Night Photography Tips For Capturing Vivid Sydney

When you want to capture Vivid Sydney in the best possible way, there are some tips that you want to keep in mind with your digital SLR. A few changes to the settings can mean the difference between capturing the beautiful light shows and washing them out so that all you get is a faded picture of the building itself.

ISO

In the days of film, ISO was the number on the film tin. ISO 100 is ideal for sunny situations. The higher the ISO, the better it does in darker situations. This means that when you are shooting at night, you want to use somewhere between an ISO 800 and ISO 1600. It all depends on just how dark it is as well as what your camera settings allow for.

There should be settings on your camera where you can change the ISO. This is not something that is automatically sensed on most cameras, so you will need to change it manually. Most cameras have a default setting of ISO 400, which will allow for night photography, but won’t be the best option.

Aperture

Aperture is the setting that controls how much light is allowed inside the camera. An f/16 setting is great when the sun is shining, but it’s going to be too small of an opening when you want to shoot at night. You want to get as much of the natural light in as possible, so you want a wide opening, which means a very small number. This should be somewhere around f/4 or even f/2.8 if your camera allows it. You may have to change lenses in order to get the aperture opening that really works.

When you can get a wide open aperture setting, you can shut off your flash. This will allow the lights of Vivid Sydney to shine through so that you don’t get the faded or whitewash effect with the lighting.

Time Lapse

Time lapse is a very popular technique with night photography. This is when you allow for a longer shutter speed so that more light can penetrate the photo. Normally, the shutter is going to be open for all of about 1/100 of a second, which means there isn’t a lot of light going in. When you can let the shutter open for longer, you get more light. When you don’t have a large aperture setting, this can be a way to overcome it.

When you use time lapse, there are two things you need to consider. The first is that you are going to record motion. If the lights are moving, it will not be a crisp look. The second is that you may need to stabilize your camera with a tripod or monopod to avoid hand shakes while the lens is open.

Photographing People

When you are out with friends and want to have Vivid Sydney in the background, the quickest solution is to grab your camera in auto mode and take the photo. The flash will go off, which will capture the person in front of you, but the background won’t be recognizable.

You can take photos without the use of a flash. This is done by using the surrounding lights and making the shutter speed fast enough to avoid blur. Ask the person to stand as still as possible and “borrow†some of the light around you to provide enough highlight. The key is to open the aperture as much as possible.

If you use a flashlight instead of a flash, you can actually fill in the light where you need it. This ensures that a portion of the person is not cut off in darkness.

If you absolutely have to use a flash to take a photo of person outside in the dark, it’s a good idea to bounce the flash off of something so that it is not as harsh and does not destroy the background. You can bounce off of a white T-shirt, a metallic object or various other things. To do this, you will need to have a flash unit mounted to your camera that is capable of swivel.

Hardware to Purchase

If you want to photograph Vivid Sydney to the best of your abilities, you will want to invest in some hardware that goes beyond what you have with your digital SLR.

Cable release: This is a small component to help with time release photography so that you can snap the photos without having your hand on the camera.

Sturdy tripod: A good tripod can help to maintain stability and allow you to change the height in which you shoot. If you don’t have the room for a tripod, a monopod is another option since it has only one leg.

Wider aperture lens: There are some great wide aperture lenses that are ideal for bringing in more natural light. There is a big difference between f/2.8 and f/1.8 or even f/1.4. Buy what you can afford.

Play Around

One of the best tips for night photography is to play around with the settings. Every photo is going to be different based upon where you are in conjunction with the light show as well as how much light is around you. This can change each time you are watching the show, too.

Understand your camera settings and how you can manipulate the ISO, the aperture and the shutter speed. Most DSLR cameras will allow you to go into manual mode or semi-manual mode. Semi-manual is where you choose the aperture or shutter speed and the camera chooses the other settings for you based upon the environment.

Flash is not going to be your friend when you are taking photos at night, so you need to get creative by allowing all of the natural light to flood into the camera so that you can capture all of the light play. That is when you are going to get the most breath-taking images and have a souvenir that is far better than what you could find in any gift shop around Sydney.