These days you don’t need to be an experienced photo editor to turn photos into paintings. You don’t even need Photoshop! Why? Because there’s an app for it—or several! Anyone with a photo and smartphone (or computer) can do it.
Ready to turn photos into paintings? We first show you how the process works. Then we give you the top paint apps available for Android, iOS, and desktop platforms.
How to Make a Photo Look Like a Painting
Many different apps turn photos into paintings. But the process typically follows a similar approach.
Step 1: Upload a Photo
After downloading the app, you’ll next have to upload the photo you’d like to convert.
Next, you’ll choose the painting style that you want. Apps will offer different styles based on famous painters or classical art styles. The process is automatic once you’ve selected the art style and the image to apply it.
Step 3: Adjust Effects and Export
In some apps, you can adjust the painting effect. Once you finish, you can export the painted image for sharing or printing.
The process to turn photos into paintings may be simple… but what app do you choose?
The Best Apps to Turn Photos Into Paintings
Fitting an extensive AI (artificial intelligence) program on a small device is challenging. That’s why many apps require an internet or data connection to connect with a cloud that stores its AI.
Some apps work best for landscapes and still life. Others are ideal for portraits. The apps also differ in the number and quality of painting styles. Some also add painting styles to videos too.
With this in mind, here are some of the best apps that turn photos into art.
Prisma is one of the most well-known and full-featured apps for turning photos into paintings. It popularized painterly pictures in the first place.
It’s free on both iOS and Android, which has helped build the app’s popularity. But for full access to all the features, you must use a paid subscription.
Prisma now has more than 300 painting styles to apply to images. These are often based on well-known artists styles like Picasso, Munch, and Salvador Dali.
Picsart is like a sort of mobile Photoshop. Users can access filters and sliders, mix photos, and paint on effects.
That means fewer apps clogging up your home screen because this one app can do the job of a few. On the flip side, it means this app takes up more space on your phone. PicsArt is one of the biggest apps on this list!
If you want only part of your image to look like a painting, PicsArt has a more advanced photo edit. The Effects gallery inside PicsArt contains many different options for turning a photo into a sketch or painting.
Unlike Prisma, PicsArt is more than a one-trick pony. The app has other editing options if you don’t want to go the painting route.
That also means PicsArt isn’t as easy to navigate as other apps with more limited choices. But PicsArt does have helpful tutorials.
PicsArt is free to download and use for both iOS and Android. But you get more exclusive content and an ad-free app with a subscription.
Brushstroke is one of the most full-featured apps dedicated to digital paintings. It has one of the best selection of tools to customise that photo-to-painting look.
You can choose the painting style. But you can also select the canvas type. This helps create additional variations through texture.
Many apps lock the colours in using the original painting style. Brushstroke allows users to choose a colour palette too.
The extra features don’t stop after the painting styles are applied. The app also includes the option to add your signature to your ‘painting’.
You can also print images from the app by sending the work to CanvasPop. And video styles are also an option.
So what’s the downside? Well, Brushstroke is a paid app.
Plus, adding video styles and additional illustration styles comes only with further in-app purchases… but its one-time purchase isn’t as expensive as subscription apps in the long run.
Unfortunately, the Brushstroke app is on iOS platforms only, so Android users will have to look elsewhere.
As the name suggests, Portrait Painter works best on images of people and pets. That doesn’t mean you can’t upload a good landscape too. But while most apps focus on landscapes and still life, Portrait Painter hones in on turning images of people into digital paintings.
Portrait Painter has several options to customise the look. You can use the original colours from the image or use a brighter colour palette instead.
Users can also adjust the brush and the canvas types, leaving a subtle texture in the final image.
Portrait Painter’s digital paintings don’t have to remain only on your smartphone and social media. The app also includes ordering a print of your creation through CanvasPop.
As an iOS-only app, photo editors can download Portrait Painter reasonably cheap. Video packs and new illustration effects are available for an added price.
Waterlougue focuses on a single type of painting—watercolour! While not as broadly applicable as other apps, the app does achieve its narrow focus very well.
The app uses 14 different presets. Each one has different colours and pen outlines.
Plus, the presets also change the consistency of the ‘paint’. So, it allows you to make those colours run together or keep shapes more distinct.
