Boston common  All images  Sunlight Photography

Most people head home after the sun sets but they are missing more possibilities for photographing exciting images. Late dusk is an excellent time to take night shots when there is less areas of black and some daylight to fill in the shaded areas that are not lit by artificial light.

One place that is special to photograph at night is Boston, especially the Boston common and gardens. The lights of the buildings, the pond and opportunities for reflections all contribute to pictures that are more dazzling at night over normal daytime light.

Nighttime photography is sometimes avoided by people who are afraid it is too difficult to obtain a good photograph. If the following techniques are used people will discover that it isn’t so difficult to photograph at night and is fun to try different techniques.

Some tips for successful images:

• Long Exposure. Long exposures are needed when there is less light after sunset. Therefor e with less light, the shutter speed needs to be longer to let more light into the camera for a better image. Recommended exposures are usually ½ second to 30 seconds.
• A tripod is needed. A tripod is recommended anytime a photograph is taken but especially when slower shutter speeds are used than can be handheld. With the extra slow shutter speeds needed at night, a tripod is essential to ensure sharpness.
• Use a remote shutter release or the self-timer function on the camera. Using these will help eliminate camera shake which contributes to out-of -focus pictures. Also, the camera shouldn’t be touched when the shutter is released or at any time during the exposure. Touching the camera will usually cause small vibrations affecting the quality of the photograph.
• Use a lower ISO setting. An ISO of 100-400 is recommended. Increasing the ISO setting is not necessary and it increases the amount of noise available in the images.
• Set camera on manual or shutter priority. The manual setting is more preferred although it requires more adjusting by the photographer.
• Bracketing of exposures. Bracketing, using different shutter speeds/aperture settings, increases the chance of a photo being properly exposed. Start with a mid-point aperture such as f5.6 if depth of field is not a priority. A recommended shutter speed to start with is 2 seconds. If the exposure has to lengthened, the shutter setting should be adjusted..
• Set LCD brightness to normal. Normal should be used over bright for a truer representation of the recorded image.

Boston Common Sunlight Photography