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Take Spectacular Nighttime Photos With Your Digital Camera -
By Andrew Malek, Fri Dec 9th
Night photos can take on a somewhat magical quality you may findlacking in normal daytime photography. Amazing night picturescertainly can attract attention. As the sun goes down, however,it becomes harder to capture images without the proper equipmentand techniques. Thus, as was mentioned in Part I of this series,taking incredible nighttime photographs requires a lot ofplanning. When your digital camera receives less light, it cannot absorbthe surroundings as well in the resulting photographs. Somepictures may turn out too dark. Others can be too blurry. Yourcamera requires more time to absorb enough light to create aneffective picture, so any shaking of the device will result inphotographs lacking sharpness. To compensate for the lack of lighting, here are several thingsyou can do with most middle and high-end digital cameras to getthe results you need. Part III of this series will continue witheven more expert ideas.
* You may think that professional photographers take a largeamount of time to set up a shot, perform complex calculations,talk about all sorts of topics such as f-stops, shoot onephotograph that accurately represents their interpretation of aparticular scene, and then leave. While most of this may be true, the last part - only taking onephoto - is far from it. Many, if not most, professionalphotographers commonly take a multitude of shots for everysubject! Traditional photographers can go through rolls androlls of film on a single shoot, and digital photographers mayuse gigabytes of memory. Professionals know that no matter how well everything has beenfactored in when setting up a shot, 'stuff happens'. It isbetter to take time shooting a particular subject ten times andget one outstanding photograph than to take one or two photosthat turn out blurry or dull. Most photographers perform a trick called bracketing, where theyintentionally adjust their camera settings in small incrementsin case their calculations were not precisely correct. Heed this advice when taking photographs at night. If you have aparticular subject you want to reproduce in digital form, don'trely on taking 'the one perfect shot', but take severalphotographs in case problems occur with the lighting, or lackthereof. Remember, you're shooting digitally, which means you can laterthrow out all the bad photos in your camera's virtual 'trashcan', and no one ever needs to know! I can't tell you how manytimes I've done this, especially when taking late-night shots ofthe Chicago cityscape in places I couldn't bring a tripod. I mayshoot hundreds of shots and only keep a few dozen. * If your digital camera has a special nighttime mode, studyyour manual and learn how to enable this feature. Perhaps yourcamera has a button or dial next to a graphic of a half-moon tosignify this
setting. This works well for some late-nightsituations. * Forget about using the flash unless you purchase ahigh-quality accessory flash unit. Flash shoots a burst of lightout of your camera and works most effectively when your subjectis within a few feet. If your subject is a long way away, yoursmall flash unit will never reach it effectively. Nighttime photography requires a little extra work out of youand your digital camera. To prevent against mistakes andincrease the chance of a spectacular shot, it may be necessaryto take the same picture multiple times, adjusting your camerasettings slightly to help ensure at least one picture will comeout well. The digital camera manual must be studied, as manyhigh-end cameras contain automatic features to help take betterphotos. And, a natural tendency most people have to use flashmust be avoided. By heeding this advice, you can learn to takespectacular nighttime photos. Look forward to article III in this series in the near future! Copyright 2005 Andrew Malek. About the author:Andrew Malek is the owner of the MalekTips computer andtechnology help site at http://www.malektips.com . Visit hisdigital camera page at http://malektips.com/camera/ for hundredsof more digital photography tips.
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