Take Spectacular Nighttime Photos with Your Digital Camera - Part II

Night photos can take on a somewhat magical quality you may find lacking in normal daytime photography. Amazing night pictures certainly can attract attention. As the sun goes down, however, it becomes harder to capture images without the proper equipment and techniques. Thus, as was mentioned in Part I of this series, taking incredible nighttime photographs requires a lot of planning.

When your digital camera receives less light, it cannot absorb the surroundings as well in the resulting photographs. Some pictures may turn out too dark. Others can be too blurry. Your camera requires more time to absorb enough light to create an effective picture, so any shaking of the device will result in photographs lacking sharpness.

To compensate for the lack of lighting, here are several things you can do with most middle and high-end digital cameras to get the results you need. Part III of this series will continue with even more expert ideas.

* You may think that professional photographers take a large amount of time to set up a shot, perform complex calculations, talk about all sorts of topics such as f-stops, shoot one photograph that accurately represents their interpretation of a particular scene, and then leave.

While most of this may be true, the last part - only taking one photo - is far from it. Many, if not most, professional photographers commonly take a multitude of shots for every subject! Traditional photographers can go through rolls and rolls of film on a single shoot, and digital photographers may use gigabytes of memory.

Professionals know that no matter how well everything has been factored in when setting up a shot, 'stuff happens'. It is better to take time shooting a particular subject ten times and get one outstanding photograph than to take one or two photos that turn out blurry or dull.

Most photographers perform a trick called bracketing, where they intentionally adjust their camera settings in small increments in case their calculations were not precisely correct.

Heed this advice when taking photographs at night. If you have a particular subject you want to reproduce in digital form, don't rely on taking 'the one perfect shot', but take several photographs in case problems occur with the lighting, or lack thereof.

Remember, you're shooting digitally, which means you can later throw out all the bad photos in your camera's virtual 'trash can', and no one ever needs to know! I can't tell you how many times I've done this, especially when taking late-night shots of the Chicago cityscape in places I couldn't bring a tripod. I may shoot hundreds of shots and only keep a few dozen.

* If your digital camera has a special nighttime mode, study your manual and learn how to enable this feature. Perhaps your camera has a button or dial next to a graphic of a half-moon to signify this setting. This works well for some late-night situations.

* Forget about using the flash unless you purchase a high-quality accessory flash unit. Flash shoots a burst of light out of your camera and works most effectively when your subject is within a few feet. If your subject is a long way away, your small flash unit will never reach it effectively.

Nighttime photography requires a little extra work out of you and your digital camera. To prevent against mistakes and increase the chance of a spectacular shot, it may be necessary to take the same picture multiple times, adjusting your camera settings slightly to help ensure at least one picture will come out well. The digital camera manual must be studied, as many high-end cameras contain automatic features to help take better photos. And, a natural tendency most people have to use flash must be avoided. By heeding this advice, you can learn to take spectacular nighttime photos.

Look forward to article III in this series in the near future!

Copyright 2005 Andrew Malek.

Andrew Malek is the owner of the MalekTips computer and technology help site at http://www.malektips.com. Visit his digital camera page at http://malektips.com/camera/ for hundreds of more digital photography tips.

stock photography,
CNET News, CA - 12 hours ago
By Josh Lowensohn – June 24, 2008 11:17 AM PDT 1 comment Tuesday morning the New York Stock Exchange partnered with Google and CNBC to provide real-time ...
Managing images and attachments NetworkWorld.com
all 2 news articles

Getty Images and Flickr Announce Exclusive Partnership to Offer ...
FOXBusiness - 12 hours ago
"This partnership is testimony to the Flickr community of photographers who have influenced the aesthetics of photography with authentic, creative and ...
Great Photo on Flickr? Getty Images Might Pay You For It New York Times
Yahoo Partners with Getty Images: Strategic Shift for Image Search? Seeking Alpha
Q&A: Jonathan Klein of Getty Images and Kakul Srivastava of Flickr Photo District News (subscription)
CNET News - SDA India Magazineall 35 news articles

Photography: New visions of a darkening world
Financial Times, UK - 16 hours ago
In his manifesto Painting Photography Film, the Bauhaus professor identified photography as the ultimate modern medium. The handheld camera heralded a sense ...

ZDNet
Anyone bothering to teach 35mm photography classes anymore?
ZDNet - 23 hours ago
Photography used to be the junior or senior elective of choice, along with pottery (or journalism for the really studious). Yet the darkroom even at little ...

SI.com
Can anyone beat these UCLA dancers? :: Bruce Yeung/Yeung Photography
SI.com - 17 hours ago
Why limit yourself to comparing USC song girls to UCLA dancers when you can compare all the best this fine country has to offer to the side-line beauties ...

Fashion, food, photography kick off Fair
Columbus Telegram, NE - 16 hours ago
... Fair got under way Monday with 4-H entries and judging in photography, Favorite Food Revue, home environment, clothing construction and Fashion Revue. ...

Digital Photography News
Shuttertalk, Australia - 3 hours ago
Hi everyone,i need help. There is somthing wrong with my IBM-T61 Laptop. I used to click Fn+F4 to make it sleeping and press any key to wake it up. ...

Extreme vacation photography
Macworld, CA - Jul 7, 2008
Underwater photography offers a fresh, colorful array of subjects that are surprisingly accessible—no fancy camera required. Get the Right Gear Many camera ...

Stock Photography site MostPhoto.com wants social networking to ...
The Industry Standard, CA - 12 hours ago
Mostphotos.com is aiming to change the online micro-stock photography market by combining two tiresome traditions of web 2.0, social networking and ...

Digital Photography News
Shuttertalk, Australia - 17 hours ago
I'm not about to quit my day job, but it's nice to be able to buy a lens guilt-free knowing it was paid for by my photography rather than my 9-5 job. ...

Wind Chimes and more...

Windchimes for great gifts!

Picture Framing for Photographers - Part 2