You can use it to create some of the most stunning effects imaginable.īut it often does require a bit of extra post-processing work. Now, I love long exposure night photography. That way, your lens won’t hunt for focus, and you don’t have to worry about the focusing shifting between shots.ĭepending on what – and when – you’re shooting, you may need a neutral density filter to really lengthen that exposure.īut if your subject is sufficiently dark, you’ll be able to shoot exposures for a minute or more without filters of any kind. You’re bound to end up with blurry images, a lot of frustration, or both. Use Manual Focus for Perfect SharpnessĪnd focusing on the same subject at night while shooting a series of bracketed images is next to impossible. And make sure that you have at least one image that gives detailed shadows, and one image that gives detailed lights. So instead of just capturing three images, aim for five, or even seven. And overexposing might not address all of the shadow detail, because shadows at night are dark. Underexposing might still result in blown-out lights, because lights are, well, bright. You see, if you’re shooting cityscapes at night – a very common HDR night subject – then you’ll have deep shadows, not many midtones, and a mix of bright highlights (from the city lights). …it can get a little tricky, depending on the scene you’re shooting and the effect you’re after. Then you can adjust your shutter speed or your exposure compensation for a simple series of bracketed images.)īut while HDR night photography does require bracketing… (To do simple exposure bracketing, I recommend putting your camera in Manual mode or one of the Semi-automatic modes, such as Aperture Priority. Then you merge these multiple exposures for one beautifully-detailed image. It’s how you get such an impressive high dynamic range look: You take one photo that exposes for the highlights, one photo that exposes for the midtones, and one photo that exposes for the shadows. If you’ve done HDR photography before, you’ll know that exposure bracketing is a fundamental part of the HDR process. That’s the mantra of all HDR night photographers. Bracket Your Shots (and Don’t Be Afraid to Over-Bracket) Personally, I don’t like the self-timer, because it’s annoying to wait while it counts down.īut if you don’t mind the delay, then by all means, go for it! 3. If you’d prefer not to pay for a remote release, you do have the option of using your camera’s self-timer – either two seconds or ten seconds, depending on the sturdiness of your tripod. Now, remote releases don’t cost much, though make sure you buy a release that works with your camera model. This will increase as the sky gets darker.)Īs you’re probably aware, handholding and long shutter speeds really don’t mix – they’re a recipe for ultra-blurry, unusable images.īut pop your camera on a sturdy tripod, and you’ll capture more sharp images than you can handle! (Expect a starting shutter speed of around one second. Which means that you’ll be using long shutter speeds. Plus, there’s the second reason you need a tripod for HDR night photography: This ensures you always get the shot you’ve after, and that you don’t have to spend hours in Photoshop fixing small errors in your image. So if you’re in a pinch, you can try handholding, and merging algorithms might be able to work through it.īut it’s good practice to always keep your images perfectly aligned. One image might be taken slightly to the left of your subject, the other slightly to the right, etc.Īnd this can cause serious problems when you bring the images into an editing program and try to merge them.Ĭan editing programs handle a little bit of image misalignment? While capturing beautiful HDR night photography isn’t difficult, it is a pretty gear-intensive genre of photography.Īnd out of all the pieces of HDR gear, a tripod is the most critical.įirst, you do HDR photography by capturing several shots of the same scene, then blending them in post-production.īut if you’ve shot without a tripod, your HDR images won’t be aligned. Use a Tripod to Keep Your Photos Aligned (and Sharp) Create Advanced HDR Night Looks With Aurora HDR, Photomatix, and Moreġ. Do Basic Merging in a Simple Post-Processing Program (Such as Lightroom) Photograph in Busy Places for Ghost-Like Images Include Lights in the Frame for Cool Effects Shoot During the Blue Hour for Colorful HDR Night Photography Always Shoot With a Remote Shutter Release
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