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Photographing at night. Night photography

Having received new camera, you should take some time to customize it to suit your individual needs. This is also true when preparing for night photography.

The camera should be set up to maximize your chances of getting a good shot, and in this article you'll find examples of settings specifically designed to help night photographers unleash their potential.

Armed with this knowledge, you can safely go to the settings menu of your camera. The tips in this article will save you time, streamline your workflow, and reduce the chance of making mistakes.

Night Scene: Set it and forget it

If you have owned a camera for some time, then you are most likely already familiar with the menus used to control and configure this marvel of modern technology. If not, then you will have to spend some time reading the instructions to master the menu items and tabs.

Menu organization on modern digital reflex cameras ah can be quite complex, involving various options for every conceivable parameter. But don't worry - you'll probably never use about 90% of these options, so most of them can be left at their defaults.

Night shooting: Everything ingenious is simple!

"Don't make it harder!" This phrase should become your mantra.

The first step in setting up a newly purchased digital camera should be setting the right time and place. Subsequently, this information, along with many other camera settings, will be embedded in the EXIF metadata of your images. Correct setting and displaying this information is very important for managing the photos in your library - all files will be displayed in chronological order. For example, I always include the camera model, date, and source file format in the image name.

That way, just by looking at the title of a photo, I can quickly tell which camera it was taken with, when, and what was the original aspect ratio. I also include copyright information in EXIF, including my name and address. Email. This ensures that your name and contact information is available to anyone who may wish to purchase or use one of your images, and is proof of your authorship.

In the image above you can see an example of the information stored in files digital cameras. It includes exposure data, metering mode, lens used, and other useful data.

Be sure to format the memory card in the camera before shooting. It is advisable to do this every time before shooting. Make sure you format the card on the camera and not on a computer, tablet, or other device, as this ensures data integrity and helps prevent errors when images are written to the card. Be very careful at this stage - do not forget to save all the images on the card before formatting it.

Setting up the camera for night photography

After completing the initial steps listed above, it's time to set up the camera for shooting. To do this, you will need to decide on your preferences, based on what you are going to shoot, how to edit the resulting image, as well as a number of other important criteria. Below are examples of the most important settings used for night photography.

Selecting a shooting mode

Almost all modern digital SLR cameras have a shooting mode dial that allows you to select one of the modes, the main of which are Manual (M), Aperture Priority (A or AV), Shutter Priority (S or TV), Program (P).

You can control exposure by changing one of three parameters: aperture, shutter speed, or ISO sensitivity. With considerable experience with fully manual film cameras, I set up my DSLR cameras in much the same way as their predecessors, and almost always work in manual mode. Manual mode allows you to control the amount of light entering the camera, giving you access to all .

Sometimes I use Aperture Priority for night photography. In such cases, I set the aperture value, for example, f / 8, and the shutter speed for correct exposure camera picks up. Shutter Priority mode and Program mode for shooting at night are of little use, so it makes no sense to consider them.

So, having decided that the optimal mode for shooting at night is Manual, we move on.

Adjusting the image quality

Given the presence in the night photograph a large number light sources, it is best to shoot in RAW. Shooting in this format has several advantages, which are discussed below.

RAW gives you complete control over the appearance of your images in post-processing, allowing you to work with white balance and color balance. In JPEG or TIFF, unlike RAW, the colors are "baked" into the file, which leaves the photographer with very little room for color manipulation.

The dynamic range of RAW images is significantly higher than that of JPEGs. RAW uses up to 16 bits of data for each of the RGB channels. This makes the images more contrasty. JPEG uses only eight bits of data for each of the red, green, and blue channels, which is equivalent to about seventeen million different colors. This figure may seem impressive, but even with so many colors available, you can end up with stripes and other unwanted artifacts in your photo.

The advantages of JPEG include a smaller file size, which saves space on the memory card. However, size reduction is known to be achieved at the expense of image compression, which can lead to unwanted artifacts that are visible on closer inspection. If you want to shoot in JPEG, choose the highest quality available to minimize the chance of compression artifacts.

RAW can be shot without compression, which leads to large image file sizes (especially for cameras with a resolution of more than 24 megapixels). When shooting in RAW, compression algorithms can also be used that reduce the file size, for example, the lossless compressed RAW format, choosing which you will save space on the memory card and will not see any compression artifacts in the photo. This option is most suitable for photography at night.

