PCPhoto
10 Tips For Better Night PhotographyThe secrets to getting great shots at night are revealed |
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Page 4 of 4 9. Use Support Most night photos will require shutter-speed settings that can’t be handheld without causing blurs. A tripod is ideal (and a necessity for long, many-second exposures), but it can be awkward to use on a night-lit city street. Look at the small tabletop tripods (most manufacturers include them) or beanbags. Either can be used to support a camera on a car, post, parking meter or even a wall. I especially like to carry a beanbag called The Pod (from Bogen) because it has a tripod screw, which makes the camera much easier to support in odd positions. 10. Balance A Flash Try turning on your flash at night, but check your exposure to be certain the night light is balancing with the light from the flash. Many cameras have auto programs specifically designed to put the right amount of light onto a foreground subject while still giving enough exposure to reveal the background, too. Most digital SLRs automatically allow you to balance the ambient light (the night light existing at your scene) with flash by using certain modes, such as Aperture or Program priority. Check your camera’s manual to see what works because manufacturers have never standardized this control. You can also play around with first-curtain and second-curtain flash sync on many digital SLRs (these are usually set in the menus). Both work to balance flash and ambient light, but deal differently with the timing of the flash. The result is that each gives different looks with moving objects (though the same look comes from nonmoving subjects).   |
