’s browser to guess the color space correctly.

When color management is absent from the browser or app for whatever reason, the following statements are true:

• An Adobe RGB image looks roughly correct on a wide-gamut display.
• An Adobe RGB image looks muted in color on a standard-gamut display.
• sRGB images look roughly correct on a standard-gamut display.
• An sRGB image looks oversaturated in color on a wide-gamut display.

Note that an Adobe RGB image without a profile embedded looks muted in most situations and must be avoided. Browsers will guess the color space to be sRGB if they guess at all.

The graph above shows the difference between a standard-gamut Dell monitor (colored outline) and the sRGB profile (dotted outline). Even on a regular desktop monitor, some colors are quite likely to exceed the sRGB color space and look too saturated when viewed in Microsoft browsers.

In the monitor above, it’s reds that are most exaggerated in that situation. If you haven’t profiled your monitor or if the gamut of the screen is contained by sRGB, you won’t encounter this.

Browser Behavior 2018

To understand color profiles, it helps to know how different browsers behave with color. I tested five browsers for this article to give you an idea of what to expect. Feel free to query this if you think any of these observations are wrong:

Google Chrome

Chrome is a fully color-managed browser that assigns sRGB to any “untagged” images (i.e. those without profiles embedded). It reads all embedded profiles.

Opera

Opera is a color-managed browser that automatically assumes photos to be sRGB if the profile is missing. Like Chrome, it reads all profiles, including Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB.

Firefox Quantum

You can configure Firefox to assign sRGB to any untagged photo. It reads all embedded color profiles.

If you happen to run two monitors, Firefox does not maintain full color management across both of them. For optimum color, you must dial in one monitor profile then stick with that monitor. This only applies if your monitors have custom profiles.

Microsoft Edge/Internet Explorer

Microsoft Edge has a half-baked solution to color management. It reads different color profiles and converts everything to sRGB for display. The main problem is that it doesn’t use the monitor profile. Thus, it works best if your monitor does not exceed sRGB in gamut. Otherwise, you’ll see wayward colors.

Safari (for Windows)

Safari can read profiles in images and uses the monitor profile (unlike MS Edge or MS IE), but it does not assign a profile to an image if one is missing. In that situation, it displays color wrongly as Microsoft Edge does.

In Photoshop, you can use “Monitor RGB” proof colors to show you what the photo will look like in Internet Explorer on your own monitor. You’ll need to convert the image to sRGB first. If colors look brighter than they do without proofing, it means your monitor’s native gamut exceeds the sRGB profile.

A second experiment is to view the proof colors of an Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB image using “Internet Standard RGB”. This will show you how photos in bigger color spaces look on the internet if you omit the profile.

Choosing sRGB for the Web

The reason why sRGB is a safer choice of color space for the web is that most displays or monitors are not wide-gamut. Thus, if the profile goes astray or is stripped out, or if a device or app doesn’t support color management, the color will still look okay. This is what Microsoft’s browsers rely on to work.

If you want the color of your photos to look “okay” to the widest possible audience you need only do two things:

1. Make sure the image is in an sRGB color space either by using it as your working space or by converting to sRGB before uploading to the web.
2. Embed the sRGB profile into the image before saving.

Photoshop’s “Save for Web” lets you convert to sRGB at the very last moment by checking a box. If you leave the box unchecked, the photo is saved in whatever color space you edited it in. You can’t strip the profile out with this checkbox: it’s purely for conversion.

Other Choices: Adobe RGB and ProPhoto RGB

Since most popular browsers are now color savvy, the possibility of using other color spaces on the web exists. You could, for instance, publish photos with an Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB profile embedded, and they’d still look good to most people. To a minority, they’d look better.

The color of wide-gamut monitors typically exceeds Adobe RGB in places. Hence, there is theoretically a reason for publishing photos in ProPhoto RGB. However, this is offset by the dire color that results when the profiles are missing or ignored. It’s high risk.

Adobe RGB is an interesting prospect for the web because it still benefits users of wide-gamut monitors. Importantly, it doesn’t look as bad as ProPhoto RGB when things go wrong. However, if you publish in Adobe RGB, you’ll still be doing so for a relatively small audience.

