Photography tips: Night photography

Unlike the situations where you achieve astonishing effects with short shutter speed by stopping cars, water and everything that otherwise moves, by using a longer shutter speed you let more light to participate in making a picture and moving objects leave a trace and some kind of motion. You can use this when you have less light than needed, especially between dusk and dawn. The longest shutter speed that gives satisfying results when shooting from hand is actually a number that defines focal length of the lens. That is in case you know your focal length, but if you don’t, the photos are usually unusable when shutter speed is longer than 1/45, but it also depends on stillness of your hand. Because of the reason that for photographing at nigh, when the only source of light can be a moon and the stars, you would need much longer shutter speeds (2 sec and up). For example, Home at night was made for 82 seconds. In that case you would need a help of a tripod which is a three-legged stand for a camera, used to stabilize and elevate the camera. After you put your camera on a tripod and carefully choose a shoot, use the timed way of shooting so you won’t make any vibration to the camera. The thing is you newer surely know how much time is needed in which situation, so experimenting is the only solution. Try with different shutter speeds for at least 3 times and it is possible to make a satisfying picture. At night you can take a picture of cities, buildings, bodies of water (lakes, rivers, canals, etc) reflecting moonlight or city lights and lots of other things, only needed is the imagination.