C ollier’s

Quick Tutorial on

Night Photography

Grant Collier
©2018 Grant Collier
All photos ©2018 Grant Collier
Design by Grant Collier

Published by Collier Publishing LLC

https//www.collierpublishing.com

This book may not be reproduced in full or in part by any means (with the exception
of short quotes for purpose of review) without permission of the publisher.

Cover Photo: The Milky Way rises above the Dolores River in western Colorado.
 Welcome!
The following tutorial contains advice on capturing stunning images at night. If you
would like more in-depth and advanced instruction, you can order my 160-page book
“Collier’s Guide to Night Photography” at:

https://www.collierpublishing.com/Night-Photography-Guide.htm

I also provide 7 1/2 hours of instruction on optimizing your images on the computer in
my video course called “Collier’s Guide to Post-Processing Night Photos” at:

https://www.collierpublishing.com/Instructional-Videos.htm

Finally, I have a new book called “Collier’s Guide to Photographing Arches National
Park.” The tutorial that follows was taken mostly from the second chapter of this book.
You can order the complete, 112-page book at:

https://www.collierpublishing.com/Photographing-Arches.htm

Enjoy!

Grant Collier
https://www.gcollier.com

Take your photography to the next level with our books & videos.
 A Shot in the Dark

W e are literally blinded by the light.

The sun is so bright during the day
that we can see only a blue sky above us,
lens with a wide aperture that can let in a
lot of light.

giving the illusion that there is little else Since cameras and lenses are constantly
out there. Only when the Earth rotates evolving, I keep a current list of the equip-
away from this light are we able to see ment that I recommend for night photogra-
the dazzling display of planets, stars, and phy at http://www.gcollier.com/gear/. You
galaxies that surrounds our tiny planet. can also find good reviews of cameras and
lenses at: http://www.dxomark.com.
For a long time, it was very difficult for
the average photographer to capture good CAMERA SETTINGS
images of this celestial display. Film
simply wasn’t light sensitive enough to Using the correct camera settings is very
record high quality images with short important when shooting at night. With
exposures. The digital revolution has the proper exposure, you can capture re-
changed all of this. With a little practice, markable images with minimal noise and
anyone can now capture stunning images maximum detail. However, a simple mis-
of the night sky with relatively inexpen- take can cause a photograph to be very
sive equipment. noisy or completely out of focus.

I’ll go over the basics of capturing great Shutter Speed

night photos in this short eBook. You
can find much more detailed instruction Determining the proper shutter speed for
in my book “Collier’s Guide to Night shots that include the night sky can be
Photography in the Great Outdoors” and tricky. A one-minute exposure will yield
in my video series “Collier’s Guide to better-quality images than a six-second ex-
Post-Processing Night Photos” posure because you are letting more light
into the camera and therefore increasing
CAMERA EQUIPMENT the signal-to-noise ratio. However, during
the course of a one-minute exposure the
You will need a good digital SLR or pro- stars will move across the sky and create
fessional mirrorless camera, along with a small star trails in your image. This is not
sturdy tripod to capture high quality im- ideal if you are trying to capture stars that
ages at night. It is also helpful to have a appear as round points of light, like you
 