If you do use these wider-gamut color spaces for the web, you absolutely must embed the profile. As soon as that goes astray, the color in your photos will look a bit flat to many people. In the case of ProPhoto RGB, it’s likely to look awful.

This 3D diagram (above) shows the sRGB profile encompassed by the profile of a wide-gamut monitor. In particular, you’ll note the extended range of cyans and greens in the latter.

The idea of using larger color spaces on the web is appealing, especially if you’re a landscape photographer for whom these colors are often truncated. It means you’d be making more use of your camera’s capabilities. However, it’s inherently riskier and you’ll be playing to a relatively small audience. The safe choice is still sRGB.

In Summary

Although modern browsers are more flexible, sRGB is still the safest choice of color space for the web. Again, this is because it roughly matches the gamut of most electronic displays. Using bigger color spaces risks draining your photos of color, especially on tablets or smartphones that may not be color-managed.

I hope this has been of some use. Feel free to ask questions if you need any clarification.

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[Photography] Weekly Photography Challenge – Bridges

I hope you haven’t burned any bridges lately, literally or figuratively. Because it’s time for this week’s photography challenge which is – you guessed it – bridges.

Here are some articles to give you some ideas and tips:

• Tips for Shooting Blue Hour
• Tips for Location Scouting to Get the Perfect Sunset Photograph
• Find the Perfect Photography Location Using Google Maps
• 26 Sublime Images of Bridges and Connection

Weekly Photography Challenge – Bridges

Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer, upload them to your favorite photo-sharing site and leave the link to them. Show me your best images in this week’s challenge. Sometimes it takes a while for an image to appear so be patient and try not to post the same image twice.

Share in the dPS Facebook Group

You can also share your images in the dPS Facebook group as the challenge is posted there each week as well.

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[Photography] How to Create an Exploding Sandwich Food Photo

Here is a fun tutorial to try if you enjoy food photography. Anyone can photograph a sandwich on a plate, but you can you make it explode and capture all the layers in a photo? Here’s how it’s done as shown by photographer Skyler Burt.

How to do it

If you enjoyed that and want to brush up on your food photography in general, check out these dPS articles:

• Are You Making These Five Food Photography Mistakes?
• Five Essentials of Doing Dark Food Photography
• 4 Tips for Beginners to Food Photography
• Household Items to Bring to Your Next Food Photography Shoot
• The Secret to Finding the Hero Angle in Food Photography

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[Photography] 6 Ways to Improve your Cityscape Photography

Cityscape photography is becoming increasingly popular and can be a welcome change to capturing rolling hills and scenic vistas. Urban landscape environments can offer you, the photographer, attractive buildings, patterns and lines to capture stunning scenes and an alternative to the familiar nature shots found in the countryside.

Here are 6 elements you will want to consider to improve your photographs of cities:

1. Shoot at different times of the day

Think about blue hour, golden hour, and daytime for your city images.

As the sun goes down and darkness falls, cities come to life when buildings and architectural details become illuminated and can make for some spectacular image opportunities. However, a common mistake people make when doing cityscape photography is to capture images too late at night when the natural light has disappeared and the sky is completely black.

Shanghai skyline at night.

Total darkness is generally not the best time to photograph buildings as they will appear less attractive with little detail.

If you intend to photograph in the evenings, I would recommend that you arrive at your location for sunset and wait for dusk to fall. You could shoot during blue hour, a period of twilight when the sun is at a significant depth below the horizon and when the sky takes on a predominantly blue shade.

Although it is called the blue hour, it usually occurs for a window of around 20-30 minutes, depending on your location and the season.

Golden hour is another good time for cityscape photography. During the early morning or late afternoon, you’ll have beautiful long shadows to work with, as well as soft golden light.

Daytime shot of the same city.

Alternatively, photographing during the day allows for a more interesting composition as scenes can be more crowded. Just add people in your frame that can make intriguing subjects combined with buildings.

2. Use ambient light effectively

If you capture the final elements of ambient light in the sky before darkness falls and combine it with the artificial light of the buildings, this will usually result in good photographs.

Once the city lights come on there is usually a window of about an hour to capture pleasing cityscapes. Shooting scenes at this time will allow you to balance the sky with the artificial lights of the city.

