Course Outline
Scope:
To provide basic night and dark sky photographic instruction.
Equipment Required:
DSLR Camera and lenses – 35mm or wider are preferable
Tripod – Standard tripod, Gorilla style or beanbag
Flashlight and/or headlamp
Wired or wireless remote shutter release (or self timer)
Course Outline:
Camera settings for night photography
How to focus at night
How to create car streaks
How to photograph the moon
Night compositions
Requirements:
Basic knowledge of photography and your camera
Enthusiasm!
Night Photography Tips & Tricks
Tripods are a necessity for photographing at night. Whether you are photographing in an urban environment, cityscapes, creating light streaks from automobiles in motion, photographing the night sky, the moon or any other night scenes, you cannot do so without some type of a tripod.
A good tripod is important. More often than not I have seen folks with large DSLR’s and heavy lenses on a $30 tripod they picked up at Wal-Mart. This is going to result in a very frustrating experience for you. Buying a decent tripod and tripod head is an investment that will pay you back for many years.
Wired or wireless remote shutter releases are another important tool. These days they’re a multitude of different ways to control your camera including apps on smartphones. In addition many of the newer DSLR’s now have built in functions that allow you to set longer timer and have intervalometer’s. Most allow you to set the timer interval and the number of shots you wish to take. You can also purchase external intervalometer’s. However they are more expensive than a standard remote shutter release.
A flashlight and/or a headlamp are another important consideration for night photography. A headlamp is the best since it allows you to keep your hands free. When you are hiking to a location at night it is important to see where you are going. It is also important to see properly when you are setting up your equipment.
Lenses
For night photography wide-angle lenses are the best choice. Anything up to 35mm is good. Wide-angle lenses with large apertures are the very best but it depends on your budget. Both Canon and Nikon make very good wide- angle lenses. Fish eye lenses are also fun to play with at night but are quite expensive.
Another important consideration is that if the lens you are using has some sort of Image Stabilization / Vibration Reduction, make sure you turn that off. It is not needed when your camera is on a tripod.
Focusing at Night
This is the most important part of achieving great shots at night and very possibly the most difficult piece of the puzzle.
Auto focus simply will not work for night sky or moon shots. For cityscapes and urban environments where there is lots of light, then AF works well for most of the shots. So before going any further, turn your lens to Manual Focus now if you are shooting the night sky or moon.
There is something known as Hyper Focal distance. This is where you will have the best range of focus. However most zoom lenses do not have this mark. Turning the lens to the infinity mark on a Canon lens will result in out of focus images. The Hyper Focal mark is a bit back from the Infinity mark.
One strategy is to focus your lens in the daylight using the Infinity mark and making sure the focus is perfect by taking some test shots and then use a piece of electrical tape to secure the lens focus ring into place. Electrical tape is better than duct tape since it will not leave any residue on your lens provided you remove it as soon as possible after your shoot. If this scares you too much thinking you will damage your lens in some way, then use one of the other tricks.
Live View
Most DSLR’s have Live View now. Many of the newer camera bodies also have live view zoom or the ability to zoom in live view. This is not zooming your lens but magnifying your image in live view. What you can do is zoom in on a star and then turn your focus ring until it is sharp. As always your lens must be in Manual focus. You will probably need to put your camera into Bulb mode in order to get enough light coming into the sensor.
Make sure after taking a few shots you check your focus in your images by using the magnification buttons on your camera. Do this often during your shoot.
Some Camera Settings
Photographing in an urban area or cityscapes you will want to set your f-stop to a minimum of f8. But this is not set in stone. This is where you want to experiment. Especially when you are shooting the night sky. In order to avoid star trails by having too long of a shutter speed you may have to open up your lens (larger opening, smaller f- stop) or increasing your ISO. If you have a lens that stops down to f2.8 then use it!
There is something known as the 500 rule for photographing the night sky. This is simply dividing 500 by the focal length of your lens. This will give you the amount of time your shutter should be opened before creating star trails.
Example:
24 mm Lens
500 / 24 = 20 Seconds of Exposure Time
ISO
Don’t be afraid to boost your ISO up. Most modern DSLR’s these days have far less noise at higher ISO’s than in previous years.
Car Trails
To achieve this you need a longer shutter speed. To get this lower your ISO, close down your aperture and then you should be able to get a decently long shutter. In an urban area you can get both the white streaks from the headlights and the red streaks from the tail-lights.
If you can find a curvy road somewhere in the country, especially on a hill, it can make for some interesting effects as well.
The Moon
Photographing the moon is not as easy as it sounds. There are two main reasons. First the moon is a long way away and to get a decent shot of it you need a long lens. Secondly you need to understand that the moon is a very bright object on a very dark background. So although your camera meter may tell you that a ½ second shutter is needed at f8, this is not true. Your result will be a white blob in the sky. You need a pretty quick shutter speed, perhaps 1/125th of a second or faster. Ignore what your camera meter is telling you and take some test shots. Then view them on your LCD screen to check exposure and focus. Speaking of focus you may get away with auto focus or you may need to use manual focus. Another good idea is to set your autofocus to only focus exactly in the middle of the screen. You don’t want the entire image in focus, just the moon.
One more point with photographing the moon. If you are using a long lens, this is where a good tripod and tripod head come into play. I have seen multiple times people with big lenses on a shaky tripod and the result is all blurry images.
Night Compositions
If you are standing in your back yard and point your camera up at the sky and take some shots, you might get a few stars but will your images be cool? Nope.
Some areas that work well for night sky compositions are lakes and ponds, trees and mountains. Also barns and silos are cool too. Items in the foreground always make for nice compositions. Scope out areas during the day when you can see and then go back at night.
Star Trails
If you want to try star trails then you need to be able to lock your shutter open. The absolute minimum time is 15 minutes. There are other ways to achieve star trails as well such as stacking images, but those involve more time in front of a computer.
For really good star trails 2 hours or more is ideal. I even suggest ¼ of the earth’s rotation or 6 hours is perfect. Make sure your batteries are fully charged however.
Some apps for your phone that are great for night sky photography!
Photopills - Only available for iOS (Apple) - $11.99
Stellarium - $3.99