Night Photography Ideas

35 Nighttime Photography Ideas & Tricks

Learning night photography techniques may be challenging, you need experience, much time and patience. These recommendations with photo examples will help you avoid many common mistakes and achieve professional results quicker.

1. Set Proper Camera Settings

Doing nighttime photography, forget about Auto camera settings. The manual mode gives you full control over all of the parts of the exposure triangle. To work in low light conditions, you need to widen the aperture, lower shutter speed, and, of course, raise the ISO settings. This way, you can get beautiful images that doesn't require long processing in astrophotography software.

2. Use a Sturdy Tripod

At first glance, this advice may seem obvious. However, choosing a good tripod is incredibly important for nighttime photography. Shooting from hands may cause many problems. Some photographers try to replace a tripod with reliable surfaces. But they will deprive themselves of all the benefits a tripod provides. A good camera support allows you to experiment with shutter speed, exposure, and composition.

• Check out best carbon fiber tripods.

3. Use Shutter Release

Always use a shutter release cable to avoid camera shake. This is one of the most helpful nighttime photography tips for beginners. Many newbies don’t know that pressing the shutter button can result in blurry photos because of a camera shake. If the shutter speed is shorter than 30 seconds, you can do without a remote shutter. A 2-second timer is an ideal option for such cases.

4. Use Long Exposure Technique

In order for a weak night light to reach the image sensor, it is necessary to use prolonged exposure. Try a 30-second value, and then start experimenting and find a setting that suits your night time photography ideas. Please note that the time tour camera takes to render and process your pictures directly depends on the shutter speed. Be ready to wait for a while.

5. Use Manual Focus

Using manual settings is the best way to get the desired result and realize your night photography ideas. One of the main challenges in night photography is the limited amount of available light. Autofocus systems rely on contrast detection, which requires sufficient light to identify edges and establish focus.

In dark environments, this can lead to frustratingly slow autofocus or complete failure to focus altogether. Manual focus eliminates these issues, enabling you to precisely adjust the focus according to your subject and composition.

Another advantage of manual focus in night photography is the ability to focus on specific elements of the scene. For example, when photographing cityscapes at night, you may want to emphasize the sharpness of distant buildings or capture the details of a particular landmark. Manual focus allows you to carefully choose the focal point and achieve the desired level of depth and clarity in your images. Manual focus is the only right variant in this case.

6. Photograph Ferris Wheel

This is one of the greatest nighttime photography ideas. Capture a Ferris wheel against the background of a night city landscape. Experiment with long exposure. The moving wheel will create bright traces in the night sky. This idea will amaze anyone!

7. Dramatic Bridges

Undoubtedly, this is one of the best city photography ideas. If you live in a small town, you are unlikely to find something like the Brooklyn Bridge. However, you can definitely find at least one bridge. Incorporating headlights of the passing by cars, you will get an extra light source.

8. Carnivals

Carnivals are admired for the abundance of bright colors and night lights. This is a great place to bring cool night photography ideas to life. It is worth remembering that carnivals aren’t held every week, so prepare for such photoshoot in advance.

9. Use Crystal Balls

Even the most trivial night photography ideas can bring you unexpected results if you shoot objects through a crystal ball. Do not forget that you will have to flip the image during photo editing.

• Check out these crystal ball photography tips.

10. Museums

As a rule, museums are buildings that are most beautifully lit to attract the visitors. Find a list of museums on your city’s website or in the travel guide and start realizing your cool night photography ideas. Experiment, start with shots of the facade and then look for other interesting perspectives.

11. Aerial Night Photo

Aerial photography results look gorgeous even during the day. Imagine how cool your photos taken at night will be. Use a drone or rent a helicopter in order to have more control over the photoshoot.

• Find the best aerial photography drone.

12. City Lights Reflection

This is one of the best city photography ideas. Reflection photography is an art in itself, so make sure master night photography before trying this. I recommend using slow shutter speed to shoot reflections of city lights in the water to eliminate any water movement and help make it clearer and smoother.

13. Famous Attractions

Most famous locations are beautifully illuminated at night, which makes them perfect for this photo genre. It’s also an interesting idea to capture, as the atmosphere around those landmarks can be quite different than during the day.

14. Streetlights

Even the most boring city looks more attractive at night. The lights of buildings and signboards are interesting objects and light sources at the same time.

15. Highway

Take a picture of the night road or motorway. Such photos have incredible motion energy. Even if you live in a small town and don’t have a highway nearby, you probably can find some ordinary roads in your city. Use long exposure photography technique to capture beautiful streaks of light left by cars.

16. Empty Roads

Empty roads at night are another excellent subject. Although the lighting of empty roads is trickier than the highway lighting, the pictures turn out to be equally beautiful. To create a spooky mood, capture an empty road surrounded by forest.

17. Catch Traffic Lights

This idea may seem too simple for some photographers. However, it all depends on your way of looking at things, and the ability to capture them is an interesting and original way. For example, a simple photo of the streetlight can hardly attract much attention. However, night time pictures of traffic lights in the fog using a long exposure look really fascinating.