3. Consider color

Look for patterns and blocks of color that may offset one another. Buildings may be painted in different colors that work well together, for example.

The cool blue sky of the blue hour complements the warm, golden, amber hues of street and building lights perfectly. The harmony of an image is apparent when colorful tones come together, such as this image of Oxford at night.

Also, the sun can create different colors as it strikes buildings and reflects off them.

4. Consider composition

It is best to try and exclude any distracting and unwanted objects from the frame such as trash bins, signs, and any unsightly buildings that will make your image less attractive. Re-compose your image until it’s free of clutter and you are happy with the way the image looks.

Work with the light if you’re capturing cityscapes during the day. Usually, you will want to shoot with the sun lighting the buildings for the best results and to ensure everything in your view is illuminated.

5. Experiment with exposure

Cityscapes often provide a great opportunity to experiment with your exposure. You will discover that after sunset, as the light fades, you will be less able to hand hold your camera to capture your cityscape scene. Recording long exposures in cityscape photography will create motion and that feeling of movement is only possible by using a tripod.

As twilight unveils, you can capture the low ambient light by using slow shutter speeds to create mobility within your image. The stillness of buildings contrasting the movement of clouds or light trails from traffic, for example, make for an interesting image and can add drama to your composition.

Using fast shutter speeds can help to freeze the motion of different objects in the scene. I recommend that you experiment with different shutter speeds to see what different moods this creates and see which style of image you like.

6. Get creative

Add some beauty to your shot by capturing close up objects such as bridges or signs with the cityscape in the background. You could even try photographing people and the cityscape to show the full setting you are photographing within.

Don’t be afraid to get closer to your subject and focus on the action. I suggest that you play around with various angles to capture something truly unique and inspirational, one that you are proud of.

Cityscape photography requires a great deal of practice and you most likely won’t walk away with award-winning cityscapes overnight. Keep shooting and with these tips, you will become more adept at capturing urban imagery you can be proud of.

Now it’s your turn, please share your cityscape photography images and tips in the comments area below.

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[Photography] dPS Ultimate Guide to Night Photography

In this, the next installment of our dPS ultimate guides, learn what you need to know to get started doing night photography.

Introduction

Tower Bridge, London. Exposure: shutter speed 2.6 seconds, aperture f/5.6, ISO 100.

Night photography immediately solves a huge problem that you confront constantly in photography. That problem is being faced with ordinary scenes that just aren’t very interesting. If you take a picture of a building or a standard street scene during the day, it can be sort of dull. We are all used to seeing shots taken in the middle of the day. That same scene – shot at night – can be a really interesting photograph though.

The actual taking of pictures at night might seem a little bit like magic if you are just getting started. Even those who have been shooting a while may wonder how to get a proper exposure and focus in the dark. Although photographing in the dark certainly has its challenges, in some ways, it is actually easier than photography during the day.

So let’s take a quick look at the essentials of night photography. In particular, we’ll cover the gear you need, how to expose your photos, how to focus at night, great subject matter, and some post-processing tips. Hopefully, this will help open up the world of night photography to you.

What to Bring for Night Photography

Breckenridge, Colorado – Exposure: shutter speed 15 seconds, aperture f/2.8, ISO 3200.

First, let’s talk about what you will need in terms of equipment for doing night photography. The good news is that you will not need much in the way of extra gear. Besides your standard camera and lens, the only thing you will absolutely need is a tripod. The darkness means that your camera needs to use a long shutter speed to gather enough light for a proper exposure (more about that in a second). So you need to be able to hold your camera steady and a tripod is the best choice for that.

Another helpful item for keeping the camera steady is a remote shutter release. I highly recommend that you get one – and the corded ones are very cheap (under $10). You can spend a lot on an intervalometer if the extra features will benefit you, but you don’t need that for standard shooting at night.

If you don’t have a remote or find yourself without one on occasion, you can use your camera’s 2-second timer to take the picture so that you don’t touch the camera during the exposure.

Miami, Florida – Exposure: shutter speed 0.3 seconds, aperture f/2.8, ISO 200.

