Key Points for Nighttime Photography in the US

Nighttime Photography. To make nightscape photos look better, not only do we need to consider how to deal with the low-light environment, but also these several key points need to be noted:

1. Time

The best shooting time for nightscape is not after it gets completely dark, but shortly after the sun sets, the blue hour.

At this time, the sky appears dark blue and the ground also retains certain details, avoiding the effect of being pitch black.

Meanwhile, this period is also suitable for nightscape with portrait, showing the soft and romantic feeling of the evening.

2. Contrast

When shooting nightscape, we also need to pay attention to light and dark contrast. Strong lights and dim environment will form a obvious contrast, which is not only difficult to control the exposure, and the shooting effect is also rather mediocre, with the bright parts prone to overexposure and the dark parts lacking details.

This is why the blue hour is more suitable for nightscape shooting. If the sky has completely darkened, we can choose to shoot in the soft light area or look for a place with relatively uniform light, and try to avoid strong light and dark contrast.

A scene with uniform light has a better shooting effect

3. Post-processing

If the contrast and clarity of the photos shot during the day are pulled too high, there will be ghosting, the picture will become dirty, distorted, etc., while for nightscape photos, these two values can be appropriately increased, because they can make the night photos appear more textured and sharper.

Appropriate post-processing can make nightscape photos more textured

If it is after rain or in a place with more brilliant lights, the increase of contrast and clarity can make the photos have a more night feeling, and the lights and reflected lights will also be more pleasing to the eye.

4. Brightness

When shooting at night, a situation that often occurs is that due to the dim light in the environment, when we check the shot photos, we may think the exposure is okay, while in fact the photo may be very seriously underexposed.

So we need to check the photos in time after shooting and use the histogram to more accurately judge the exposure situation of the photos.

In addition to the exposure of the photos, we also need to pay attention to the focus problem. When there is insufficient light at night, it is also easy to have inaccurate focus.

5. Exposure time

If you want to shoot effects such as car tracks, then a relatively long exposure time is required, and then a tripod is indispensable.

When shooting at night, if conditions allow, try to bring a tripod with you. You never know when it can come in handy.

Long exposure is not only suitable for shooting car tracks and water flows, but also very suitable for shooting fog. If there happens to be a foggy night one day, everyone can try to shoot with long exposure, and there may be surprises.

This article comes from the WeChat public account: WeChat public account (ID: null), Author: AGER