The app doesn’t offer as much control over the effects as others, but you can adjust some light and details. The app also hasn’t had as many updates as some others.
Do you want to make your photo look like a painting you physically made or a painting that you have hanging in your home already?
Glaze is a painting app like no other! They give you a Studio mode to quickly generate a few versions of the same image. Or, their Workshop mode lets you explore a massive range of styles and variations.
The app even allows you to paint masks to restrict where the brushstrokes appear. But my favourite feature is saving an image with a transparent background to use your new creation in another app.
The Best Desktop Software to Turn Photos Into Paintings
Turning photos into paintings isn’t only for mobile apps. Let’s look at a few desktop options if you don’t want to work on your smartphone. One is an affordable software add-on, and the other is free.
Corel PaintShop Pro has a one-click, instant-effect option to turn images into sketches or paintings. Users can choose from different painting styles.
The only customisation options are the strength of the effects. But you can further adjust the image inside PaintShop once you are done.
As a desktop program that includes other image editing tools, PaintShop Pro isn’t as affordable as the apps. But the full version is a lot less than a Photoshop subscription in the long run.
Fotor is an online image editor. That means there’s no software to download. The software’s GoArt tool turns photos into paintings in several different styles.
Because the software is online, the conversion process can be slow. It’s especially true if you have a slow internet connection.
But, the program is free to use. And it also includes a good selection of artistic styles (some of them paid, but the majority free).
Fotor’s image editor is accessible online. But GoArt is a different platform.
Converting a snapshot into a digital painting is a fun way to jazz up an otherwise dull photo. Thanks to developments in AI tech, finding a program to turn photos into paintings is an easy task on any budget. The process can help you make a statement, create shareable images, or even decorate your walls!
Monday, February 7, 2022
12 Best Techniques for Perfecting Your Night Photography
Tags: Shutterbug, Photography for Beginners, Newbie Photographer
1. Prepare Your Composition and Settings to Get the Best Shot
Shooting at night is a hard skill to master because shots take longer to expose. I compare it to shooting on film. You need to think a lot more about your camera settings and composition when thinking about how to take night photos.
Night photography takes place at any time between dusk and dawn. During this time, the range of colors can vary. Night photography draws on some of the same principles of black and white photography. For example, a factor that may once have affected the color in your photo may now change the contrast.
When there’s an inkling of light in the night sky, take a long exposure. You can end up with a blue evening sky when, in reality, it’s much darker outside.
2. Explore the Unknown
Night photography is a great equalizer. When it’s dark enough outside, it is like working with a blank canvas.
When it comes to finding the best locations for shooting at night,
there are two possible ways. Either you stick to what you know and
return at night with your camera, or you choose a new location.
Photographing at night can reveal views that people aren’t used to
seeing. For example, with long exposures, you’ll start to see stars you
didn’t realize were there. Areas you are familiar with will look
different at night. But, because you know the place you may become stuck
photographing the same thing.
By exploring the unknown, you are starting afresh. This is the best
way to tackle night photography. Break out of your usual area and force
yourself to see something new with your camera.
3. Use Manual Focus
Although the modern camera is great at autofocusing, when it is dark
your camera will struggle to focus correctly. To ensure that your photo
is in focus, switch to manual focus. Turn your manual focus to infinity
(the ∞ symbol on your lens). Once you manually focus on your subject,
don’t switch to autofocus. If you do, the camera will automatically
autofocus again, and ruin your focus.
4. Ditch Night Mode and Choose Manual Settings
What is night mode in photography? Many DSLR cameras have a night
mode which automatically sets a long shutter speed and high ISO. Instead
of using the preset night mode on your camera, it is better to shoot in
manual mode.
You should first have a good understanding of how exposure settings work. You may find it useful to read our guide to exposure. Three factors affect exposure. These are shutter speed, aperture, and ISO, and we use these differently at night.
So how do you expose for night photography?
The first thing to do is to take your camera out of auto mode and set it to manual mode. In manual mode, you’ll have full control over all of these exposure settings.
Low light
conditions mean you’ll need to change your exposure settings to
compensate to get the correct exposure. You may have to widen your
aperture, slow your shutter speed and/or raise your ISO. But what is the
best ISO for night photography? That depends on the rest of the
settings. You might need to take a couple of test shots before you
figure out the right exposure settings.