Although not necessary, here are some additional items to consider having on hand for your night photography:

• A flashlight: This will come in handy in a myriad of ways. It will help you with finding your camera controls if you don’t know them cold. It will help you set up your tripod and deal with straps and other attachments. Finally, a flashlight will also help you find things in your camera bag. Just keep a small one (or a headlamp) handy.
• Lens hood: At night you will have bright lights coming at you from different directions – such as street lights and neon lights. Using a lens hood will help keep flares to a minimum.
• Extra batteries: The long exposures you take at night will drain your camera battery at an alarming rate. You may also be using Live View, which drains them even faster. So does cold weather. Therefore, night photography always calls for spare batteries. Don’t take any chances here – a dead battery means your night is over.

If you are going to capture the night sky, you’ll need to be on top of weather conditions. In addition to your standard weather apps, be sure to add an app to your phone that will help you see where the moon, constellations, and Milky Way (if visible) will be. If you don’t already have apps you are using (there are several), I recommend PhotoPills and Star Walk 2.

Exposures for Night Photography

Pigeon Point Lighthouse, California. Exposure: shutter speed of 6 seconds, aperture f/5.6, ISO 1600.

The biggest difference between daytime and night photography is the exposure values you will need to use. The darkness changes everything. Don’t worry though, once you have your camera on a tripod, it is actually not that difficult to get the proper exposure in most cases.

Let’s back up and cover things that you might already know. Your camera’s exposure is a result of three controls (the exposure triangle) – shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. Because of the darkness, you need to let more light into the camera, and you can only do so by affecting one of these three controls. We’ll cover how to do that for each of them now.

Toledo, Spain – Exposure: shutter speed 8 seconds, aperture f/8, ISO 200.

Shutter Speed

During the day, you will typically use shutter speeds that are a small fraction of a second. At night, however, the camera will use shutter speeds that are longer than one second – sometimes significantly longer. Think of it this way: because it is dark, the camera needs a longer period of time to gather light for a proper exposure.

The shutter will now be open for a longer period of time, so the camera needs to be held steady or the picture will move during the exposure process, causing your image to be blurry. That is why a tripod is required equipment at night. You can leave the shutter open as long as you want, as long as the camera is steady and does not move at all.

Millennium Bridge and St. Paul’s Cathedral, London – Exposure: shutter speed 4 seconds, aperture f/5.6, ISO 400.

Aperture

The aperture is the opening in the lens that lets light into the camera. The size of the aperture determines the amount of light being let into the camera for a given shutter speed, and it also affects the depth of field.

For the most part, there is no difference between how you will use the aperture at night versus how you use it during the day. The only difference is that the camera will struggle to get enough light for a proper exposure, so a small aperture will often require ridiculously long shutter speeds. In addition, the background is usually black, so you don’t need to worry as much about achieving a wide depth of field.

Both of these factors (needing more light, and not needing a wide depth of field) tend to mitigate toward using larger apertures at night.

When you are shooting a scene like this where everything is far away, you don’t need a wide depth of field. Hence you can get away with a larger aperture. New York, New York – Exposure: shutter speed 0.3 seconds, aperture f/4.0, ISO 400.

ISO

The third exposure control, ISO, is a measurement of the sensitivity to light of your digital sensor. Higher ISO values make your digital sensor more sensitive to light and thereby allow you to use a shorter shutter speed or a smaller aperture.

But, there is no free lunch here, and using higher ISOs will result in more digital noise in your pictures. Since dark areas of your picture tend to show more digital noise than lighter areas, it is often a problem with night photos. Therefore, resist the temptation to crank up the ISO at night if you can help it.

Since you will be using a tripod, you can usually avoid the need to use a high ISO. In other words, the tripod allows you to use a longer shutter speed, and that long exposure allows more light into the camera such that you don’t need to use a high ISO. However, in those cases where you cannot use a tripod or you have a moving subject, you will need to increase the ISO.

I needed the foreground sharp in this image, so these exposure settings are brighter than the typical night sky shot, which you will learn more about shortly. Shutter speed 30 seconds, aperture f/2.8, ISO 3200.

That is certainly bad news, but the silver lining is that cameras are getting better and better at handling higher ISOs without showing much digital noise. In addition, post-processing software continues to improve at noise reduction, so you should be able to remove the digital noise later.

A Starting Point for Proper Exposure

It might seem a little silly for me to even try to give you some night photography default exposure settings, but that is what I’m going to do anyway in an effort to get you started.

