Photography : Night Photography

Night photography refers to photographs taken outdoors between dusk and dawn. Night photographers generally have a choice between using artificial light or using a long exposure, exposing the scene for seconds or even minutes, in order to give the film enough time to capture a usable image, and to compensate for reciprocity failure. With the progress of high-speed films, higher-sensitivity digital image sensors, wide-aperture lenses, and the ever-greater power of urban lights, night photography is increasingly possible using available light.

The following techniques and equipment are generally used in night photography.

* A tripod is usually necessary due to the long exposure times. Alternatively, the camera may be placed on a steady, flat object e.g. a table or chair, low wall, window sill, etc.
* A shutter release cable or self timer is almost always used to prevent camera shake when the shutter is released.
* Manual focus, since autofocus systems usually operate poorly in low light conditions. Newer digital cameras incorporate a Live View mode which often allows very accurate manual focusing.
* A stopwatch or remote timer, to time very long exposures where the camera's bulb setting is used.

Long exposure multiple flash photographic technique

The long exposure multiple flash technique is a method of night or low light photography which use a mobile flash unit to expose various parts of a building or interior using a long exposure time.

Long exposure means that the shutter of the camera is kept open for longer, allowing more light to be exposed to the images sensor or film of the camera. This causes the photograph to be lighter, and is good for night and dark photos.

This technique is often combined with using coloured gels in front of the flash unit to provide different colours in order to illuminate the subject in different ways. It is also common to flash the unit several times during the exposure while swapping the colours of the gels around to mix colours on the final photo. This requires some skill and a lot of imagination since it is not possible to see how the effects will turn out until the exposure is complete. By using this technique, the photographer can illuminate specific parts of the subject in different colours creating shadows in ways which would not normally be possible.

Light painting

The camera shutter is opened. A person carries a torch around the scene using it to illuminate all the desired objects in the scene, then the shutter is closed. The result is a lit scene featuring lots of visible light trails. The person working the light is not visible in the photograph.