Choosing a Color Space

I'm using the S-RGB color space set by default on the camera. Adobe RGB theoretically has a larger color range, but it's also more difficult to process. So S-RGB is a sure bet.

Selecting a Metering Mode

Your camera's built-in exposure meter probably has several different modes for shooting in different lighting conditions, such as Matrix (Evaluative), Center-weighted, and Spot metering.

For shooting at night, Matrix (Evaluative) is the most suitable, as it gives more accurate results in most situations that you may encounter when shooting at night.

white balance

If you shoot in RAW, the white balance settings may not bother you - they are easy to change when editing the image.

By the way, this is another argument in favor of shooting in RAW - after all, if you set the white balance incorrectly when shooting in JPEG or TIFF, you risk irreparably ruining the photo.

Focus mode

This setting depends on whether you are using a manual or auto focus lens. When using an autofocus lens, it is better to select the single focus mode (AF-S or One Shot AF).

For night photography, I usually use the following sequence: -2EV, -1EV, 0EV, +1EV, +2EV . Thus, I get 5 frames with a 4-stop exposure range.

virtual horizon

If your camera has a function available, use it. It can be extremely handy for leveling the horizon in low light conditions where you don't have a clear view of the horizon line.

Excerpt

Most night photos are taken at shutter speeds between 1 and 10 seconds, although almost all modern cameras allow you to set shutter speeds up to 30 seconds. If you need a slower shutter speed, set your camera to Bulb mode and use the cable release or remote remote control to keep the shutter button pressed for as long as necessary.

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Night photography- it's not easy, but it can be one of the ways to create artistic shots. It is not only landscapes that can be effectively shot at night. Portrait photos taken in the moonlight look mysterious, unusual. Even ordinary, familiar things that do not arouse any interest during the day can become fascinating. To achieve a good result, you need a camera and a tripod.

reflex camera

Don't slow your shutter speed too much. "Overexposed" photos will not save even Photoshop. Take at least three shots - darker and lighter, then choose the best one. Photographing at night as an art form is described in the book Night and Evening Photography by Lee Frost.

39676 Improving knowledge 0

Night is an attractive and mysterious time of day. The night world becomes intriguing and alluring. Photos taken in the evening and at night look unusual: the light of the moon and electric lamps transforms the landscape. The only thing left for the photographer is to capture it artistically and technically competently. That is why night photography is so interesting. However, there are many technical nuances that you need to know in order to get acceptable photos. So, first things first.

Shooting conditions at night

What is special about the night for a photographer? First of all, an insufficient amount of light does not allow the camera to focus and distinguish objects normally. There is an exit. You can use cameras that do not make too much noise when increasing the ISO. These are mostly full-frame DSLRs. Such a camera is an expensive pleasure that not everyone can afford. In principle, you can use any camera, but cheaper models will have poorer quality pictures.

For night photography, the lens is also important. The larger the aperture of the lens, the brighter the picture will be, and accordingly, it will be easier for the camera to focus. It is worth noting that budget lenses at the maximum aperture (about f / 3.5) at the edges of the frame, they begin to soap the picture. In expensive optics, such a flaw is less common and not so pronounced.

If you are the owner of a compact with fixed optics, do not despair. Of course, you won’t be able to take pictures of the starry sky, but almost any modern camera is suitable for photographing a night city or landscapes.

Since the camera receives little information about the light at night, better pictures save in RAW format. This will allow you to extract much more detail from the images during processing.

Where can you take pictures at night?

What can be photographed at night? It depends on the imagination of the photographer and the possible places where you can get out. At night, you can photograph everything the same as during the day, only everything will look different. The streets of the city will consist of silhouettes of houses with rare detail in the light of lanterns. The paths of the parks will become romantic and slightly frightening.

Features of shooting at night

Night shooting can be conditionally divided into two methods of photography: with a long exposure and a tripod, and with a short exposure, but with the use of additional light sources.

In order to get as much detail of the environment as possible, you need to open the aperture. This will increase the luminous flux, and the light will hit the matrix with greater intensity. If the interest of the photographer is to convey only lines and points of light, then the aperture should be covered. Exposure is selected experimentally.

