Take A Stunning Sunset & Nightime Photos

Because photography is the art and science of capturing light, you wouldn’t think that nighttime would present many photo opportunities.

But in fact, nighttime pictures can be the most spectacular ones in your portfolio. Sunsets, evening portraits, city lights, and even car lights can stand out like bright colors on a black canvas.

Sunsets

Your camera usually does a good job of exposing the sky during sunset, even in automatic mode. Keep the flash turned off and shoot at will. The biggest mistake people make when shooting sunsets has nothing to do with the sky it’s the ground that ruins the shots. Your eyes can make out much more detail in the shadowy ground than your camera will. Therefore, it’s not worth trying to split the frame in half, composing it with the sky above and the ground below. The bottom half of your photo will be just a murky black blob in the final image.

Taking The Picture

Follow these tips for best results when shooting at sunset:

• Fill your composition with 90 percent sky and 10 percent ground or water. This arrangement may feel funny at least until you look at your prints and see how much more dynamic they are with this composition.

• Don’t leave the scene right after the sun dips below the horizon. Hang around for another 10 minutes or so; sometimes there’s a truly amazing after-burst of light.

• Keep an eye on your shutter speed (if your camera shows it). If it goes below 1/30th of a second, you may need a tripod or some other steady surface to prevent camera shake.

• Activate the self-timer or remote control to avoid jiggling the camera when you press the shutter.

Trailing Car Lights

You’ve seen this shot on postcards and in magazines: neon bands of light streaking across the frame, with a nicely lit bridge or building in the background. The trick to these shots is to keep the shutter open long enough for the cars to pass all the way from one side of the frame to the other

Bulb Mode For Extended Shutter Times

When using film cameras, photographers rely on the camera’s B setting, in combination with a cable release (a shutter button on the end of a cord). The B setting (short for bulb) keeps the shutter open for as long as you hold down the release. Many a photographer has stood out in the cold, thumbs pressing down on icy cable releases, softly counting: “One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three….”

Your digital camera probably doesn’t have a B setting (although a few do have Bulb modes). But you can capture these dramatic shots if your camera offers a shutter-priority mode. In this mode, you can tell the camera to keep the shutter open for a long time indeed four seconds or more for car-taillight photos, for example.

Taking the picture

• Pack a pocket flashlight so you can see the camera’s controls in the dark.

• Try to find a vantage point high enough to provide a good overview of the scene. A nicely lit building, bridge, or monument in the background provides a good contrast to erratic lights created by the cars passing through the scene.

• Put your camera on a tripod or some other steady surface, and set it in shutter-priority mode. After you’ve composed your shot, set the shutter for four seconds. (The camera controls the aperture automatically.)

• Use your remote control, if you have one, or your camera’s self-timer mode to prevent camera shake.

When you see cars coming into the scene, trip the shutter. Review the results on the LCD screen. If the streaks aren’t long enough, then add a couple seconds to the shutter setting; if the streaks are too long, subtract a second or two. With a little trial and error, you can capture beautiful, dramatic taillight shots just like those postcards you always see