18. Colored Water Fountain

Most central squares in many cities have a fountain that is illuminated with colorful lights at night. Take advantage of such places when shooting night photography. Set the average ISO (100-400) and aperture (f/8). Start working and adjust them according to the conditions. A low shutter speeds can help you achieve the “flowing” effect.

19. Take Romantic Lanterns

Take a picture of flying lanterns that are going to lit the night sky in the most magical way.

20. Fireworks

Nowadays, you can see fireworks in the sky not only on a big holiday. Today we can enjoy this view quite often. Add a salute photo to your night photography ideas collection. 10-15 seconds shutter speed will allow you to get incredible shots.

21. Stadiums

Stadiums look stunning at night. My tip would be to capture the entire scene. Forget about shallow depth of field, and capture the vastness of this place. This is also a good excuse to practice your sport photography.

22. Night Sky

Night sky photography is the most beautiful and stunning type. What could be more wonderful than the clear sky, stars and the moon above a breathtaking night landscape?

• Read more about landscape photography.

23. Moon Photography

The Moon is not only an interesting object to shoot but also the only natural source of light at night. Take a picture of the Moon reflected in the water and get beautiful shots.

• Check out the best lens for astrophotography.

24. Long Exposure Stars

This is one of the night time photography tips that will help you achieve an abstract, futuristic look. It has something of Van Gogh's paintings. Never take such photos when the moon is at its peak. The will create excessive lighting.

• Check out the best camera for astrophotography.

25. Northern Lights

In order to get such photos, you need to travel. However, the result will be truly impressive. The main condition for such night photography idea is a clear, cloudless sky. Check the weather forecast in advance and work when the cloud cover is from 0 to 20%.

26. Lightning Strike

Photographing lightning strike cannot be called night photography for beginners. This activity is quite dangerous and requires a lot of experience and skills. Photos of lightning strike look incredible. However, when working in such conditions, do not neglect safety rules: avoid open spaces, and standing close to the water.

27. Neon Signs

Bright neon signs can add a trendy feel to a night portrait photo. Very often, night pictures are too dark and boring. Neon lights will help to spice them up.

• Make use of these 20 neon photography tips.

28. Sparklers

Sparklers is an excellent prop for a night portrait, it’s also one of the cheap photography props. Not only they will serve as an additional light source for the subject, they will also make the portraits more engaging and interesting to look at.

• Learn more about twilight photography.

29. Fairy Lights

Use fairy light night photography techniques to achieve a unique look. A soft light will make your image more elegant and delicate. If you are working with a model, ask them to hold the light a bit lower from the face. This will make the sparklers reflect in the eyes and emphasize the beauty and elegance of facial features.

30. Silhouettes

Silhouettes are one of the most interesting night photography tricks and a very good way to convey dramatic emotions and a mysterious mood. To achieve this effect, it is necessary to place a model directly in front of the light source. My recommendation would be to set the exposure based on the brightest part of the image, not to the main subject.

31. Light Painting

Sometimes the main subject in night time pictures may not be sufficiently lit. Emphasize it. Play with slow shutter speed and paint with light.

• Use pixelstick for awesome effects.

32. Capture Rainy Weather

Taking photos of rain can be very difficult technically, but it’s well worth the effort, as it’s one of the most romantic night photography ideas. Pictures of rain look awesome. They convey a mystical and dramatic mood.

• Use the rain cover to protect your gear.

33. Campfire

Capturing people sitting by the campfire is one of the coziest night portrait photography ideas. This is a great setting to photograph a group of friends bonding around the fire, as well as take shots of a couple in love.

34. Car Lights

If you want to achieve a horror movies atmosphere, put your subject in front of the car with the headlights on when shooting night photography. Use some smoke to increase the spooky effect.

35. Festivals and Concerts

Especially in big cities, you can capture concerts almost every day, both indoors and outdoors. Use the best camera for concer photography to capture the portraits of performers. Dramatic lighting, fog, explosions - everything you need for an epic portrait. It’s the most unexpected form of portrait photography, but it’s a great practice.

Nighttime Photography Editing Freebies

This collection of 5 freebies will improve your night time pictures greatly. Get an amazing result in just a few minutes.

Free Fireworks Photoshop Overlay "Sparkling Glow”

Fill the blank space in your photos with beautiful flashes of fireworks. Now it is not necessary to wait for the right moment to photograph a real firework, instead save yourself some time and use this overlay.

Free Cityscape Lightroom Preset "Cold Shine”

This preset can help you get deeper, more saturated tones. It is perfect for night photography of cityscapes.

Free Night Sky Photoshop Overlay "Swirling Night Sky"

Long exposure night sky photography is a great technique to get awesome shots. However, it requires special skill, equipment and time. By applying this overlay, you can achieve the same look in just a few clicks.

Free Night Sky Photoshop Overlay "The Milky Way"

This overlay will help you add stars and the Milky Way to your photos, saving the original color gamut. Thus, it will make the ordinary night look magical.

Free Night Time Lightroom Preset "Landscape”

This preset is ideal for both day to dusk and night lights photography. Use it for your landscape or architectural photos. It will add brightness in some places and darken other parts to hide some imperfections, creating an HDR-like effect.

Tata Rossi

Hi there, I'm Tata Rossi - a professional blogger, read more