see them with the naked eye. ISO

You need to find a way to get exposures When shooting in low light, you will usu-
that are as long as possible without pro- ally want to use the highest native ISO on
ducing noticeable star trails. This is where your camera in order to get the best qual-
the rule of 500 comes in. With this rule, ity images with the least amount of noise.
you take 500 divided by the focal length of Native ISOs are represented by a number,
your lens to determine the shutter speed. such as 3200 or 6400. You should avoid
For example, if you are shooting with a using extended ISOs. These ISOs are gen-
17mm lens, you take 500/17=29.4. So 30 erally represented by letters, such as H1.
seconds would be your shutter speed.
One exception to using the highest ISO is
If you are not using a full-frame camera, if it causes the highlights to be blown out in
you will need to first multiply the focal the image. You can check for this by look-
length of your lens by the crop factor of ing at your histogram. If there is a spike
your camera before using the rule of 500. at the very right edge of your histogram,
For example, if you are using a 16mm lens then the highlights are blown out. Or, if
on a camera with a 1.5 crop factor, you you have the highlight alert enabled on
will multiply 16mm x 1.5 to get 24mm your camera, the blown out highlights will
as your effective focal length. Then take blink on the image on the LCD screen. An
500/24=20.8. So 20 seconds would be image with overexposed highlights will be
your shutter speed. of noticeably lower quality than an image
that is slightly underexposed from the use
Aperture of lower ISOs at night. So you’re better
off using lower ISOs if there’s any chance
When taking photos at night, you will gen- of blowing out the highlights.
erally want to shoot with the widest pos-
sible aperture on your lens. The widest ap- Focusing
erture is the lowest number aperture, like
f2.8 or f1.8. This is very important at night The easiest way to get a night shot in fo-
because you need to let in as much light as cus is to set your camera up during the
possible to help minimize noise. day and get your focus right before it ever
gets dark. However, if you can’t do this or
One exception to using the widest pos- you need to change your focus during the
sible aperture is if you have an extremely course of the night, there are many ways
fast lens, like f1.4 or f1.2. Even with the to do this.
best lenses, the corners of the image can
show a lot of softness at these ultra-wide If you don’t have a close foreground ob-
apertures. The widest aperture I gener- ject in your shot, you can simply focus at
ally shoot with at night is therefore f1.8 infinity. If there is a moon out, you can
or f1.6. do this by using autofocus and focusing on


the moon. If there is no moon out, you can fainter stars. This is particularly important
zoom in on a bright star using Live View if you want to capture dramatic shots of
on your LCD screen. Then, manually ad- the Milky Way.
just the focus until the star appears as a
small, sharp point of light. The biggest disadvantage of shooting un-
der no moon is that less light enters your
If you have a close foreground object in camera and there will be more noise vis-
your shot, you’ll need to focus at twice the ible in the photographs.
distance of the nearest object. One way to
do this is to place a flashlight at that dis- Single exposures taken under no moon
tance and autofocus on the flashlight. will usually render foreground objects as
dark silhouettes against the night sky. This
After you take a shot, make sure and zoom can be good for objects with interesting
in all the way on the image on your LCD shapes, like a saguaro cactus or some of
screen to ensure that everything is in focus. the bizarre rock formations in America’s
Sometimes, if the foreground object is too Desert Southwest. It probably won’t work
close, it will be impossible to get every- as well for things with less distinct shapes,
thing in focus in a single shot using a wide like mountains or canyons.
aperture. In this case, you’ll need to use
a technique called focus stacking, where
you blend multiple shots taken with differ-
ent focus points. I describe this in detail in
“Collier’s Guide to Night Photography.”

MOON PHASES

Knowing what the current moon phase

is and where in the sky the moon will be
is very important for night photography.
Shooting under a full moon can produce
drastically different results than shooting Turret Arch under no moon.
under no moon. While there is no right
moon phase to shoot under, there are dis- Another option when shooting under no
tinct advantages and disadvantages to moon is to blend multiple exposures or do
shooting under different phases. light painting to render detail in the fore-
ground. However, light painting is now
No Moon discouraged in some locations, including
many national parks. It is well worth your
The biggest advantage of shooting under time to learn how to blend multiple expo-
no moon is that your camera can capture sures to render detail at night. By doing
more stars, since moonlight obscures this, I believe you will usually get better
 

results that look more natural than a light- does during the day. Shooting with the
painted image. moon behind you and low in the sky will
also keep the part of the sky you are pho-
Full Moon tographing a little darker and more stars
will be visible.
The advantages and disadvantages of pho-
tographing under a full or gibbous moon A full moon will be up most of the night.
are the reverse of shooting under no moon. So if you will be facing west when photo-
With the bright light of a full moon, you graphing, it’s probably best to photograph
will get less noise in your images. This early in the night when the moon is low
can be advantageous if you are using an in the sky in the east. If you’re going to
older digital camera or if you don’t have a be facing east, it’s generally best to photo-
lens with a very wide aperture. graph early in the morning when the moon
is low in the sky in the west.
Another potential advantage of shooting
under a full moon is that it will illuminate
the foreground and bring out the color and
detail in the scene, in much the same way
as the sun would. If the foreground is the
most important part of your image and
you’re not as concerned with capturing a
dramatic starscape, you may want to shoot
under a full moon.

