The long exposure photography technique, allows you to obtain truly impressive results when photographing night landscapes. Although mastering it requires many attempts and carefully studying all the necessary settings and requirements. Today we show you how to photos long exposure at night.
The necessary steps are not few, but without doubt They will bring you quite close to perfection in this photographic technique. as special as it is complicated. In addition, it is necessary that your camera has a series of equally important settings. Although at first it can be quite a challenge, once you get the hang of it, You'll love taking pictures at night!
What is a long exposure photo?
In the world of photography, when The diaphragm opens for a few seconds in order to capture more light For your photos we are talking about long exposure photography. It is one of the preferred methods by professional photographers and lovers to achieve better snapshots, whether during nighttime hours or times of day when light is more limited.
Long exposures capture a longer section of time than in normal photographs taken with other techniques. Yes indeed, It is essential to have a tripod to take the photograph since that even the slightest movement could cause the photo to become blurry.
If you are just starting to experiment with your camera to take long exposure photos, We recommend that you do it at night. Although it is true that you can also get photos using this technique during the day, it will be easier to do so at night. Keep in mind that the best long exposure photos are those in which the protagonists are objects with moving lights. Don't worry if you don't find inspiration at first, you can explore photography magazines and websites to get ideas.
How to take long exposure photos at night?
Your camera must have aperture priority
The main thing with what you should tell your camera is with an S or TV mode, that is, what is known as opening priority. In essence, what aperture priority allows is to set from an exposure time previously determined by you, the aperture needed to take the photo.
In other words, the camera will adjust the diaphragm aperture depending on the exposure time of the image, all with the aim that the photograph is not overexposed or underexposed. Generally speaking, in most cameras, a couple of seconds is enough to achieve long position photographs.
Better not to use the flash
In a short exposure time the images taken with the flash de The camera looks much better, brighter and sharper. In cases of long exposure photography it is recommended not to use the flash since the position times are longer, and therefore this flash it would only cause a blurry image as a result.
Help yourself with a tripod
Using a tripod or support for your camera is an essential element to achieve a good long exposure photograph. As we already mentioned, any movement when taking the photograph could be the cause of it being blurry, and therefore the result is not what we are looking for.
Noise must be carefully controlled
The noise in an image is that alteration in it that makes the image have a more pixelated appearance. At long exposure times, the image noise will be greater, as occurs in the case of long exposure photographs at night. One of the possible solutions is activate automatic brightness reduction on your camera. Likewise, the ISO setting should be kept as low as possible.
The RAW format is the most recommended
Cameras that have the ability to save your photo in RAW format will allow these to be edited later, without affecting the quality of the final result. It must be taken into account that the vast majority of cameras, when taking night photography, find it difficult to achieve the appropriate white balance automatically, with reddish and bluish tints predominating.
Zoom is not recommended
As you zoom in on the image, you will shorten the aperture, thus decreasing the amount of light that affects, causing higher ISO values during automatic exposure. This is not recommended in more compact cameras, mainly in which the lens has a zoom.
What settings to make on your camera?
Before taking a long exposure photograph it is necessary to make some adjustments to the camera, for example:
Adjust the exposure time
As expected, the exposure time It will be determined by the conditions in which you are going to take the photograph. These will vary between shorter or longer if the lighting is higher or lower. You can try with one or two seconds and gradually increase until you find the right balance.
Turn off the image stabilizer
In photographs taken manually, the image stabilizer allows you to achieve sharp photographs, being completely the opposite when we use a tripod to take long exposure photographs. In these cases, the image stabilizer detects the movement of objects and in an attempt to achieve greater stabilization, the photographs come out blurry.
The low ISO
We recommend you Turn off auto ISO on your camera. To reduce noise in your photography, it is recommended to keep the ISO at the lowest values that your camera allows.
Keep the resolution as high as possible
The higher the image quality and the larger its size, the greater the margins you have to edit the photograph that you take with long exposure. All of this translates into greater freedom when editing the photograph, don't forget the RAW format.
And that's all for today! Let us know in the comments What do you think of these tricks for taking long exposure photos at night. Tell us what do you like about photography using this technique?