When I first find a scene that I want to capture, I take some test
shots. I increase the shutter speed and take a photo with an exposure of
1 second. I do this to see roughly what it looks like with a little bit
more light.
I then lower the ISO back down, as low as I can, to make sure that I don’t end up with a grainy photo.
And I use the extended shutter speed to capture the photo. See the
image below shot with an exposure setting of ISO 400, for 30 seconds at
f/5.
The majority of your photos will have a wide aperture so that you can allow in as much light as possible. This will result in a shallow depth of field in some cases.
But I always find it much less noticeable at night as the lack of light takes away some of the definition.
Sometimes you’ll be in a scene in which your subject goes way into
the distance – to the point of convergence. You’ll need a narrow
aperture to produce a wider depth of field.
The photo below was shot at f/13 with a shutter speed of 25 seconds
at ISO 100. You can get away with these settings because you rely on a
bright source of light to be the subject.
When shooting a scene like this, always focus about a third of the depth into the photo. This creates the best depth of field.
In very dark places, raise your ISO and shutter speed. At the same time, lower your aperture.
I took the photo below at night on the outskirts of the woods. Local
light pollution was the only light source outside of the building.
The graininess of the photo, the blue of the sky, and the shallow depth of field make this photo stand out.
High ISO will produce a grainy result in your photos which you can use for creative results if you know what you’re doing.
Think before you shoot. Decide what you’re shooting and whether you want grain, a deep depth of field, or light trails. You’ll be able to work out the exposure settings for yourself from there.
One thing worth noting in low-light photography is to ignore your camera’s exposure meter: it’s irrelevant at night. The histogram is also going to appear completely different from what you’re used to.
Do some test shots and go with the settings that work for you after a bit of experimentation.
5. Try Bulb Mode
Bulb mode
allows you to keep the shutter open for as long as you are holding down
the shutter release button. This lets you shoot with a slower shutter
speed than what your camera would otherwise allow. It is great for
creative night photography for when you need a longer exposure, such as
shooting light trails, star trails, or light painting.
6. Get the Right Equipment
Besides a camera, what is needed for night photography? The most important gear is a sturdy tripod.
Using a tripod
allows you to capture a long exposure. Shooting with a slow shutter
speed gives you the ability to play around with cool effects. If you are
shooting handheld, you’re a lot more restricted. You need to be able to
hold the camera still for long periods of time.
There are a few points to bear in mind when using a tripod for your camera.
Make sure it’s weighted down and sheltered from strong winds. Even slight movement of the camera will blur your photos.
Use a shutter release cable to prevent camera shake or jarring the camera by pressing the shutter.
Turn off any image stabilization as it will be counterintuitive. It will think that the camera is moving.
The photo below was shot at ISO 3200 at f/5 with a shutter speed of 1/6 of a second.
My lens didn’t have IS so I couldn’t use that. Instead, I focused on my subject’s lips as a central, reflective point for creative effect.
7. Shoot on Film for Cool, Creative Effects
There are some really cool ideas and effects that you simply can’t achieve during the day.
Shooting on film is good fun. If you’re stuck for which settings to use, I recommend bringing along your DSLR camera.
Test the setting on your DSLR camera, and then take the shot with
your analogue camera. That way, you can learn faster without wasting
money on film.
8. Create Fun Light Trails
Light trails are fun for night photographers because, if you’re in control, you can do whatever you like with them.
For the photo below, I went into a local town in the middle of the
night with some friends. I got one of them to drive through the scene
while the rest of us captured their light trails with our camera.
The exposure settings of this photo were f/5.6, at ISO 100, with a shutter speed of 235 seconds.
9. Experiment With Reflections
Reflections are
a lot harder to capture during the day as they’re dependent on the
light in a scene. When you take away the natural light, you only have to
worry about manmade light.
Try to use as much color as you can. These will merge in the
reflections on the water. It’ll create a contrast between smooth and
sharp.
10. Use the Moon to Create Beautiful Night Photography Images
The moon is one of your only consistent light sources at night. It can produce some interesting effects for night time photography.
You can use also use the moon as a key part of your image. In the picture below, the moon is a focal point.
11. Capture Movement in Your Night Scene
Movement is an obvious choice for photos with longer exposures and a slow shutter speed. You can easily achieve the contrast between still vs moving objects with a tripod-mounted camera.
