Night Photography

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Night Photography
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Night Photography

• The first rule of night photography use manual
  mode.
• Camera meters fail at very low light levels, so
  any non-manual mode, including Av, will result in
  bad exposure.
• Focus Autofocus usually fails or is inaccurate
  in very low light conditions. Ways to focus
  accurately
• Use manual focus on the lens and use the distance
  window. Objects like faraway hills or stars are
  effectively infinite distance away.
• Shine a light on your subject, autofocus, then
  turn off the light and take the image.
• Focus while there is still light, setting the
  lens for later.
• Use live view (or equivalent feature) with
  magnification to focus

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Night Photography

• RAW mode is good.
• .jpg discards image information, reducing the
  effectiveness of editing.
• White balance varies widely at night, especially
  if there is light pollution. If you are only able
  to shoot .jpg, experiment with different white
  balances.
• Exposure mistakes are common, and RAW mode allows
  you to brighten the exposure significantly or
  recover blown highlights.

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• Crazy white balance. I didnt shoot this in RAW,
  so I cant get natural colors. Also, the
  highlights on the water could have been recovered
  with RAW editing.

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General Astronomy Information

• Astronomy ? Astrology
• The Earth rotates about an axis through the
  North and South Poles.
• Polaris, the North Star, lies nearly but not
  exactly on this axis.
• To an observer on Earth, the stars appear to
  rotate about the North Star, rising in the east
  and setting in the west.
• The magnetic North Pole lies under northern
  Canada, so compasses dont actually point in the
  same direction as the North Star.

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General Astronomy Information

• The moon has a huge effect on night photography.
• A full moon brightens the sky, making it
  impossible to see dim stars.
• A full moon can light up the landscape at night.
• New moon no moon visible, and the most stars
  are visible at this point in time.

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General Astronomy Information

• Sky darkness is key. Factors
• Light pollutioncities spew orange light into
  the skies, blotting out the stars.
• Sunrise and sunset. Depending on your location,
  the sky can be bright up to 2 hours before
  sunrise/after sunset.
• Moon phase, rise/set times
• You can check this information at several
  websites
• http//aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.php
• Google Earth is also incredibly useful.

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Night Photography

• How to get long exposures
• Bulb or B mode takes an image for as long as
  the shutter button is held down.
• Use a remote. Every camera manufacturer makes
  ones, designs are available online to build your
  own, and cheap ones are available on ebay for
  10.
• Flip the switch, wait for a while, flip the
  switch. Your photo is done.
• Do a test exposure before committing to an hour
  (or more).
• Try a 30 exposure at your highest ISO and
  largest aperture (in order to let in as much
  light as possible in a short amount of time) to
  check exposure, histogram, focus, framing, level
  horizon, etc.

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Test exposure 30 sec, ISO 1600, f/2.8
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Final exposure 45 min, ISO 200, f/4.0
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Night Photography

• Common problems
• Battery death. A freshly charged battery lasts
  1-3 hours, depending on the camera, temperature,
  and ISO.
• Noise. During long exposures, the sensor heats
  up, and you get thermal noise. This is more of a
  problem in hot weather.
• Dark frame subtraction can reduce this. Some
  cameras will take a dark frame as soon as you
  finish an exposure, and then subtract it. 1 hr
  exposure 1 hr dark frame 2 hrs gt battery
  death? bad.
• If you battery dies during the dark frame
  subtraction, then the photo is lost.
• Furthermore, Ive found that in-camera dark
  frame subtraction is not always effective.
• Taking a second exposure with the lens cap on
  and then subtracting the dark frame from the
  light frame in Photoshop is probably better.

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Night Photography

• Common problems
• Light pollution light from cities is reflected
  off clouds and dust in the air, creating bright
  areas where no stars are visible.
• Because of this, the best astronomy conditions
  are far from cities.

Source lighthalo on photography-on-the.net
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Night Photography

• More problems
• Condensation. If your lens surface is colder
  than the air, and the humidity is high enough,
  water will condense on your camera, totally
  fogging it.
• During night exposures, this most commonly
  occurs near sunrise.
• You can avoid this by putting a foot-warmer-type
  heating pad on the lens to keep it warm.

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Night Photography

• More problems
• Airplanes fly across the frame and make blinky
  trails. These arent shooting stars.
• Solution use a smaller aperture or take the
  photo when few planes are flying (1-5 AM)

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Night Photography

• General tips
• An interesting foreground gives the photo
  context and makes it much more interesting.

Source lighthalo on photography-on-the.net
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Night Photography

• General tips
• Light painting can bring out detail in a shadow
  area.
• Use a flashlight, etc. to paint light onto an
  object.

Source floris on fredmiranda.net
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Night Photography

• General tips
• Light painting can bring out detail in a shadow
  area.
• Use a flashlight, etc. to paint light onto an
  object.

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Night Photography

• General tips
• Stuff to bring
• Tripod. It holds your camera steady.
• Remote. So you dont have to hold the button
  down for an hour.
• Glowsticks. I frequently set up my camera and
  tripod and then leave it for a couple hours. Its
  much easier to find it in the dark if it is
  glowing.
• Compass. Although it doesnt point directly
  toward the North Star, its pretty close, and
  helps locate the North Star.
• Warm clothes. If youre sitting outdoors at
  night for hours on end, you might get cold.
  Freezing next to your camera sucks.
• Flashlight/headlamp. Trying to set up gear in
  the dark sucks.
• Chair. Because sitting on wet grass or standing
  for hours sucks.

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Stacking

• After 30 seconds to a minute, a star will no
  longer become brighter because its location has
  changed. Instead, it forms a trail across the
  image.
• Non-moving objects (like empty sky), on the other
  hand, becomes brighter as long as you expose the
  image.
• Instead of taking one long exposure, you can take
  many short exposures, a technique called
  stacking.
• This increases contrast between the stars and the
  sky and reduces blown highlights from lights,
  light pollution, etc.
• Instead of taking 1 60-minute exposure, you could
  do 60 1-minute exposures, 12 5-minute exposures,
  etc. and then stack them in Photoshop into one
  exposure.

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1 15-minute exposure
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30 1-minute exposures stacked
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Timelapse

• You can take a large number of photos at
  intervals and then play them in rapid succession,
  a technique called timelapse.
• If you play images at 24-30 frames per second, it
  looks like real video.

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Timelapse

• Tips
• Manual everything!
• If the camera refocuses in every photo, the video
  will bounce around, flicker, and have random
  blurry frames.
• If you use auto white balance, the white balance
  will change throughout the video, causing abrupt
  changes in color.
• The camera must be totally still! Dont bump it!
• Be careful of wind. If necessary, weigh down your
  tripod or dont extend it to the max height.
• Use an intervalometer to control the camera.
• Pushing the button every 5 seconds for an hour is
  tiring, tedious, and likely to introduce camera
  movement.
• Canon cameras can be controlled from a computer
  via Remote Capture.
• Cheap remotes can be found on ebay for 1/3 the
  cost of manufacturer-brand ones.

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Timelapse

• Tips
• Chose an appropriate interval for the conditions.
• 3-8 seconds for clouds, depending on how fast the
  clouds are moving and how fast you want them to
  move in the video.
• 30 seconds to 2 minutes for stars
• If your battery lasts 2 hours, then 1 image per
  minute 120 photos 4 seconds of video
• Dont worry about high ISO speeds.
• When viewing 30 frames per second, graininess
  isnt noticed.
• Shoot RAW whenever possible
• White balance and lighting conditions usually
  change throughout a scene, and RAW permits more
  editing flexibility.

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