Night photography shooting and exposure tips

If you have a sturdy tripod and a camera that allows for long exposure times and manual exposure adjustments, then you can capture great nighttime photos.

For night exposure of a building, the contrast difference between the dark sky
and an illuminated building will exceed the film's latitude. Meter off a semi- illuminated area of the scene.

Use the spot meter to measure the light of that area. If you don't have a spot meter, use a handheld reflected light meter with 1-degree measurements, or try using your longest telephoto to meter the area of the scene you want to expose. If your situation allows, you can meter off a gray card while best imitating the light reflected on your subject. Make sure you fill the entire frame with the gray card.

If you do not register on the meter, start manually adjusting the exposure settings, counting each full stop as you go. Set your aperture to f/22 and start at 1/30 and go down.. 1/15, 1/8 and so on.

Imagine a view across water of a skyline, with the horizon and buildings in the lower third of the frame and a lot of dark sky.

I want to reduce the glare of ambient light (f/8 or smaller). I want to use a slow film (ASA 50 or less (I shoot Velvia)). Mount the camera on the tripod. Set the camera mode to Manual (M),or Aperture Priority (A) exposure mode, spot meter the illuminated area of the scene, set your AE Lock, bracket in 1/3 stop increments and you're good to go. Wham- bam- thank you ma'am.

Don't forget about reciprocity failure (when the f-stop shutter speed relationship breaks down for very short, or very long exposure times). Trying to compensate for reciprocity is a imprecise venture at best. I wouldn't even bother. You're better off bracketing, or shooting the full gamut of shutter settings at f/11, if you can't figure out the instructions described above.

Roughly for reciprocity adjustment, 1 - 10 seconds +1 stop, 20-100 seconds +2 stops.

Film manufacturers produce data sheets to achieve good color. You also can use color- correction filters. One reason you might opt for color neg film. Remember, negative film is much more forgiving for both color correction and exposure. Personally, I shoot slide film, without a color correction filter, and color correct in Photoshop. Every building in a skyline has a different color temperature, so slapping on a filter is usually a waste, unless everything is lit up using the exact same type of lighting. You may also need a color meter to get it to get to daylight. Those gadgets will set you back $500- $1000US.

In Photoshop, if it's too green add magenta, too yellow add cyan. Add the opposite color on the slide to the one you're trying to reduce. Fluorescent= green, incandescent= yellow. If you have both you can see why adding an FLD filter (for fluorescent correction) will not help in the least.

Changing lenses alters meter readings. If the meter is TTL (through the lens), which it more than likely will be, you can test it out yourself. Mount your lens, meter off a solid color with even illumination. Record the setting. Then mount the next lens and repeat. Do make sure the Aperture is set the same on both lenses.

Note: if exposure time is long enough (usually slower than 1/60), moving objects will blur. This includes
stars (star- tracers)and the moon. The Moon is significantly distorted if exposure time is longer
than a couple of seconds.

Although nothing is certain when you make broad generalizations, I have these exposures to suggest to use as a guide when shooting the city lights at night.You will be in the ballpark with these. They are all based on the sunny 16 rule
which states that a normal daylight exposure is always f16 at 1/ASA (50ASA is 1/60 @ f/16). Each stop represents either 100% more light, or 50% less light depending if you are increasing your aperture opening (opening up), or decreasing (stopping down).

Shutter speeds are set up exactly the same. Look at the numbers, 1/1000, 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, and so on.

It's almost like the chromatic scale on a musical instrument. There is method to this madness after all.

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