You can see this in the photo below, taken in New York with a 10 seconds exposure.
12. Capture the Night Sky
Capture the night sky with long exposure for stunning results. Sky photos
at night offer a variety of effects. You can include movement in the
clouds or more definition in the stars or star trails, like in the
picture below, taken on a 20-second exposure.
If you are wondering how to photograph stars, it is easy. To capture
stars, you will need to set the shutter speed to less than 20 seconds.
This will prevent star trails. To compensate for this low shutter speed
for night photography, set the aperture as wide as possible and keep the
ISO high as well.
Exposing any photo for long enough allows the small amount of light
in the night sky to multiply enough times to produce this cool
blue/purple color.
Are you wondering how to photograph the milky way? You can actually
take incredible milky way photographs without fancy equipment. Learn how
with our milky way mastery course!
Night photography can be fun to experiment with once you understand
the basics behind it. As long as you can understand the exposure
settings, you can play with different combinations of the shutter speed,
aperture, and ISO to create interesting shots. Switch up your subjects,
use different light sources, and explore new compositions. If you are
taking a picture with a long exposure, you need to make sure your camera
is steady.
Light is a powerful way to create mood in your photographs. We respond on a deep emotional level to light.
With today’s digital cameras, we can balance out the lighting in any scene.
We
use longer shutter speeds, wider apertures, and higher ISOs to brighten
low-light scenes. External lights can bring daylight anywhere we want
it. We can see into the dark corners of life.
But in brightening the shadows, we change the mood.
Embracing low-light situations allows you to explore powerful moods within your photography.
The faintest sliver of light within all of the surrounding darkness is all you need.
Even the most everyday scene becomes dramatic in low lighting.
In this eBook, we’ll talk about creating mood in low-light situations.
Here is what we’ll cover:
Defining low light photography
Finding and creating low light situations
Creating mood in a photograph
Post-processing for mood
Believe it or not, mood can be the hallmark that makes your photography unforgettable!
When I talk about ‘night landscape photography’, I mean shooting the starry sky with nighttime scenery. I do not mean astrophotography.
Astrophotography has its own set of challenges. But I still consider
it much easier than shooting night landscape photography for one simple
reason. Exposure time is not an issue.
What makes night photography so challenging is the nighttime
landscape. Following the stars blurs the landscapes. Following the
nighttime landscapes will blur the stars. To record stars as fixed
points rather than trails, you are forced to use a short exposure time.
How to Escape Light Pollution
It’s becoming more and more difficult to find a really dark sky. In
Europe, at least. This is due to increased light pollution. It comes
from street lamps almost everywhere across the continent.
The best thing you can do is to travel as far as possible from large
cities and towns. Look for the dark countryside. To get an idea of the
light-pollution in the world, visit the Light-Pollution Map website. There you can also see how light- pollution has changed over the last 5 years.
I live in Belgium, under one of the most polluted skies in Europe (do
I dare to say in the world?). Even when I travel far away from the
major cities, the darkest sky I can achieve will score a 5 or 9 in the Bortle scale. Still, as we will see, there is hope. You can capture satisfying night landscapes, even in light-polluted locations.
Light
pollution map for Belgium: brighter areas are in red while the darker
ones are in black. As you can see, the Belgian sky is, on average, a
very bright one.
What’s the Best Location for Nighttime Landscape Photos?
Unfortunately, the Universe is quite indifferent to your photography needs. Which stars and how much of the Milky Way you can see depends on the period of the year. And on your coordinates on Earth.
In the Northern hemisphere, the galaxy core is visible in the night
sky from April until late September. How much of it you can see, as well
as its height above the horizon, will depend on your latitude. The
closer you are to the Equator, the better.
Moving north, the core becomes lower and lower in the sky. Until it
reaches a point just above the horizon where the orange glow from light
pollution is at its max.
During winter, the nights are longer. The core appears below the horizon, visible from the Southern hemisphere only.
Anyway, there are plenty of websites and mobile apps
that calculate the location of the core. They will let you know in
advance if, when, and how much of the core you will see from a given
location.
You should also focus some of your attention on the nighttime
landscapes. Having a good location isn’t only about the stars, but also
the nighttime scenery you will include.
