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Pixels After Dark: Shooting the Night
Shooting at night has obvious disadvantages and is arguably more difficult. But as with all things difficult, there are always positives. One of those is that controlling errant daylight is not an issue—it’s dark. Another is that there are fewer images around, so that your pictures have a chance of standing out from the crowd.
In this approximately ninety-minute presentation, Jeff Cables, who also photographed three separate Olympics, shares his many secrets and images. You will get tips and techniques on how to take the best night photos, giving guidance on camera settings, composite suggestions, editing techniques, best shooting times and more.
Comments
Can you shoot night photography in Aperture mode for example like the Vegas strip?
Yes you can. For this type of approach a tripod is definitely recommended, and either using the self timer that’s built into your camera, or if possible an external shutter release is advised to use. I’d start by setting my aperture to around F8 and start taking shots, stopping down the aperture in each subsequent shot so you may see which aperture yields the best results on your lens.
Thanks for the video, was VERY helpful. One thing, you mentioned trouble with taking pictures when there is unpreventable camera movement (ie from a bridge). Suggest trying cranking up the iso to get the same image faster (with some added noise). Take the image TONS of times, then open as layers into PS, auto-align layers, and average the layers. Averaging is a sort of post-process long exposure, which will average out the noise wonderfully. more pictures = less noise. I wrote a quick PS script to correctly change each layer's opacity easily:
//Average Layers
if (documents.length > 0){
var layersCount = activeDocument.layers.length;
if (layersCount > 1){
for (var i=0 ; i < layersCount ; i++) {
activeDocument.layers[i].opacity = (100 / (layersCount-i));
}
}else {alert ("You do not have more than one layer to average!");}
}else {alert ("You do not have an open document");}