You’ve probably seen light drawing photography, where people shoot light trails at night, but you won’t have seen light painting like this. Blake Shaw and Bruno Levy go by the name ‘Sweatshoppe’ and together have invented an incredible technique for creating the illusion that they are painting videos onto walls.
Does your digital camera only come out during the hours of daylight? It can be tempting to wait for the sun to shine, but packing your camera away as soon as the light begins to fail can mean missing hours of great picture opportunities. Night photography can be one of the most rewarding genres you’ll shoot.
Your DSLR is more than capable of taking great pictures in these conditions – but it needs your help. If you take a point-and-shoot approach when the light gets low, you’ll end up either with blurred pictures or images where the atmosphere of the scene has been lost.
But there’s no need to be afraid of the dark; we’ve got the answers to all of your frequently asked questions on how to set up your camera to shoot night photography.
Image stabilisation features in lenses and improved high ISO performance in cameras, have transformed the possibilities of taking pictures in low light, but the steady base of a tripod is your best choice when it comes to exploring the creative possibilities of slow shutter speeds and low light. Below we’ll show you some quick tips for how to use a tripod effectively, as well as some essential features you’ll want when choosing the best tripod for your needs.
Photographing star trails involves one of the trickiest photography techniques to master. If you want to give it a go, we have just the tutorial you need to get you started with your star trail photography! In the meantime, take a look at these incredible captures of star trails.
Shooting ultra-long shutter speeds at night can turn a dimly lit scene into something that’s full of detail. In particular, this can even capture the otherwise unnoticeable movement of the stars.
Capturing star trails is a great subject to photograph during the summer. It may get darker late, but skies are generally clearer and it’s a lot less cold!
‘City Night of Hong Kong’ was taken by Lee Yiu Tung. The extreme perspective of the buildings against the light-trails of traffic passing by make this image a great city scene.
At a basic level, shutter speed is used to control exposure, but it can also be used as a creative tool that freezes action or adds dramatic blur to moving subjects. In this tutorial we’ll explain some of the common mistakes you might encounter while trying to achieve the five classic shutter speed effects of freezing movement, blurring action, using blur creatively, long exposures and night photography.
After we look at some of the common problems within these shutter speed ranges, we’ll suggest the best shutter speeds for you to use to achieve these effects and offer our best tips for overcoming these errors.
‘Late Night in Vietnam’ by Jpharmd is a great example of street photography and projects the atmosphere of the moment. This picture is particularly helped by its composition, which follows the rule of thirds.
Jon de Boer’s Flickr set ‘Detroit Liquor Stores’ caught our eye. Run-down liquor stores at night are not something that instantly leaps to mind when thinking of a subject to photograph, yet these images are intriguing – they represent something of the culture of the area, and as a collective set they become fascinating to look at.
As well as being one of the most expensive hobbies around, photography is also one of the more technical pastimes you can pursue. But it doesn’t have to be confusing!
We’ve spoken to numerous experts over the years, as well as photographers like you, who may either be just starting out or have been taking pictures for a while but keep encountering the same nagging problem. From all our conversations, we’ve noticed some common photography problems that seem to plague snappers of all ages and abilities.
Inside, we’ve put together 99 of the most common photography problems and offered solutions to get round them, so you never have to be in doubt ever again! We’ve offered a mix of camera tips, explanations, definitions and more to help answer your questions. And we’ve also provided links, where appropriate, to some of our photography tutorials covering these problems in more depth
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