The biggest disadvantage of shooting un-

der a full moon is that it obscures the light
from the stars, and the skies will not look
as impressive.

It’s generally best to photograph with the

moon behind you, so that it illuminates the
front of the object you are shooting. One
exception to this is if you want to include
the moon itself in the shot. In this case,
you will of course want the moon in the
same part of the sky that you are photo- Ancient Anasazi ruin under a full moon.
graphing.
Crescent Moon
It is usually better to shoot with the moon
low in the sky. If it is high in the sky, it While there can be some advantages to
can produce harsh light, just like the sun shooting under a full or gibbous moon, I


find that the bright light usually obscures I find that it starts to drown out the light
the stars too much. Also, with newer cam- from the stars too much. I therefore usual-
eras and fast lenses, noise is not as big of ly plan my photography trips so that they
an issue as it used to be. I therefore prefer end after the first quarter moon.
to shoot under a crescent moon if I want to
render detail in the foreground and capture The waxing crescent moon that occurs af-
more stars in the sky. ter the new moon will appear in the west-
ern part of the sky after sunset. Thus, it
An interesting fact about the quarter moon is generally best to shoot under this moon
(or a 50% illuminated moon) is that it is when facing in an easterly direction.
only 9% as bright as a full moon. This is
surprising to many people who would ex- The waning crescent moon that occurs
pect a quarter moon to be half as bright before the new moon will appear in the
as a full moon. However, light from the eastern part of the sky before sunrise. It
sun bounces directly off a full moon and is generally best to shoot under this moon
straight back to Earth. Light from a quar- when facing in a westerly direction.
ter moon has to bounce at a 90-degree an-
gle to reach Earth, and much of that light
is blocked by irregularities on the moon’s
surface, like craters and boulders. The light
from a quarter moon therefore obscures
the stars much less than a full moon and
will often result in more dramatic images.

I generally like shooting under an even

fainter moon, when it is 10%-35% illu-
minated. This provides just enough light
to illuminate the foreground, while only
somewhat obscuring the stars. A moon
that is 10% illuminated is less than 2% as
bright as a full moon. However, even this
much light is usually enough to illuminate
the foreground if you’re using good equip-
ment that doesn’t produce too much noise.
You do, however, need to make sure the
moon is directly illuminating the front of
the foreground objects, as any large shad-
ows will usually be too dark to render de-
tail under such a dim moon. Faux Falls under a quarter moon.

If the moon is more than 50% illuminated, Throughout the year, the moon can also
 

move from far south in the sky to far at sunrise or sunset. You can also capture
north. It wanders farther north and south images of Earth’s shadow, which is the
than the sun does. You can plan to shoot in shadow that Earth casts on its own atmo-
a southerly direction when the moon is to sphere. This shadow will usually appear
the north and in a northerly direction when with a bright pink band of sky above it,
the moon is to the south. known as the Belt of Venus.

TWILIGHT You won’t be able to capture many stars

in your images during this time, but you
The are three stages of twilight - civil twi- can get shots of the moon and a few of the
light, nautical twilight, and astronomical brightest stars and planets. The moon will
twilight. Each of these stages lasts about 30 be visible throughout civil twilight, while
minutes, though it can be longer or shorter some of the stars and planets will be vis-
depending on where you are shooting and ible towards the end of civil twilight in
what time of year it is. It is important to the evening (or the beginning of it in the
understand how your shots will appear morning).
during different stages of twilight. You
can find the times of each stage of twilight Nautical Twilight
on an app like PhotoPills or a website like
WeatherUnderground.com.

Civil Twilight

The moon and Venus appear at civil twilight.

Civil twilight occurs just after sunset or

just before sunrise. It will therefore be
fairly light out and your images may look
more like daytime shots than night shots. Stars emerge during nautical twilight.
The clouds may have some of the bright
orange or pink glow that you would see After civil twilight in the evening, and be-
10

fore it in the morning, is a period known as under a moon in the dark of night (the sky
nautical twilight. It will start to look quite will appear blue, the foreground will be lit
dark to the naked eye during nautical twi- up, and some stars will be obscured).
light. However, your camera can still cap-
ture light hitting the landscape, which will
illuminate the foreground. You’ll usually
get the best light on the land if you are fac-
ing away from the spot where the sun set
or where it is about to rise. If, on the other
hand, you face toward the direction of the
sun, you can often get good colors in the
sky just above the horizon. If there was a
very colorful sunset, some of the color on
the clouds may last until nautical twilight.

