How to capture scenic shots at night:

If you take an evening stroll around Bristol harbour you’ll see an array of lovely sights. Aside from the girls tottering on their heels and the drunks falling out of Weatherspoons, there are canal boats, little bridges, twinkly lights and colourful reflections dancing on the water.

I thought the dim light might make it hard to capture the colours on camera but quickly discovered the secret – it’s all about the shutter speed.

The easiest way to practice this is to have your camera on shutter speed priority mode (usually indicated by an ‘S’ on your camera mode dial). This mode allows you to have control over the shutter speed while your camera automatically adjusts the ISO and aperture. (For more info on shutter speed, ISO and aperture please see my previous post – The Big Three).

If your shutter speed is too fast, you will not let enough light into the camera and you will end up with a dark image lacking in detail. If your shutter speed is too fast, too much light will be let in giving you an overly bright image that loses the feel of the nighttime scene.

Having the shutter open for an extended period of time increases the chance of the image being blurred. You need to hold your camera as still as possible, or consider using a tripod, to get a really sharp image.

When taking photos without a tripod, to keep your image as clear as possible, your shutter speed should never be less than the size of your focal length, for example, if your lens focal length is 20mm the minimum shutter speed you should use is 1/20 of a second.

The photos below were taken holding the camera in my reasonably steady hands, using a lens focal length of 14mm and a shutter speed of 1/15 of a second.

CNL

Katie x