Let’s say you are in Aperture Priority mode, which is what I find a lot of people use. If you are still using an automatic mode, give Aperture Priority a try, as it is still semi-automatic (meaning the camera will set the shutter speed for you to create a correct exposure), but you get to set the Aperture and ISO.

So, let’s talk about the aperture setting first. Start by setting your aperture to f/5.6, which is a fairly moderate choice that lets in a healthy amount of light. It won’t give you as much depth of field as you might like, but remember that you typically don’t need an extremely deep depth of field since the background will be black.

Next, set your ISO. Start at about 400, which is high enough that you won’t have to use an extremely long shutter speed. At the same time, most cameras can shoot at ISO 400 without digital noise becoming a problem.

After that, just see where the shutter speed ends up when you line up your shot. I’m assuming you are using a tripod for this example, by the way. You know the shutter speed is going to be long – probably a few seconds. I have tried to keep the other settings such that you won’t be standing in one spot for a minute or more while the camera creates the exposure.

Chicago River – Exposure: shutter speed 30 seconds, aperture f/13, ISO 200.

That’s not to say you should never do that. Depending on the scene and subject, you might want your shutter speed to be measured in minutes – but it is not the norm.

If you don’t have a tripod, your options are limited. In fact, there is only one option, and that is to open up the aperture all the way, crank up the ISO to at least 1600 (probably 3200 or 6400), and then use whatever shutter speed the camera sets.

Even with a wide aperture and high ISO, the shutter speed is likely to be long enough that camera shake will still be an issue.

Exposing the Night Sky Photo

There is one specific exposure setting I can tell you right now because it is often the same. It is the exposure settings for photographing the night sky. Your exposure settings will be:

• Shutter speed: 15 seconds.
• Aperture: f/2.8
• ISO: 6400

This is not set in stone, and you’ll notice that my night sky photos add a little exposure to these settings, but it is a good starting point. But what if your lens doesn’t open up to f/2.8? Then you have to just increase the ISO or the shutter speed by the corresponding amount.

For example, if your lens’s maximum aperture is f/3.5 – which is the case with many kit lenses – you’ll need to find another 2/3 of a stop of light. Either add that to the ISO, the shutter speed or just increase both by one click (remember one click of your dials is 1/3 of a stop).

Big Bend National Park, Texas. Okay, the exposure settings don’t have to be exactly the same. I wanted this brighter to accentuate the Milky Way. Shutter speed was 13 seconds, aperture f/2.8, ISO 6400.

You might be tempted to lengthen your shutter speed a lot on the premise that you are using a tripod. After all, that would seem like a good way to reduce your ISO to control digital noise and also to use a smaller aperture so you don’t have such a narrow depth of field. Don’t do it!

The stars in the sky are moving (okay, it is really the earth’s rotation, but they appear to be moving across the sky). If you lengthen your shutter speed too much, the stars will have little trails which appear as a blur in your shot. You may not see it until you get the pictures home and look at them on the computer screen, but it will be there and will ruin the shot.

Big Bend National Park, Texas. Look closely at this picture and you will see little star trails. This was the result of using a longer shutter speed than I mentioned above. Shutter speed 165 seconds, aperture: f/4.0, ISO 1600.

For more in night photography exposure, please read Tips for Getting Proper Exposure for Night Photography.

Picking a Subject for Night Photography

Now that you have the right gear and know how to expose your photos at night, you have to pick a good subject for night photography. For the most part, that is no different than what you do during the day. A good subject is a good subject. Still, things will look different at night.

Let me introduce you to some of the things I like to photograph at night. Hopefully, these will give you some ideas, which you can take in your own directions.

The Night Sky

If you are out in the countryside, you need nothing more than a clear night to get a great photo. Moonless, clear nights are the best. If you can happen to catch the Milky Way (usually possible from March through October, and best from May to September), all the better.

Check out an app called Star Walk 2 to help you get a handle on the timing of these things. If you can add an interesting foreground to the shot, even better.

Museums and Public Buildings

The Louvre, Paris. I was forced to hand-hold this shot (it was taken from inside the Louvre), so I really had to crank the ISO and open up the aperture. Shutter speed 1/8th of a second, aperture f/4.0, ISO 3200.

