1. Night Photography

2. Night Photography
• The first rule of night photography: use manual mode.
–Camera meters fail at very low light levels, so any non-manual
mode, including Av, will result in bad exposure.
• Focus: Autofocus usually fails or is inaccurate in very
low light conditions. Ways to focus accurately:
–Use manual focus on the lens and use the distance window.
Objects like faraway hills or stars are effectively infinite distance
away.
–Shine a light on your subject, autofocus, then turn off the light
and take the image.
–Focus while there is still light, setting the lens for later.
–Use live view (or equivalent feature) with magnification to focus

3. Night Photography
• RAW mode is good.
–.jpg discards image information, reducing the effectiveness of
editing.
–White balance varies widely at night, especially if there is light
pollution. If you are only able to shoot .jpg, experiment with
different white balances.
–Exposure mistakes are common, and RAW mode allows you to
brighten the exposure significantly or recover blown highlights.

4. Crazy white balance. I didn’t shoot this in RAW, so I can’t get natural colors. Also,
the highlights on the water could have been recovered with RAW editing.

5. General Astronomy Information
• Astronomy ≠ Astrology
• The Earth rotates about an axis through the North and
South Poles.
• Polaris, the North Star, lies nearly but not exactly on this
axis.
• To an observer on Earth, the stars appear to rotate
about the North Star, rising in the east and setting in the
west.
• The magnetic North Pole lies under northern Canada,
so compasses don’t actually point in the same direction
as the North Star.

6. General Astronomy Information
• The moon has a huge effect on night photography.
– A full moon brightens the sky, making it impossible to see dim
stars.
– A full moon can light up the landscape at night.
– New moon = no moon visible, and the most stars are visible at
this point in time.

7. General Astronomy Information
• Sky darkness is key. Factors:
– Light pollution—cities spew orange light into the skies, blotting
out the stars.
– Sunrise and sunset. Depending on your location, the sky can
be bright up to 2 hours before sunrise/after sunset.
– Moon: phase, rise/set times
– You can check this information at several websites:
• http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneDay.php
• Google Earth is also incredibly useful.

8. Night Photography
• How to get long exposures:
– “Bulb” or B mode takes an image for as long as the shutter
button is held down.
– Use a remote. Every camera manufacturer makes ones,
designs are available online to build your own, and cheap ones
are available on ebay for ~$10.
• Flip the switch, wait for a while, flip the switch. Your photo
is done.
• Do a test exposure before committing to an hour (or more).
– Try a 30” exposure at your highest ISO and largest aperture (in order
to let in as much light as possible in a short amount of time) to check
exposure, histogram, focus, framing, level horizon, etc.

9. Test exposure: 30 sec, ISO 1600, f/2.8

10. Final exposure: 45 min, ISO 200,

11. Night Photography
• Common problems:
– Battery death. A freshly charged battery lasts 1-3 hours,
depending on the camera, temperature, and ISO.
– Noise. During long exposures, the sensor heats up, and you
get thermal noise. This is more of a problem in hot weather.
• Dark frame subtraction can reduce this. Some cameras will take
a dark frame as soon as you finish an exposure, and then subtract
it. 1 hr exposure + 1 hr dark frame = 2 hrs => battery death? =
bad.
• If you battery dies during the dark frame subtraction, then the
photo is lost.
• Furthermore, I’ve found that in-camera dark frame subtraction is
not always effective.
• Taking a second exposure with the lens cap on and then
subtracting the dark frame from the light frame in Photoshop is

12. Night Photography
• Common problems:
– Light pollution: light from cities is reflected off clouds and dust in the
air, creating bright areas where no stars are visible.
• Because of this, the best astronomy conditions are far from
cities.
Source: lighthalo on
photography-on-the.net

13. Night Photography
• More problems:
– Condensation. If your lens surface is colder than the air, and the
humidity is high enough, water will condense on your camera, totally
fogging it.
• During night exposures, this most commonly occurs near sunrise.
• You can avoid this by putting a foot-warmer-type heating pad on the lens
to keep it warm.

14. Night Photography
• More problems:
– Airplanes fly across the frame and make blinky trails. These aren’t
shooting stars.
– Solution: use a smaller aperture or take the photo when few planes
are flying (1-5 AM)

15. Night Photography
• General tips:
– An interesting foreground gives the photo context and makes it much
more interesting.
Source: lighthalo on photography-on-the.net

16. Night Photography
• General tips:
– Light painting can bring out detail in a shadow area.
– Use a flashlight, etc. to “paint” light onto an object.
Source: floris on fredmiranda.net

17. Night Photography
• General tips:
– Light painting can bring out detail in a shadow area.
– Use a flashlight, etc. to “paint” light onto an object.

18. Night Photography
• General tips:
– Stuff to bring:
• Tripod. It holds your camera steady.
• Remote. So you don’t have to hold the button down for an hour.
• Glowsticks. I frequently set up my camera and tripod and then
leave it for a couple hours. It’s much easier to find it in the dark if it
is glowing.
• Compass. Although it doesn’t point directly toward the North
Star, it’s pretty close, and helps locate the North Star.
• Warm clothes. If you’re sitting outdoors at night for hours on end,
you might get cold. Freezing next to your camera sucks.
• Flashlight/headlamp. Trying to set up gear in the dark sucks.
• Chair. Because sitting on wet grass or standing for hours sucks.

19. Stacking
• After 30 seconds to a minute, a star will no longer become
brighter because its location has changed. Instead, it forms a
trail across the image.
• Non-moving objects (like empty sky), on the other hand,
becomes brighter as long as you expose the image.
• Instead of taking one long exposure, you can take many short
exposures, a technique called “stacking.”
• This increases contrast between the stars and the sky and
reduces blown highlights from lights, light pollution, etc.
• Instead of taking 1 60-minute exposure, you could do 60 1-
minute exposures, 12 5-minute exposures, etc. and then
stack them in Photoshop into one exposure.

20. 1 15-minute exposure

21. 30 1-minute exposures stacked

23. Timelapse
• You can take a large number of photos at intervals and
then play them in rapid succession, a technique called
“timelapse.”
• If you play images at 24-30 frames per second, it looks
like real video.

25. Timelapse
• Tips
– Manual everything!
• If the camera refocuses in every photo, the video will bounce
around, flicker, and have random blurry frames.
• If you use auto white balance, the white balance will change
throughout the video, causing abrupt changes in color.
• The camera must be totally still! Don’t bump it!
• Be careful of wind. If necessary, weigh down your tripod or
don’t extend it to the max height.
– Use an intervalometer to control the camera.
• Pushing the button every 5 seconds for an hour is tiring,
tedious, and likely to introduce camera movement.
• Canon cameras can be controlled from a computer via
Remote Capture.
• Cheap remotes can be found on ebay for 1/3 the cost of
manufacturer-brand ones.

26. Timelapse
• Tips
– Chose an appropriate interval for the conditions.
• 3-8 seconds for clouds, depending on how fast the clouds
are moving and how fast you want them to move in the video.
• 30 seconds to 2 minutes for stars
– If your battery lasts 2 hours, then 1 image per minute = 120
photos = 4 seconds of video
– Don’t worry about high ISO speeds.
• When viewing 30 frames per second, graininess isn’t noticed.
– Shoot RAW whenever possible
• White balance and lighting conditions usually change
throughout a scene, and RAW permits more editing flexibility.