NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY for beginners - Tips and camera settings explained

[Music] [Applause] how I pull here from photo genius in this video I want to show you how to take really called nighttime photos this video is aimed at the beginner so going to be talking you through the gear talking you through what camera modes to use the settings everything you need to get you started it's gonna be a lot of fun and this evening we're a place called Kangaroo Point which is on the Brisbane River just around sunset great spot gives us a great vantage point of the city we're going to try visit two locations in this video it's gonna be a lot of fun so stick around now my intentions for this video were to do something a bit different instead of shooting in the studio I wanted to take you guys on location do some cool nighttime photography share with you how I did it and what settings are used and so on but it was actually a lot trickier than I thought not from a photography point of view and taking photos at nighttime is relatively easy and I'm gonna show you how to do it shortly but taking video in low-light is actually really really tricky and the light was terrible no matter where when the light was awful and really I didn't feel I was going to be able to deliver a video that was really the quality that you guys would expect of this channel so hence two days later I'm now here in the studio to talk you through all the key essentials I was shooting with the Nikon d40 500 I was also shooting with the Nikon z6 and look I've got an image behind me here this image turned out really great I think this was taken on the evening and this was taken not with the said six this was taken with the Nikon d40 500 which goes to show that you could take cool nighttime photos even with an entry-level camera and again this is something that I often say on this channel it's not about the gear so much it's about what you do with it and how you use it so if you're new to the channel when you want to know how to take great photos please consider subscribing right let's start by talking about the gear now if you want to do good nighttime photos you're going to need to be able to get out of auto and use your camera manually so a DSLR mirrorless or bridge cameras should allow you to do this once you got the cameras sorted you're then going to need something to keep the camera steady whilst you're taking your shot and this is where a tripod comes in a tripod in it is an essential bit of kit if you're going to do low-light and nighttime photography now I'm gonna recommend three tripods to you and details and links to these will be found in the description below the video so check these out first one is one of my all-time favorites which is the Manfrotto pixie evo a very small lightweight compact tripod that you can use just about anywhere it is very small but it's pretty cheap and it's very sturdy and well made the next one you may have seen these before Joby Gorillapod this is quite a big one you can get smaller ones these are the ones that have the flexible legs this is good if you're working on uneven surfaces but you can also wrap the legs around maybe a fence post or some people hang or suspend cameras from trees they're they're pretty cool so that's the Joby Gorillapod and my next recommendation which is a really good almost full sized tripod but it's great for traveling is the Manfrotto be free travel tripod here it is it's packed down so it's pretty small I did a video on this up at a description up here so you can check this out so there's 3 tripod recommendations and again for more details on those just look below the video you'll find links and the information relating to those the next thing you're going to need is a remote this is a Canon remote that will work on most Canon DSLRs this is a Nick on remote some of you may be lucky enough to have a camera that allows you to connect your smartphone and therefore you can use that as a remote some of you may not have a remote and if this is you I've got a really cool trick that I actually used on the night myself and this is a way of getting around not having a remote and I'll come back to that later on in the video alright now let's talk camera modes and settings now if you've ever tried taking photos in low light or a night time with a camera set in the alter mode then there's every chance that your photos have turned out a bit disappointing and this usually comes down to two reasons two things that in Auto you have no control over number one the flash pops up usually when you're using your camera in Auto in low-light the flash pops up I get it I understand why the camera does this it's trying to throw some extra light on the subject which kind of makes sense but look at the image behind me that little pop-up flash is going to do nothing to illuminate that scene and therefore it's a complete waste of time the second thing the camera will do is almost certainly increase the ISO now again I understand why increasing the ISO is going to make your image brighter by increasing the ISO also means the image quality deteriorates it will look grainy this is called digital noise and it's something where possible we want to try and avoid a more effective way of taking a in low-light is to get out of Auto giving to the manual motor and start taking control of the cameras shutter now the shutter sits inside the camera it's a bit like a door when you press the shutter button it opens allowing light into the camera and then it closes and that's it you then get to see your photo now once the shutter opens your camera is recording light and of course the longer it's open the more like the camera can record and the brighter the image will be so the most effective way of taking photos in low light is to slow the shutter down this is also often referred to as a long exposure so how do you control the shutter where there's a number of camera modes that will allow you to do this but in this video we're going to look at one in particular this is called shutter priority this is a really good mode if you're beginner but interestingly is also the mode that is often used by professional sports or photographers the great thing about this mode is you can control the shutter speed and the camera looks after the aperture it's a great mode so to select this on your camera look to the camera dial at four and s so on most cameras you rotating the dial to get to the S which is four shutter priority if you've got a canon camera you'll notice there's no s look out for TV this is time value now whilst it's a different name it's still shutter priority so once you're in the shutter priority mode all you've got to do to change the shutter speed is turn the dial on the camera on the Canon cameras it's usually found on the top on this Nikon it's at the back here now for wake up the camera and I start dialing to the right I see the shutter speed changing or increasing now I'm going to take it as far as it goes on this particular model the d foley 500 the fastest shutter speed is one four thousand for the second I'll put that here now if you've got a camera that's maybe a higher up in the range or more expensive then you may be lucky enough to have a top shutter speed of one eight thousandth of a second I'll pop that here now these shutter