PCPhoto
10 Tips For Better Night PhotographyThe secrets to getting great shots at night are revealed |
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Page 3 of 4 6. Noise 2—Use Your Camera's Processing Many cameras have added in-camera noise processing available as a menu choice. All cameras apply some sort of noise reduction to the image at points between the camera and the computer. What I’m describing is in addition to that. The menu-set noise reduction will help night scenes. It will add significant processing time to your photo (some cameras add this automatically with long exposures), so you don’t want to use it all the time. But as soon as your exposures get much longer than a second, you’ll usually find the in-camera noise reduction to be helpful. 7. Noise 3—Use Software Sometimes, no matter what you do, noise creeps into the photograph. There are a number of good software programs out on the market to help reduce noise without hurting image quality significantly. Photoshop CS2 and Camera Raw have noise reduction tools, but frankly, I don’t often find them all that useful. For noise issues, I’d recommend checking Noise Ninja (a complex, though effective program with a lot of controls, necessitating a big learning curve), Kodak Digital GEM (a simple, yet effective program that works well with little effort), Imagenomic Noiseware (complex, but effective) and Nik Software DFine (a complete program that can look for noise in specific tones and colors, but is also complex). 8. Try Many Second Exposures With the combination of high ISO settings and wide-open ƒ-stops on your lens, you may find you can get moderate shutter speeds (even handholdable in some conditions). Sometimes, though, you should set that ISO lower and use a small ƒ-stop so you get a long, many-second exposure. This will do a number of things: • The long exposure will blend any moving lights together in fascinating streaks and patterns • Moving water (such as fountains) gains an ethereal, flowing look • Small ƒ-stops will cause light diffraction around bright lights, creating interesting starburst patterns   |