Well-lit buildings are an obvious choice for a nighttime subject. You almost can’t go wrong here. Although the concept is obvious, when executed well the result can still be great. You can also use this as a starting point for your night photography. You will have additional ideas as you stand there waiting for your pictures to expose.

Fountains

Buckingham Fountain, Chicago – Exposure: shutter speed 10 seconds, aperture f/18, ISO 100.

Perhaps my favorite nighttime subjects are fountains. Many times they are lit with different colors as well, adding additional interest. The long shutter speeds you use at night make the fountain appear to be flowing.

Bridges

Brooklyn Bridge, New York – Exposure: shutter speed 15 seconds, aperture f/11, ISO 200.

It seems like every city or town has a bridge. It may not be the Golden Gate Bridge, but there will likely be a bridge and it will be well lit at night, which makes it an interesting subject. Plus the long exposure time you use for night photography will cause the water under the bridge to blur, and the traffic to appear as streaking lights.

Streetlights

Pay close attention to streetlights when you are doing night photography. They can be useful in a lot of different contexts. They can add a point of interest to it otherwise blank area of the picture. If there are multiple lights, they can create a nice leading line into your picture.

Washington, D.C. For this shot, I wanted the twinkle or starburst effect from the streetlights, so I used a smaller aperture. Exposure: shutter speed 8 seconds, aperture f/16, ISO 800.

Car Light Trails

Dallas, Texas – Exposure: shutter speed 20 seconds, aperture f/16, ISO 100.

A really fun thing to include in your night photos is streaking light trails from moving cars. These are created when a car or other vehicle drives through the frame while you have the shutter open. The camera picks up the lights, but since the car has gone all the way through the frame while you had the shutter open, it shows up in your picture as streaks of lights.

Try to time your pictures so that vehicles move all the way across the frame while you have the shutter open. Read: How to Create Dynamic Photos of Car Light Trails for more tips on this technique.

Reflections

Reflections in London, U.K. – Exposure: shutter speed 1.3 seconds, aperture f/8, ISO 200.

A benefit of the longer shutter speeds you will be using at night is that reflections show up better on the surfaces of water. This is obviously true on ponds and lakes. But it is also true for puddles. After a rain can be a great time for night photography.

Overlooks and Vistas

Let’s end with overlooks and vistas. Some of the best night photography I have ever seen are nighttime views of cities. You can often get great skyline shots. Be careful though – a great view often does not translate into a great picture. Make sure you have an interesting foreground and/or a strong center of interest in the picture.

New York City from the Manhattan Bridge – Exposure: shutter speed 10 seconds, aperture f/8, ISO 200.

When picking subjects for night photography, it is important to note that things will not look the same to the camera as they do to you. Take some test shots whenever possible. If the idea of a long exposure test shot seems tedious due to the wait time, crank up the ISO for purposes of your tests which will allow you to use a short shutter speed. When you go to take the final picture you can reduce the ISO and increase the shutter speed by a corresponding amount.

Nashville via drone – Exposure: shutter speed ½ a second, aperture f/5.6, ISO 310.

Focusing

One final difficulty you will face in night photography is that it is often tricky to focus your camera. That is because most cameras focus by detecting contrast. If the scene is too dark, there is no contrast for the camera to pick up. There are a few things you can do to get your camera to focus though.

The first is to focus on a bright light in the picture. A streetlight works well for this. Try focusing on the edge of the light (between the bright part and the black background), which will give you the necessary contrast. Be sure you are focusing the same distance away as where want your final picture to be focused. Once you have the focus set, recompose your picture and press the shutter button to take the picture.

U.S. Capitol, Washington D.C. – Exposure: shutter speed 30 seconds, aperture f/16, ISO 400.

Another trick to allow you to use your autofocus is to break out the flashlight and shine it on the thing that you want your camera to focus on. If it is close enough, the flashlight should provide sufficient light for your camera to focus.

Finally, if none of that works, you will need to manually focus your lens. Just put the camera in Live View and look at the LCD as you compose the picture (zooming in if possible) to see if your picture is in focus.

Henry Street, New York – Exposure: shutter speed 1/13th second, aperture f/5.6, ISO 3200.

