Shooting after Dark

So with the dark winter evenings upon us, trying to capture landscape photography can be fun when it comes to looking through that viewfinder or seeing details on your screen display due to the sky being dark and overcast this time of year. With the lack of light in the mornings or after 4pm in the evenings (UK time) you ask yourself why not just stay indoors with my camera and wait for spring.

Well here’s why!

I for one am still new to photography and after seeing other peoples images of Nightscape photography, I decided to get out during the evenings and try-out taking photos in the dark. The above image was taken between the hours of the only 7pm – 8pm so not that late and using the Bulb setting on my Nikon D7000 took approximately 12 minutes to capture.

So was it easy? No without a torch I couldn’t see a bloody thing (so lesson one learned, always take a torch) looking across the lake all I could see where lights from the houses on the other side of the lake, the sky and the trees were just a dark outline. Looking through the viewfinder or on-screen display seemed to view and pick up even less than what my eyes had adjusted too, this made setting up the composition and depth of field great fun NOT!

However after finally setting up my camera to what I was hoping would look ok, I took to take my first shot, 5min exposure just came out pitch black so I increased to 10 minutes etc, and finally, I managed to capture the above image.

Next trip out saw me setting up my camera a little better, and taking my first shot using an exposure time starting at 20 minutes using an ISO setting of 100 with a f/14 – 16 stop, different location this time with cloud and skies not so good, but still happy with the final outcome in the end

So go on, get outside with your camera in the evenings. Yes, people will look at you as if you are strange, and yes getting the image you picture within your own head is not going to be easy. However what you learn and the skills you gain will pay off in the end