Gear and Camera Settings for Shooting a Perfect Night Landscape
Ideally, you’re growing your own money tree in your garden. And then
you could buy the latest medium format digital camera with a giga-pixel
sensor. No visible digital noise. Even when using ISO one-gazillion. And some ultrafast and amazing lenses.
Alright, enough dreaming. If you are on a budget like most of us,
fear not. You will still get plenty of amazing shots of that majestic
starry night. You just have to follow some simple rules.
Gear does contribute to amazing shots. It’s not all about it, but it
has a role to play. The night landscape image is 50%
planning/composition, 20% gear and 30% editing skills.
Here are the things you need to be able to wet your feet in night photography.
Camera
Full frame cameras
are the best here. This is because of the low noise at high ISO. But
modern APS-C, four thirds or micro four-thirds cameras work too.
Let’s be honest here: you can take amazing shots even with one of the
latest high-end compact cameras. Make sure it’s sporting a wide, fast
lens and 1” sensor.
Decent battery life (or allow for the use of a battery grip).
For compact cameras, you need a wide and fast lens as well as manual
focus it. Some form of focus peeking or Live View magnification is a
nice feature. It will help you to focus properly on the stars.
Lenses
The most important feature for a good lens is speed. This means an
aperture in the f/1.4 to f/3.5 range. It should allow you to focus in manual mode. And it should have good optical performances such as sharpness, vignetting, chroma and astigmatism when used wide open.
As for the choice of the focal length,
for night landscape photography, the wider, the better. I would not go
higher than 50mm on a full-frame camera. The possibility to mount
filters is a plus.
As far as I know, you can’t use any fisheye lenses with a filter. But some wide angles for micro 4/3 cameras have threads to screw one on.
Tripod
Let’s be clear here. You cannot shoot a night landscape without a tripod. You will need a sturdy one to avoid camera movement/shake.
A good choice is one that allows you to shoot from down low to up above your head. This will give you max flexibility when composing your shot.
A loop or hook from which to attach a weight can be beneficial. This
will help to stabilise the tripod in windy conditions. These are common
in coastal and mountainous locations.
Other materials:
Spare batteries;
Spare memory cards;
Remote triggers;
Headlamps (with a red light to keep your eyes in “dark mode”).
Filters
Yes, filters. This is an important lesson on how to shoot at night, getting the image you want.
These are by no means a substitute for a dark sky. But filters can
help to fight back the evil orange glow present due to light pollution.
Here is the transmission spectrum for my Skywatcher LPR
(Light Pollution Reduction) filter. See where the line drops? The
filter will absorb light with that wavelength, and it will not reach the
sensor.
Absorption spectrum for the Skywatcher LPR filter.
In short, the filter
will reduce/remove lights of specific wavelengths from the light
hitting the sensor. You can’t create this in editing software. These
filters are worth investing in if you live in a light-polluted area.
All filters will reduce your exposure by 1 stop. A good LPR filter
will reduce the pollution from Sodium lamps of about 4EV and Mercury
lamps 2EV.
This allows for longer exposures (or increased ISO). But you won’t burn
the highlights or the sky above the horizon in your night photography.
The images below show two examples. The images are straight-out-of-camera with and without the Skywatcher LPR filters.
This image shows the effects of the LPR filter on Belgian streetlights.The effect of the LPR filter in a rural area (Cap-Blanc-Nez, France) on unedited images. Sony RX100Mk2 + LPR filter.
LPR filters, being broadband filters, are not able to reduce
moonlight. To achieve this, a better choice would be an H-alpha filter
or another narrowband filter.
These are interference filters, like the polariser.
This is one negative aspect. They will produce nasty colour banding in
the photo when mounted on ultra-wide angles. This is because of how they
affect light entering from different angles.
One way to avoid this is, if you have a Canon DSLR, is to use the
clip-in CLS filter from Astronomik. The filter will sit between the
mirror and the back of the lens, so the light hits it at the same angle.
Also, you can’t use this filter with EF-S lenses.
My Gear
To give you an idea of my equipment at the moment, I am using the following gear:
There are a few simple empirical rules to learn so you can handle the
night sky. As I mentioned above, stars move across the sky at about 15
degrees/hour.
If you are not interested in recording star trails, your exposure
time should be quite short. But how short should it be exactly?