speeds are really fast so if you're shooting in really good light during the day time these shutter speeds can be ideal the shutter will open and close really quickly but taking photos at nighttime of course because there's less light we want to slow the shutter down we want the shutter to be open longer so we get more opportunity to record the light so this is done by dialing to the left now as a doll to the left the shutter speed is slowing down and there's a load of shutter speeds to choose from thousands hundreds tenths of a second now I'm going to stop at ten so this is one over ten this is one tenth of a second because I want to take a picture and I want you to hear this now what you hear there is two clicks the first click is the shutter opening the second click is the shutter closing so we are already getting down to a slower shutter speed now if I keep dialing down eventually I will see that the number now is shown as a number with what looks like a quotation mark behind it here I have a shutter speed of one second again I'll take another picture now that was a second gap between the shutter opening and closing and if I keep dialing to the left we start to get into the really slow shutter speeds five seconds ten seconds fifteen all the way down to thirty seconds these are the sorts of shutter speeds that will allow you to take amazing photos and nighttime now as I mentioned earlier the great thing about using shutter priority is that we don't have to worry too much about the aperture because the cameras adjusting the aperture depending on what shutter speed we select so should we even care of aperture when using this mode yes we should and that's because sometimes the camera will not be able to choose an aperture that will give us a balanced exposure and you will easily spot this because the f-number on the screen on the back of your camera will begin to flash and if this happens all you need to do is make a change to your shutter speed this may mean increasing or decreasing the shutter speed until the point that the f-number stops flashing now I want to quickly talk about ISO ISO is a function of your camera that will affect your exposure increase your ISO for a brighter image to decrease it for a darker image now one thing to avoid here is traumatic ISO because your camera takes control and you don't know what it's doing if your camera chooses a high ISO whilst it might make your image brighter your picture will suffer from digital noise it will start to look grainy I mentioned it earlier in the video so default ISO for me is 200 but when taking photos at nighttime I drop the ISO even lower on a canon camera you'll usually find an ISO button on the back or the top of the camera press it dial in the lowest ISO possible when you're doing nighttime photography now if you've got a Nick on camera and you haven't got an ISO button like the one on the top of the z6 look for a button that is marked with an eye the eye button allows you then to navigate to the ISO and you can change it get off auto drop it to the lowest again with this camera it's a hundred ISO keep it low now I want to go back to remotes I did mention them earlier in the video if you're doing a 5 10 20 second exposure you do not want your camera to move at all using a remote means that you can activate the cameras shutter without actually touching the camera but I do appreciate that some of you may not have a remote so I promise you're a little trick you can set up a self timer in your camera that means after you've pressed the shutter button the camera will count down and then take the photo this is a great way of eliminating camera shake for free now on most cameras you'll find a button which has what looks like a little clock symbol next to it if you press this button and select the timer you will now see a delay if I press the shutter button that's the timer that's the shutter opening and closing self timer is a really cool tip and it's free now in a moment we're going to take a look at some of the images I captured a couple of nights ago with these very cameras but before we do let's run for a checklist that can help you take amazing photos at night the first one being fairly obvious use a solid tripod so your camera can't move number 2 select shutter priority mode because you want to be able to control the shutter but you don't have to worry about the aperture too much number 3 ISO keep it low darling 100 ISO number 4 choose a shutter speed maybe start with 5 or ten seconds and then play around an experiment and see how different shutter speeds maybe affect the look of your image number five if you haven't got a remote and find it your camera self timer it's a freebie it's already built-in and it's another way of avoiding shake okay let's take a look at those images this first image is taken with the Nick on d-35 hundred and I keep raving about this camera because for an entry-level camera you can take amazing photos like this ten-second exposure is so low camera chose f/8 for the aperture this second image is taken with the z6 Nick on mirrorless camera 30 second exposure gives a nice blur and softness to the Brisbane River for my second location I went to the story bridge which is often illuminated in different colors on this evening it was a beautiful purple color this is taken with the D photo 500 once again 20 second exposure and when you see this image on a big screen it's amazing how the cameras picked up the stars in the sky which is quite unusual when you're in the middle of the city a second image of the story bridge this time taken with a z6 I think definitely a better picture this one bit sharper and definitely the z6 had a better job at rendering the colors this image was taken the following evening with the z6 down at manley harbour which is close to the photo genius office exposure time here is just naught point eight seconds shot with a really wide aperture f/2 point eight and a higher ISO to get the stars in the sky and finally another visit to the story bridge this time for a pan o shot shot with the Zed 6 this is six images stitched together exposure time 13 seconds F 6.3 ISO 100 now if you do follow my tips and you get some amazing nighttime photos I would really like to see them so if you're posting your images to Instagram make sure you include the hashtag photo genius Brisbane that way I can search and find your images now if you've enjoyed the video and you've enjoyed the tips please give us a thumbs up consider subscribing to my channel and don't forget you can leave your questions comments and suggestions below where you will also find details about the tripods I mentioned earlier in the video I hope to see you again sometime soon see ya good bye

Channel: Photo Genius

Views: 502,588

Keywords: night photography settings, night photography tutorial, photography for beginners, photography tips, how to take photos at night, nikon d3500 settings, nikon z6, nikon z7, nikon z50, canon eos, low light photography, night photography without flash, shutter priority mode, dslr, camera, photography tips and trick, nikon, camera guide, long exposure photography, shutter speed, long exposure night photography, how to photograph the stars, night sky photography

Id: X5vogaSCmuk

Length: 14min 17sec (857 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 14 2019