Night Photography

Another area to experiment and enjoy in photography is taking pictures at night. This is totally in contrast to taking pictures during daylight. You have the potentials of daylight, perception of colors and you have many options to change settings in camera and click your desired pictures. At night you have less lighting, each location is different due to presence of different kinds of lights like neon, incandescent, halogen lights etc.

It varies much when you prefer taking pictures indoor using studio lights and taking pictures with available lights outdoor at night.

A photographer needs to be cautious and careful in using settings while taking pictures at night. Generally many photographers use long exposures and don't use flash while taking pictures at night. Exposures ranging from f/8 to f/16 give nice results. Using Tripods will prevent shaking and using self-timers or remote triggers will help to get best results. Several latest DSLR's now have nice features to click night time pictures in Auto mode and Night Mode.

Click on each picture to see in large format

I took this picture from Skydeck, Chicago showing part of city at night time. Got satisfied results with ISO at 1600 and applying white balance in Auto mode. Focal length was set to 18mm.

Applied quick firing technique on this picture. Instead of taking long exposure, I was banking on quick shot to capture minimum light trails of moving objects. Reflective lights within the cross-walk bridge and outdoor street lights differed in luminous levels but gave good balanced result.

With Low ISO setting and fixing focal length at 65mm, I took this picture after 45 minutes of sunset. Looks like Dusk shot but I took this picture at night time.

Another shot I clicked after sunset and at night time before it got complete dark. The reflective colors in sky are vibrant and the land features formed silhouette pattern. Exposure time was 1/125 seconds.

When it comes to night time photography Fireworks pictures become a must category to experiment. Long Exposures and low ISO with right settings gives you nice artistic results while taking pictures of Fireworks. Exposure time for this shot was for 8 seconds.

I used  External Flash while taking this picture going against the rule. Wanted to capture full balloon and had to frame the shot from distance.

Another category under Night Time Photography is Festival Lights. With no Flash and setting low ISO you get good shots when clicked using tripods.  I took this shot to show contrast of bright street lights when compared to small festival lights decorated .

Picture of a Indoor decoration and I have not used Flash while taking this shot. With available source of light, I carefully framed this picture to get dramatic results in soft tones. f-stop was at 4.

Truly this picture was taken after 1 hour of sunset when moon was in nice radiance. People were celebrating under lights in shed and vegetation was fully grown in backdrop. ISO setting was at 1600 and f-stop was set to 5.6

Now can you tell me this picture was clicked at night time or daytime? It was indoor under lights and at dusk time.

Another street shot at night time. Wanted to capture the street lights and reflective lights on walls.

Structural picture at night time. Lights reflecting only at top of the building and at bottom. Pitch black night backdrop adds nice contrast to building reflecting lights at night time. f-stop was at 4 and ISO at 1600.