Morning & Night Photography
Photography during winter is fun, especially when the
mornings are filled with mist and the light is golden. There are long shadows during
sunset and frost throughout the day, beautifully formed on spider webs, plants
and anything that touches the chill. Then there is snow, which creates its own
unique atmosphere. But most importantly, the whole ambiance is a wonderland.
Even though it gets cold during these months, don’t let this
put you off photography. Wear suitable clothing to keep warm and capture the
beauty of nature in your photography.
In this article I will briefly explain how to take great
photographs in different lighting conditions using the ISO, aperture, shutter,
and manual mode of your camera.
Morning Photography
Before sunrise, the light reflected from the sky hitting the
scene is very soft and diffused, which gives very weak shadows. The colour of
the sky will be blue on a clear day and grey on a cloudy day, such lighting
conditions can create very atmospheric photographs. This photograph was taken before the sunrise.
Use the Aperture Priority mode; set the aperture at f16 (the
camera will automatically adjust the shutter speed).
For Manual mode, set the aperture at f16 and the shutter
speed at 15 seconds. Use this shutter speed as a guide only, as your exposure
time may vary depending on the available light. You may either have to increase
or decrease the shutter speed depending on the image produced.
Cameras which do not have the Aperture Priority or Manual
mode will often allow selecting different scene settings, such as ‘dusk/dawn’,
‘nightlight’ or ‘sunset’ modes. Please choose which suits you and your camera
best.
If you don't have a SLR, it's still possible to get good photographs, just need to understand your camera and its modes. Read more on 'Understanding your Camera'.
Example of photograph using ‘Dawn/dusk’ mode on a compact
camera
During the morning also try to photograph the morning fog, water droplets on spiderwebs and frost. The photographs below are all taken with a compact camera. To get maximum depth of field, set your compact camera on 'Landscape Mode' (set f16 on SLR - using Aperture mode ) and for minimum depth of field set the camera on 'Close-up Mode' (set f2.8 of f5.6 on SLR - using Aperture mode). The result of using these settings will be similar.
Morning fog (camera set on 'Fog Mode')
Dew drops (camera set on 'Close-up Mode')
Night Photography
During total darkness, there is obviously no natural light
available. These are perfect conditions to photograph trailing lights from
cars, lit cityscapes, fireworks and light movement.
If using Shutter mode, set your SLR on a slow shutter speeds such as 1/8th, 1/4th to capture movement. If using Manual mode, set the camera at f16 and use the camera’s exposure indicator to set the value on 0 as
this will give you the correct exposure.
An exposure indicator is visible through the viewfinder
which looks like:
2||||1||||0||||1||||2+.
On compact cameras choose 'Nightlight', and the camera will adjust the aperture and shutter accordingly.
Photograph of snow at night using Manual Mode:
It's great to experiment and be creative with photography. Try changing the ISO to 1600 or higher to minimise camera shake and to
achieve moody, atmospheric photographs. I also convert my images to black/white to add more drama to it.
On compact cameras choose ‘Nightlight’ and the camera will
adjust aperture and shutter speed accordingly.
Example of photograph using ‘Nightlight’ on a compact camera:
Bhupinder Ghatahora ABIPP, ARPS, ASWPP
Ghatahora Photography
info@ghatahora.co.uk
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