CameraCrazy

Just because the sun has gone for another day, doesn’t mean your camera should!

When I first started photography, I packed up the camera and went home whenever it got dark. Little did I know I was missing one of the most exciting times for taking pictures. Dusk, low light, and night photography offer some of the best dramatic lighting and creative opportunities. In this post I’ll offer a couple suggestions that opened up the night for me.

The first thing I tried was a few long exposures and creating car light trails. A good sturdy tripod is a must-have for this type of shot as exposure times are going to extend into the seconds.

If your camera supports mirror lock up, enable it as this will help reduce the vibrations caused by mirror slap. For those of you unfamiliar with how this function works, when mirror lock up is enabled, pressing the shutter will move the mirror box up out of the way, but will not open the shutter. By pressing the shutter release a second time, the shutter opens and the photo is taken. It’s a good idea to wait a couple of seconds before actually releasing the shutter, so keep this delay in mind when you’re taking the picture.

Another useful tool to have is a remote release. If you don’t have a remote release, you might try switching to the timed release setting on your camera. We’re trying to keep the camera as stable as possible, so avoid stabbing the shutter release with your finger if at all possible.

Personally, dusk is my favorite time of day for these shots. At dusk, there’s just enough light to provide a color in the sky (so that it’s not pure black), but it’s usually dark enough that street and car lights are on. When picking a location, I find that two options work best: close up at street level or a wider angle from high up on a hill or a bridge.

When shooting at street level, I tend to be on the sidewalk right next to the road kneeling at around the height of the car’s headlight. Be careful when setting up as you don’t want to be hit by a car! For exposure times, it will vary depending on the light conditions and the speed of the cars, but I try to time it so that cars will pass either three quarters or fully through the frame. Also, try to time it so that there’s not a large clump of cars passing by all at once. When a lot of cars pass through the shot all at once, the light trails that they create tend to be extremely bright, blown out, and lose detail.

When shooting from higher up on a bridge, try to find a section of road that meanders and has a few lanes of traffic, this way, the light trails will snake through the shot and be more interesting than a straight stretch of road. Also, make sure the shutter is open long enough so that the trails are continuous from the point they enter to the point they leave the frame. When creating light trail shots, we often get focused on creating the trails and ignore the backgrounds of our shots. Remember that the light trails enhance the background and vice versa. If you can find a location overlooking the city, a park, mountain range, or even an interesting building it will increase the quality of your picture immensely.

Another low light photography idea is to wander around downtown or a street with lit shop signs around dusk. Again, the idea is to have a little bit of light in the sky but also to have building lights still lit up. These buildings or signs make some excellent subjects or backgrounds that provide interesting lighting.

Personally, I like taking people pictures using the glowing buildings as my backgrounds. For this type of shot, I meter for the background so that the background lights aren’t blown out and use fill flash to light my subject. I also like to either get low to the ground or up close and tight for these shots, look for unique angles and perspectives. Often, I find myself hand holding these shots so keeping up the shutter speed and using good shooting technique is important. Don’t be afraid to bump up the ISO, or find makeshift tripods such as bracing yourself against a wall on a bench.

Another interesting effect you can create is a starburst pattern around lights. There are several ways to create this effect including Photoshop or a star filter, but a simple method is to stop down your lens around its diffraction limit, usually around f16 or higher. At these apertures, you’ll get star patterns similar to the ones seen around the streetlights in the black and white city shot. The shape of the starburst will depend on the number and shape of the aperture blades in your lens.