Processing Your Night Photos

You can make your night photos look a lot better with a minor amount of post-processing. Of course, given all the different types of night shots you may face, giving specific editing advice here is difficult. Still, there are a few general things you might want to consider.

Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. Another benefit of night photography is that you get to take pictures of memorials without any people in your shot. Exposure: shutter speed 6 seconds, aperture f/11, ISO 200.

Highlights

The first thing to consider is how to handle the highlights. Given the nature of night photography, you are doing to be dealing with some really dark areas, and some really bright areas. Many times those highlights will be slightly blown out. Even if they aren’t completely blown out, they are still bright enough that they would look better toned down a bit.

It wasn’t too long ago that this might have required using HDR (high dynamic range) software, but not anymore. Most RAW editors can bring back the highlights a bit (assuming you’ve’ shot in RAW format).

If you use Lightroom or Photoshop (Adobe Camera Raw or ACR), all you need to do is find the Highlights slider and pull it to the left a bit. That will decrease those highlights. As an added benefit, it will often make those same highlights appear a bit more colorful.

Westminster Bridge, London. Here I used a 5-second exposure to capture the lights of the bus passing by. Shutter speed 5 seconds, aperture f/8, ISO 200.

Shadows and Blacks

Now you have to deal with the dark areas of your photo. There will be parts you want to brighten, but at the same time, you should allow the darkest parts of the photo to go pure black. There is no point in attempting to preserve detail in a black sky.

To accomplish both of these goals, I have another quick move for you. Pull up on the Shadows slider, and then pull down on the Blacks slider. Areas of detail you want brighter will benefit from the increase in the Shadows, but you will maintain contrast by pushing down the Blacks.

Salt Lake City, Utah. In this shot, I needed a wide depth of field to keep both the fountain in the foreground and the Tabernacle building in the background sharp. I used a long exposure, which also created a flowing effect to the water, but I still had to raise the ISO a bit. Shutter speed 6 seconds, aperture f/16, ISO 400.

Sharpening

Sharpen your night photos the same as you would any others, but you will likely need to deal with digital noise more than you are used to. If the whole picture is noisy, then give it a global noise reduction. In Lightroom and ACR, there is a Noise Reduction section in the Detail panel, and you just pull up on the Luminance slider to the right.

You might just need to reduce noise in specific sections of your photo though. Noise often manifests itself in the darkest areas of your image. In that case, apply a local adjustment. If you are using Lightroom or ACR, use the Adjustment Brush, paint where you want the noise decreased, and increase the Noise slider. That should take care of it.

You have to watch noise reduction though. Applying too much of it will reduce detail in your photo. That’s why you don’t want to apply a global adjustment if you don’t have to. If you have a serious noise problem and want to fix it without sacrificing detail, there are some plug-ins that are truly wonderful. I use Noiseware and I am often shocked at what a good job it does of reducing noise but preserving detail. Other good products are Noise Ninja and Dfine by Nik.

The Golden Gate Bridge from the Sausalito side – Exposure: shutter speed 30 seconds, aperture f/6.3, ISO 200.

Read more on noise reduction in my article here: Good, Better, and Best Noise Reduction Techniques

Getting Started with Night Photography

Night photography is a great way to get really interesting and unusual pictures. It is also a great time to go shoot since it is not during business hours (you’ll be off work) and others will be asleep (notably spouses and children).

Hopefully, this guide will help you get started with night photography. As you get ready for your next outing, just remember a few things:

• The only additional items that are necessary for night photography are a tripod and remote shutter release. Some other helpful items are a flashlight, a lens hood, and an extra battery.
• For exposure, start with moderate ISO (around 400) and aperture (around f/5.6-8) and see where that puts your shutter speed. Adjust from there with an eye toward getting the shutter speed (exposure time) you want.
• Pick a subject that lends itself to night photography. Remember that things look very different at night, so take some test shots.
• Focus your camera by finding or creating areas of contrast and setting the autofocus on those areas. When necessary, switch to manual focus.
• When you get home, edit your images as you wish, but you might try decreasing the Highlights, increasing the Shadows, and pulling down the Blacks slightly.

If you have these things straight, you should end up with some impressive night photos. Good luck!

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