If you only need to transmit information about light sources, you should not bully the ISO. Better to slow down. In the event that you need to convey as many details as possible in the picture, and the shutter speed is already at the limit or its further increase will inevitably damage the frame due to the movement of objects, then an increased ISO value will help. But at the same time, do not forget that the ISO value above 400 units leads to a serious deterioration in the quality of the photo due to the appearance of noise. Here you have to choose what is more important. Sometimes the choice is whether to take a "noisy" shot or not to take a photo at all. Sometimes it pays to take a picture. You can deal with noise later in Photoshop.

At night, there is a problem with focusing. Clear pictures are obtained by focusing on contrasting and clear objects. It can be road markings or building windows. Do not focus on objects that have a uniform color and structure.

Getting ready to shoot

Preparation is an important part of location shooting. In low light conditions, it's hard to get a sharp, blur-free shot. To avoid blurring (in slang "shake"), among other things, you need to use a tripod. Let's talk about the tripod in more detail.

The tripod leg is responsible for stability, the head - for the orientation and mounting of the camera. The tripod as a whole, or the tripod in particular, may be metal or plastic. Plastic is light and cheap, but it does not fix the camera well, it is fragile, unstable in the wind, and even its slight vibration does not fade for a long time. metal structure more expensive and heavier, but stronger and more stable. There are also tripods with carbon tripods: they, having a light carbon frame and high strength metal parts, combine best performance plastic and metal models.

Professional tripods have interchangeable heads - universal and specialized (for example, for shooting horizontal and vertical panoramas, macro photography). They also differ in the way and ease of adjusting the camera position. For example, a ball head based on a sphere enclosed in a vise is convenient for shooting in which the camera is constantly moving in several planes. It provides smooth and precise movement of the camera and is fixed at all tilt angles.

The three-axis head has separate adjustment levers for each of the three planes. And the main difference between a panoramic head and others is the ability to rotate the camera with the center of rotation at the nodal point of the lens. That is, the rotation occurs around the point where the streams of light converge before reaching the photosensitive element of the camera. If you need to shoot a panorama consisting of several rows, panoramic heads are used with the ability to tilt the camera up and down - up to the zenith (vertically up, +90° from the horizon) and nadir (vertically down, -90° from the horizon).

Remember that there are several positions in which the tripod is most stable. When setting up, you need to spread the tripod legs wide to move the center of gravity lower and, if the shooting tasks allow, not to raise its head high.

It should also be borne in mind that when shooting at a slow shutter speed, even pressing the shutter button can cause slight camera vibration and spoil the frame. If possible, set the shutter delay mode to 2, 5, or 10 seconds, or use the remote control. If you will be shooting in cold weather, charge the battery fully and take a spare. Remember that batteries drain faster in cold weather.

One more piece of advice. Before you go to photograph, do some reconnaissance. This will save you time and allow you to get what you want faster. Find a good point, evaluate the lighting at night, see how buildings are lit if you decide to shoot architecture, evaluate traffic depending on time and place if you want to shoot "light trails" - traces of headlights from passing cars. In other words, find in advance a place where the lights of the night city will look the best. What is beautiful during the day will not always be good at night and vice versa.

And turn off Image Stabilization, be it in the lens or on the camera. The stabilizer is designed to help you when shooting handheld. But it can give quite the opposite effect when you shoot with a long exposure on a tripod. The stabilizer, depending on the internal logic and type, can, on the contrary, make completely unnecessary movements and ruin the frame. So turn it off and be calm.

Photography

Night photography is called not only shooting at night, but also at sunset. Sunset lasts about an hour, so you need to plan your shooting location in advance and arrive at least half an hour before it starts. This time will be needed to select the angle and camera settings.

Adjusting the exact white balance when shooting at night is quite difficult. When you change the composition, the number of light sources changes, the variety of which in the city can greatly change the color temperature. In our case, it would be best to leave the white balance in automatic mode. Shooting in RAW format will allow you to get an original file that you can work with repeatedly without changing the digital negative: correct the white balance, perform exposure compensation.

