6 tips to help take better night photos with a popular digital camera

If you've ever taken night photos with a popular digital camera, the point and shoot camera used by many people, you've probably been disappointed many times with the photos you take. Although these cameras all have a night mode, if you don't know how to use them, you can't get good night photos.

6 tips to help take better night photos with a popular digital camera Picture 1 6 tips to help take better night photos with a popular digital camera

Here are 6 tips to help you take better night photos with a popular digital camera

first

Using Night Scenes - Night Scenes

When taking pictures at night you will have to slow down the shutter speed, and most high-end digital cameras have the ability to let you adjust the shutter speed to your liking. However, not all popular digital cameras allow this, so if your digital camera can't adjust the shutter speed, you should switch to the night photography modes - Night Scenes are available.

6 tips to help take better night photos with a popular digital camera Picture 2 Night Scenes

Night photography modes are usually Night Portrait - Night portrait, Night Landscape - night landscape. You can easily find them in the camera's Settings - Setting Menu.

2

Try shooting with different speeds

We all know that the slower the shutter speed, the brighter the image will be. If you are shooting a cityscape at night, there may not be enough light, which means that when you slow down your shutter speed, your camera will also have to re-adjust the aperture so that the image has the right exposure. good light.

On the other hand, changing the shutter speed to a slower one also allows to capture extended headlight trails of varying degrees. The slow shutter speed and corresponding small aperture adjustment will help focus on distant buildings.

6 tips to help take better night photos with a popular digital camera Picture 3 Changing the shutter speed also allows you to capture extended headlight trails of varying degrees

See the Learn about shutter speed in digital photography tutorial

3

Find somewhere solid

Can you shoot at a slow shutter speed of a few seconds without the need for a camera stand? Probably not, because during these few seconds, before the camera has finished recording, a lot of unwanted changes will occur due to the unstable hand grip.

So, if you don't have a tripod on hand, then find somewhere or anything sturdy to place your camera when taking slow shots.

4

Hold your breath normally and shoot

After you press the shutter button, keep your finger still on the shutter button, do not rush to release your hand as this may cause the camera to wobble. You don't need to hold your breath, just keep breathing normally and steadily.

Watch the tutorial Basic operations to have a good digital photo

5

Note when using ISO to shoot night scenes

ISO is the sensitivity of the image sensor, it is a parameter often set when taking photos in low light conditions. However, it can help you but can also harm you when shooting night scenes. When you increase the ISO, the brighter the image will be, but it will also be more grainy - Noise. 

Ordinary cameras do not have noise reduction - Noise Reduction and these features are often not desirable. This makes photos taken with ISOs greater than 400 often grainy. Some people like it and some people don't like it. If you don't like this grainy image, be careful when changing the ISO settings.

See What is the ISO guide in digital photography?

6

Use the reduction feature if possible

As mentioned above, not all digital cameras have the feature of noise reduction - Noise Reduction when shooting in low light conditions with high ISO settings, you will easily notice noise when zooming in on the image. However, if the camera has this feature, then you should use it because in many cases it is really effective, especially when shooting the sky at night and of course the camera will also take a bit more time to recover. noise handling.

6 tips to help take better night photos with a popular digital camera Picture 4 Compare images taken with noise reduction - Noise Reduction

In the illustration above, the photo was taken at night with a high ISO setting. The image on the left was taken without noise reduction while the image on the right was taken in Noise Reduction mode.

Jessica Tanner

Update 08 May 2023