Astronomical Twilight

After nautical twilight in the evening, and

before it in the morning, is a period known
as astronomical twilight. During this time,
the sky will appear almost completely dark
to the human eye. However, there will
still be some light from the sun refracted
through the atmosphere that can be picked
up by a camera. At the beginning of as-
tronomical twilight in the evening, the sky Darkness descends at astronomical twilight.
will still have a bluish color to it. If there
is no moon out, the sky will gradually fade THE MILKY WAY
to purple and then to black at the end of
twilight. There may also be some reds or The densest concentration of stars you will
yellows in the direction the sun set (or is see in the night sky can be found in the
about to rise). band of the Milky Way. Earth is located
on a spiral arm far out from the center of
If there is no moon or a thin crescent the Milky Way Galaxy. As a result, when
moon, the skies will be sufficiently dark we look towards the center of the Milky
that you will be able to capture many Way, it appears much brighter. When we
stars and the Milky Way in your images. look away from the center, it appears quite
If there is a brighter moon out, the light faint.
from it will likely overpower any light re-
fracted through the atmosphere from the You can use a free program called Stel-
sun. Your shots will look like shots taken larium to see exactly how the Milky Way
 11

will appear at any time and any location nate from a specific area of the sky, which
on Earth. Since the Milky Way stretches is known as the radiant. The meteors will
across the entire sky, you’ll need to use a not all appear in this part of the sky, but
wide-angle lens or create a stitched image they will all point back to this spot.
to capture more than a fragment of it.
You don’t necessarily want to point your
camera directly towards the radiant of the
meteor shower. The meteors you capture
near the radiant will generally be mov-
ing towards you and will therefore appear
shorter. If you point your camera about 90
degrees away from the radiant, you will be
more likely to capture longer meteor trails.
The Milky Way rises above the Utah desert. In fact, you can generally point your cam-
era in any direction and capture a lot of
METEOR SHOWERS meteors during an active shower. This can
give you more options when composing
Meteor showers can produce one of the your shots.
most awe-inspiring displays in the night
sky. They are predictable and occur at
about the same time each year. A list of all
the major meteor showers can be found at:
http://www.imo.net/resources/calendar/.

The Perseids and Geminids are typically

the best meteor showers each year. The
Perseids peak around August 12, while
the Geminids peak around December 13.
The Quadrantids in early January can also
put on a good show, but the peak of this Huge meteor over Dearfield, Colorado.
shower usually only lasts a few hours.
Other meteor showers may run in cycles To maximize your chances of photograph-
and be incredible one year and uneventful ing a bright meteor, you should take re-
for many years after that. peated exposures throughout the night and
hope that a large meteor passes through
If the moon is out, it can obscure the mete- the shot during one or more of the expo-
ors and make them more difficult to pho- sures. Unless your camera has a built-in
tograph. So it’s best if you can shoot them interval timer, this will require a remote
under no moon or a crescent moon. shutter release or intervalometer. It may
also require extra batteries, as even the
All of the meteors in a shower will origi- best batteries will die within 2-5 hours. If
12

you buy a battery grip, you can add one or will move too far during the exposure,
two additional batteries to your camera. causing it to blur. This exposure length
will usually not be long enough to capture
I recommend using an ISO of 1600. Some good detail in the rest of the scene. You’ll
of the meteors can be bright enough that therefore need to blend two exposures
you can overexpose them with higher - one short exposure for the moon and a
ISOs. They will still look good if they are longer exposure for the land and the stars.
overexposed. However, you can some-
times capture color in them if you avoid One time when you may be able to cap-
overexposing them. ture a good quality image of an eclipse
with a single exposure is if the eclipse oc-
LUNAR ECLIPSES curs during civil or even nautical twilight.
At this time, there may be enough light on
If you are able to plan a photography trip the foreground and in the sky that you will
around a total lunar eclipse, you will be be able to get good quality shots with the
treated to a spectacular sight. During the short exposures that are required to photo-
first part of the eclipse, you’ll see just a graph the moon.
small part of Earth’s shadow covering the
moon. If it is a total lunar eclipse, this shad- Another option when photographing an
ow will grow until it completely blocks eclipse is to take images of many different
the moon. During totality, some light that stages of the eclipse. You can then create
passes through Earth’s atmosphere will be a composite image with many different
refracted and still hit the moon. This re- moons at various stages.
fracted light will have a warm glow to it,
and the moon will appear as an orange ball STAR TRAILS
in the sky.
If you take a very long exposure of the
night sky using a camera that is sitting sta-
tionary on a tripod, you will capture what
are known as star trails. During the course
of the exposure, our planet will rotate on
its axis and the stars will appear to move
across the sky. The camera captures the
light from the stars as they move, and the
stars appear as curved lines in your image,
rather than points of light.
Total lunar eclipse above Moses & Zeus.
Unless your camera has a built-in interval
A lunar eclipse is difficult to photograph timer that allows long exposures, you will
because you need to keep your exposures need to use a remote cord anytime you’re
to about one second or less or the moon shooting star trails.
 13