The end result depends on the chosen metering method. Matrix metering determines exposure settings based on data from all areas of the frame. It is great for evenly lit scenes. The center-weighted method measures the entire field of the frame, but most of the measurement is concentrated in the center of the frame within a circle with a diameter of 8-10 mm, which is displayed in the viewfinder. This method metering is best used when a very bright light source enters the frame and you need to determine the exposure without its participation. The point method for determining the exposure reads information from a point of 1-2% of the frame area located in the center of the current focus area.

So, with uniform lighting, matrix metering is used, and in difficult conditions, center-weighted or spot.

You should not raise the ISO value above 400. The higher the sensitivity, the more digital noise will appear in the picture. The ISO 400 level on most SLR cameras gives an acceptable quality for a monitor, and even more so for printing. Higher values tend to result in a sharp drop in picture quality.

Often in low light conditions there is a problem with focusing. For clear shots, try to focus on a contrasting or well-lit subject. For example, on road markings or on the bright windows of a building. The main thing is not to focus on a homogeneous object, be it a gray wall, sky or asphalt.

Working with endurance is the most important point night photography. Relatively fast shutter speeds (1/30 - 2 seconds) emphasize the movement of objects, blurring them against a static, clear background. Shutter speeds longer than 2 seconds already show movement differently: moving cars are not visible, headlights turn into streaks of light, fast-moving people are not shown in the photo. If your main goal is to focus on movement, it's best to shoot in shutter priority mode. If you are photographing a landscape, use aperture priority mode to be able to influence the depth of field.

Shooting with a long exposure on a tripod

A slow shutter speed will not allow you to get a sharp shot when shooting handheld, so the use of a tripod is a must. Under different lighting conditions, the camera settings will be different. It all depends on what you need to get in the end.

What kind of pictures can be taken with a long exposure at night?

1. Perhaps the most common photographs are those of car headlights.

2. No less common landscape photography. It can be not only nature, but also industrial landscapes.

3. When photographing in an open area, one flash cannot illuminate the entire frame, but it will do a great job of highlighting objects in the foreground. For example, if you set the flash to fire on the rear curtain of the lens and take a picture of a moving object, you will get a frame with a clear, sharp object, behind which a trail from its movement will be visible.

Very interesting pictures are obtained when drawing with fire. In the next picture, the boy, with the shutter open, drew circles with Bengal fire. Before the shutter closed, a flash fired, thereby freezing the image of the guy. Thus, both the light drawing and the model itself remained in the frame.

4. To get only a pattern of light, you do not need to use a flash. This type of photography is called Freezelight (eng. Freez - freezing, Light - light), also this style is known as Cvetografika (light graphic) or Lightpainting (light painting) - drawing with light.

You need to create a light pattern on the street in a place where there is no lighting or in a dark room. Exposure can be set to any length. It all depends on how long the drawing will be drawn with light. In complete darkness, the camera will not capture anything but lines from a moving light source. As you know, the aperture controls the intensity with which light enters the matrix. This means that in the freezelight, the aperture will regulate the intensity of the glow of the drawn lines of light. When the aperture is closed, they will be thin, and when open, they will be wide and bright.

5. At night, with a flashlight, you can not only draw figures in space, but also work with it like a brush, illuminating (outlining) objects, making them more visible among the rest. This method is called light brush painting.

To select an object, you need to put the camera on a long exposure and at the time when the exposure lasts, evenly illuminate the object with a flashlight.

When working in this style, you should be attentive to the details, and good results will be obtained only after training. When working with a flashlight, you should not hold it statically. Better move it. This will give more even lighting. In addition to the usual flashlight, you can use a wide variety of lighting devices.

6. Simply incredible pictures are obtained when shooting the starry sky. Photographing the stars is not so easy. This can be done in two ways. You can convey the stars as we see them, in the form of dots, or you can capture the movement of stars in the sky (star tracks).

Shooting static stars

To fix static stars, you need to calculate the shutter speed. There is a 600/FR rule (equivalent to 35mm cameras). As many have already guessed, you need to divide 600 by the equivalent focal length of the lens. The result of the calculation will be the shutter speed with which you need to photograph so that the stars in the picture are dots, not dashes.

In this case, the aperture should be opened to the maximum level at which high-quality images are obtained. Light sensitivity will have to be selected experimentally.

