Shooting in the dark:

As I began venturing into the world of photography one of the first things I wanted to learn to do was shooting at night. My first order of business was taking pictures of the Christmas lights in downtown Salt Lake City and it has moved on from there, everything from simple night portraits to 15 minutes star trail exposures.

I am going to give you a few quick tips about shooting at night, and seeing as it was just Halloween I will use this Scary Skeleton from a house I had the opportunity to shoot as an example:



Lets start with the Basics of night shooting:

1. Always use a tripod or something to hold the camera stable.

2. If you can, use a timer to trigger your camera. Your hand pushing down the shutter button will create just enough shake to make the image fuzzy.

3. TURN OFF THE FLASH, I can't stress this enough! You know most cameras on board flash were meant to fill only a 5-12 foot area? You know those cool shots of sports stadiums with all the flashes going off? Looks cool, but all the people whose flashes went off got a neat picture of the heads in front of them :p

4. Experiment with different shutter lengths, the shot above was 16 seconds! If you are trying to capture a stationary object at night (Christmas Lights, etc) you will need long exposures. Most cameras will have a mode that allows you to tell the camera how long to keep the shutter open, you may have to open your Manual! *gasp*

5. Take more than one shot! The digital format is perfect for one thing, it doesn't cost anything to shoot more. Try a shot at 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 15 seconds, etc.

If you do just the things listed above, I know you will be able to capture some awesome night images.