Although you can use a single, long ex- To calculate exposure times and aperture
posure to capture star trails, you can actu- settings for a single exposure, you can
ally get better results by taking many con- start with a test shot using a wide aperture,
secutive shorter exposures and combining high ISO, and shorter exposure. You will
them on a computer. The star trails will then need to extrapolate the proper shut-
show up more prominently and you’ll get ter speed and aperture for the longer expo-
less noise in the image. To do this, you’ll sure. For example, let’s say you’re able to
need to disable Long Exposure Noise Re- get a good exposure with a shutter speed
duction in your camera, as it will take too of 13 seconds at f4.0 and ISO 6400. If
long between shots. You can use a soft- you lower the ISO from 6400 to 100, you
ware program or Photoshop plug-in to will be able to shoot 64 times longer. This
combine all the shots into one image with comes to about 14 minutes. So, you will
long star trails. A plug-in I recommend is be able to expose a shot for 14 minutes at
Floris Van Bruegel’s Photoshop script at: f4.0 and ISO 100. If you want to do even
http://www.artinnaturephotography.com/ longer exposures, you can use smaller ap-
page/startrailstacker/. ertures. If you close the aperture one stop
to f5.6, you will let in half as much light.
You can therefore do 28 minute exposures
with ISO 100.

You can do these calculations yourself

or use an app like PhotoPills. There is no
reciprocity failure in digital cameras like
there is with film, so you don’t need to
factor this in when calculating exposure
lengths.

Another option when shooting star trails is

to use an inexpensive film camera that is
compatible with your current lenses. This
Star trails above Arches National Park. can free up your digital camera to take
other shots while waiting on the long ex-
If this sounds too complicated, you can posure from the film camera.
just do one really long, single exposure. If
you do this, you should enable Long Ex- COMBINING EXPOSURES
posure Noise Reduction. This noise reduc-
tion will take as long as it took to capture There are quite a few advanced tech-
the original exposure. You will therefore niques for combining multiple exposures
need to make sure you have enough bat- to get significantly higher quality images
tery power left to complete the noise re- at night. To get more detail in the fore-
duction. ground of your image, you can take one
14

long exposure of the land and blend it with field in an image by blending multiple
a shorter exposure of the sky. An even bet- shots taken with different focus points. All
ter approach is to take multiple images of of this is beyond the scope of the book, but
the land and stack them to reduce noise. I include detailed explanations in “Col-
You can then blend this image of the land lier’s Guide to Night Photography.”
with a single image of the sky or a stacked
image of the sky. You can also take an im- POST-PROCESSING
age of the land during twilight when it is
still light out and blend it with an image of Capturing a great night photo with your
the sky when it is dark. camera is only half the battle to producing
a truly stunning image. In the digital age,
you must know how to properly process
these images on the computer. An inabil-
ity to do so can leave you with photos that
don’t come close to fulfilling their poten-
tial.

Multiple exposures were blended in this shot.

Post-processing helped this image come alive.
Other possibilities for combining images
include taking many shots of smaller parts Post-processing images is also beyond the
of the scene and stitching them all togeth- scope of this book, but I provide more in-
er. By doing this, you can get a very high formation in my night photography guide,
resolution image with more detail and less along with step-by-step instructions in my
noise. You can also increase the depth of instructional videos.