Shooting Star Tracks

Star tracks are harder to photograph. Exposure during such shooting can last from 10 minutes to several hours. It depends on the focal length lens and desired track length. For each camera and lens, you need to select the settings yourself.

There are two ways to photograph star tracks. The first is shooting in one frame with a long exposure, and the second is shooting a series of shots with a not too long exposure and then stitching these shots together in special software. The second way, of course, wins. The first one has many drawbacks: the appearance of noise due to overheating of the matrix during a long exposure, the appearance of movement, fogging of the lens glass, overexposure due to too long exposure. Any of these nuances can spoil a picture that was created over a long time (from 10 minutes to several hours).

Shooting with a fast shutter speed without a tripod

1. The easiest way to photograph an object or person at night is to use a flash or other lighting devices. These can be street lights, car headlights, spotlights, or specially prepared studio equipment. With this shooting, only the illuminated object will be visible. Everything else will hide in the shadows.

2. Photos of bright objects such as street lamps, light from windows, flames, or reflections of city lights in ponds and puddles look very good at night.

By completely closing the aperture, you can get an interesting result. The picture will show the rays from the lanterns.

3. Quite unusual pictures are obtained when photographing the moon. Most likely, many tried to photograph the night star and, after unsuccessful attempts, wondered how to photograph the moon.

In fact, everything is very simple. Many mistakenly believe that in order to photograph the moon, you need to increase shutter speed and aperture. It is not right. The moon is a very bright object in a dark sky, and therefore the shutter speed should be fast and the aperture should be covered. Good pictures are obtained on cameras whose optics have a large focal length. At the maximum approximation, the moon looks especially beautiful.

Conclusion

Night photography - very an exciting activity but not the easiest. Stunning pictures can be created by photographing at night, but you need to be ready for such shooting both technically and theoretically.

Finding the right exposure for night photography can be quite a challenge, and will certainly require some trial and error. In this article, you will learn useful information on how to minimize your learning path. Follow the tips below and your night shots will be much better in no time.

Colorful lights on the bridge.

Behind the scenes:ISO200 aperturef/8, shutter speed 90 seconds, white balance Incandescent, 80-200mm lensf/4.5 Nikkor.

Night view of the bridge

Behind the scenes:ISO200 aperturef/8, shutter speed 25 seconds, white balance Fluorescent lamps, 50 mm lensf/1.8 D Nikkor.

What you need for night photography

Tripod

If you are photographing at night, the shutter speed should be long enough (in any case, from 1 to 30 seconds or even more). Since it is completely impossible to hold the camera still for such a long time, you will need a stable tripod so that the camera does not move at all during the exposure. To add stability, you can hang your photo bag (or other heavy object) on the tripod hook. This is especially true in windy weather.

Long exposure of plants illuminated by street lamps at night.

Behind the scenes:ISO400 aperturef/4, shutter speed 30 seconds, white balance Incandescent, 50 mm lensf/1.8 D Nikkor.

A golden plant illuminated by street lamps at night.

Behind the scenes:ISO400 aperturef/4, shutter speed 30 seconds, white balance Incandescent, 50 mm lensf/1.8 D Nikkor.

Remote shutter release

With long exposures, any movement of the camera will break the frame, making it soft or blurry. To make sure you get a clear image, use the remote shutter release (trigger). It is best to use a type of remote control that also works as a remote timer. If you don't have a remote shutter release, use the camera's self-timer. The only downside to the self-timer is that you can set your shutter speed to 30 seconds or less. If you don't have a lot of light, then you can always increase your aperture (lower f-number) or increase your ISO to speed up your shutter speed.

Foliage illuminated by lanterns.

Behind the scenes:ISO200 apertureff/2.8 D Nikkor.

Colorful plants and trees.

Behind the scenes:ISO200 aperturef/5.6, shutter speed 30 seconds, white balance Fluorescent lamps, 24 mm lensf/2.8 D Nikkor.

Night camera settings

Shoot inRAW

With image quality in mind, you should strive to shoot in RAW format. It stores more pixel information and doesn't compress the image at all. RAW gives you more post-processing options, including white balance correction. If the picture was over- or under-exposed, you can easily fix it if the RAW format is selected.

ISO

When shooting with little light available, it's best to use a low ISO (400 and below) and a longer exposure time. This is important as you won't get too much noise (grain) in the image. Also make sure you use the slow shutter speed noise reduction feature in your camera settings.

Yellowed leaves and floating clouds at night.

Behind the scenes:ISO200 apertureff/1.8 D Nikkor.

Tree in the wind at night.

Behind the scenes:ISO400 aperturef/2.8, shutter speed 30 seconds, white balance Incandescent, 50 mm lensf/1.8 D Nikkor.

Use manual mode

When shooting in low light, your camera may not be able to read the scene well enough. Therefore, it is best to use manual mode, where you control both aperture and shutter speed. To find the basis for the correct exposure, you can use the following technique:

Set ISO to 6400
Set your desired aperture
Set shutter speed to 1 second

Take a test shot with these settings to get an idea of how the shot turns out. Note that these settings are almost equivalent to a 1 minute exposure at ISO 100, a 30 second exposure at ISO 200, a 15 second exposure at ISO 400, etc. exposure and 6400. This will be the equivalent of a 30 second exposure at ISO 100, 15 seconds at ISO 200 and 8 seconds at ISO 400. This is a very good guide with which you can easily determine which shutter speed to use.

Autumn leaves in motion.

Behind the scenes:ISO400 aperturef13, shutter speed 30 seconds, white balance Fluorescent lights, 24mm lensf/2.8 D Nikkor.

Trees and clouds in motion at night.

Behind the scenes:ISO400 aperturef/5.6, shutter speed 30 seconds, white balance Incandescent, 50 mm lensf/1.8 manual modeNikkor.

If you use the trick above, you won't be wasting your time trying out long exposures. Shooting at night and so takes a lot of time. Be sure to switch the ISO back to 400 or lower before taking photos.

In scenes where there is sufficient light (such as places with lots of street lights), you can use Aperture Priority instead of Manual.

Finally

Shooting at night can be tricky and takes a lot of practice. Over time, you will get a sense of the amount of light in the night scene, and you will be able to navigate the necessary settings with relative ease. I hope the information in this article will help you take great long exposure photos that don't need a lot of post-processing.

However, this method is not always suitable. A tripod is hard to carry, it may not be at hand at the right time. Shooting with a tripod takes time. Shooting with flash gives not too beautiful, flat lighting. In addition, the flash can only illuminate the objects closest to us, so it is useless to shoot a landscape with a flash: distant objects will still remain dark. You can shoot in the night city without a tripod and without a flash, making do with just a camera and available lighting. Let's figure out how to do it better and what to look for.

NIKON D810 / 85.0 mm f/1.4 SETTINGS: ISO 640, F1.4, 1/200 s, 85.0 mm equiv.

1. Endurance is the most important thing

When we take pictures, holding the camera in our hands, it always shakes a little. From such judder, frames can be blurred if you shoot at too slow a shutter speed. This technical marriage is called “shake” by photographers. Typically, this image blur appears when the shutter speed becomes longer than 1/60 s. However, it all depends on the shooting conditions, on the firm hand of the photographer (some photographers are able to stably hold the camera at slower shutter speeds), on the level of his skills (for example, an experienced photographer can press the shutter smoothly without creating camera vibrations). In addition, the maximum shutter speed for handheld shooting also depends on the focal length of the lens. The larger it is, the more noticeable the jitter will be and the faster the shutter speed should be used.

Watch your shutter speed carefully when photographing: if it gets longer than 1/60 s, then it's time to take action. If you shoot in A or P mode, you can increase the ISO or open the aperture. If you're shooting in S or M mode, you can adjust the shutter speed directly. Let's not forget that if our subject is moving, the shutter speed should be used fast enough so that the subject does not blur in the frame from its own movement. For example, it is better to shoot a walking person at 1/125 s, and a running person - at 1/250 s or shorter.

But at slow shutter speeds, with beautifully blurred movement in the frame, you won’t be able to shoot without a tripod. You just have to put up with this: artisanal methods such as mounting the camera on parapets and curbs will not give perfectly sharp shots, and such shooting will take a lot of time. After all, you will have to shoot several times, achieving satisfactory photo quality through trial and error. The camera will fall, move off the selected support, the horizon in the photo will be obligatorily littered. Instead of such torment, it’s better to just take a tripod to shoot.

2. Watch your ISO

At high ISO values, not only noise appears, but color reproduction, sharpness, and dynamic range often deteriorate. You do not want to get muddy footage with the highest level of digital noise, do you? So don't set your ISO too high. Make sure that the sensitivity does not rise above ISO 1600-3200.

Usually high ISO is the result of incorrectly set shutter speed and aperture. Light sensitivity is increased (automatically or by you, depending on the shooting mode) when not enough light falls on the matrix at the selected shutter speed and aperture. To increase the amount of light entering the matrix, open the aperture or slow down the shutter speed (remember point 1).

3. Look for well-lit places to shoot

The more light you have at your disposal, the better the pictures will be and the easier it will be to photograph. Look for places in the city with good lighting: street lights, lanterns, shop window lighting and advertising. All of these are sources of illumination. Use them! Let them illuminate your subject. If you are taking a picture of a person, ask him to stand so that, for example, the light from a shop window falls on him. Usually the best lighting is in the city center, especially on holidays. I shot at the New Year's Fair on Red Square. It was there that I found this pretty carousel with horses, and there is quite enough lighting there.

4. Choose a lens. There is never too much light!

Aperture is a characteristic of a lens, meaning how wide its aperture can be opened. The larger the aperture (and the wider the aperture), the more light passes through the lens. The more light that passes through the lens, the faster the shutter speed we can use and the lower the ISO we need. For shooting without a tripod in low light conditions (and such conditions are in the night city), it is best to use fast lenses. They give excellent image quality, allow you to shoot at a relatively low ISO even at night, and can blur the background beautifully. Nikon AF-S 35mm f / 1.8G DX Nikkor, Nikon AF-S 50mm f / 1.8G Nikkor, Nikon AF-S 50mm f / 1.4G Nikkor, Nikon AF-S 85mm f / 1.8G Nikkor are popular among Nikon fast lenses.

5. Optical stabilizer is almost as good as aperture

Many lenses are equipped with a special system that dampens camera vibration in the hands of the photographer. Thus, holding the camera in our hands, we can shoot at shutter speeds longer than 1/60 sec. “VR” (Vibration Reduction) - so marked Nikon lenses equipped with optical stabilization. For example Nikon AF-S DX 18-140mm F3.5-5.6G ED VR Nikkor, Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-120MM F/4G ED VR. With such a lens, we can get sharp shots of static scenes at shutter speeds of 1 / 30-1 / 20 s. Optical stabilization is very useful when shooting still subjects. But we must remember that we often shoot moving objects, such as people. And if we try to shoot a person at a slow shutter speed, then he will most likely be smeared from his own movements: a person will not be able to petrify, even if you ask him very much. When shooting portraits, even with a lens with stabilization, I recommend not setting the shutter speed longer than 1/60 sec. So aperture is still more useful than stabilization: it allows you to shoot handheld at low ISO and fast shutter speeds. Stabilization, on the other hand, is at a slow shutter speed and low ISO, but often a short shutter speed is needed in shooting.

6. Modern cameras take better pictures in low light

Progress does not stand still. What once seemed impossible is now becoming available to the public. With cameras the same situation: with each next generation digital cameras give less and less digital noise at high ISO. So, they allow you to make better shots in any lighting. In addition, the new cameras are equipped with much more advanced autofocus sensors that focus quickly and accurately. Nikon D3300, Nikon D5300, Nikon D7100, Nikon D750, Nikon D810, Nikon Df.

7. In what mode to shoot?

In paragraph 1, we said that the most careful thing when shooting at night without a tripod is to monitor the shutter speed. To directly control the shutter speed, adjust it as you wish, you can shoot in S (shutter priority) mode. If you are not yet very familiar with the camera settings, you can simply turn on the S mode and set the shutter speed to 1/125 s. The camera will then take control of the remaining exposure parameters. The light sensitivity setting can also be given under the control of automation. It is very convenient that at the same time you can limit the maximum ISO value that automatics can set: this way we will insure ourselves against shots with strong digital noise. I advise you to set the maximum value of automatic ISO in the region of 1600-3200.