A simple way to estimate what the exposure time (ET) should be is to solve the following equation:
ET = N / ( CF * FL )
N (the detail in which your image will be displayed) can be 400, 500 or 600. CF is the crop factor for your camera. And FL the focal length of your lens. The choice of N depends on what you want to do with your photo:
For a website, go with N=600. You will get short trails with the
stars appearing as dots in a small image with a low resolution. Do you
want to print your photo in large format? Go with N=400, and you will
have pretty much no trails at all.
I tend to use N=500 as I find it to be a good compromise. For
example, for my Olympus EM-10, CF=2, I have the following max ETs for
the following lenses:
1) Samyang 7.5 f/3.5, ET = 500 / ( 2 * 7.5 ) ~ 33 sec.
2) Samyang 12 f/2, ET= 500 / ( 2 * 12 ) ~ 21 sec.
If I were to use my old Zuiko 50mm f/1.4, my ET time would be just 5
seconds. This is why telephoto lenses are less useful than wider ones.
Once you know your ET (exposure time), work with the ISO to expose your photo. Keep an eye on the histogram.
A good starting point is given by using an ISO value calculated with the following equation:
ISO = (6000 * f ^2) / ET
Here, f^2 is the f-number (aperture value) elevated to the power of two.
Let’s take my Samyang 12mm f/2.0 on my Olympus OM-D (CF=2). With an
ET of 21 seconds, a good value for the ISO should be ISO = 6000 * (2^2) /
21 = 1142, rounded up to ISO 1150.
If, say, the aperture was set to f/4.0 instead of f/2.0, the ISO
would need to be: ( 6000 * (4.0 ^ 2) / 21, OR ( 6000 * 16 ) / 21 = 4571.
With digital sensors, it is better to expose to the right (ETTR)
of an image. Overexpose it a bit to register the max amount of data
possible in the camera. Then correct the exposure in post. This way, you
don’t lose out on detail.
Another welcome effect of the ETTR method is that there will be less digital noise due to the high ISO settings. Underexposing overexposed photos results in considerably less noise in the final image. Don’t increase the exposure of an underexposed one.
Don’t be afraid to use high ISO settings (3200 and above) if that’s
what you need to bring the shot back home. There are methods for
dramatically reducing digital noise in post.
How to Get The Best Night Landscape Shot
What to Do Before Heading Out
1. Make a checklist: you don’t want to arrive at the location and discover you are without batteries or memory cards.
2. Find the location: if you have no idea where to go, start looking at one of the light-pollution maps
available online. Find a dark enough region. Use social networks such
as G+ or photo-sharing websites like Flickr and 500px. You can see if
there are any worthy night landscapes within your chosen dark region.
Use Google Maps. Move around and zoom in/out to see if anything
catches your attention. Once you have a location, get informed about it:
Is the sky dark enough? Are there major cities visible or nearby?
Will the Milky Way and the galaxy core be visible from that location and at what time?
In which phase will the Moon be? Will the Moon be high up in the sky
and, horror, in front of the Milky Way? What will the weather be like?
You can answer all these questions from the comfort of your couch, long before you head out. Use apps and software such as Dark Sky, Stellarium, Skywalk, PhotoPills, PlanIt! for photographers and TPE (The Photographer’s Ephemeris).
Look up the latest weather report, the forecast and a moon calendar
on the internet. Most software and apps cannot show you the real
horizon. Be careful when determining whether the galaxy core will be
visible.
3. Know your lens’ field of view: this is important
if you plan to shoot for a panorama stitching. It enables you to rotate
the camera at night, relying on the graduated scale on the head of your
tripod.
4. Know where the infinite for your lens is: in
broad daylight, manually focus your lenses to the infinite. Mark the
position on the lens barrel. More often than not, the factory mark for
the infinity is off. Doing this during the day avoids wasting time
struggling to do so in your dark location.
5. Clean your lenses: another job that is better to get done in daylight and at home.
6. Arrive early at your destination: so to be able
to explore the location in daylight. Look for possible compositions to
create great daytime landscapes. Use the night augmented reality in apps
like PhotoPills. You can preview how the sky will appear for the chosen
night landscape composition.
Composing the Shot
It’s just like daylight landscapes. You can follow or break the same
composition rules. The only challenge you have here is lighting the
landscape in front of you with limited focal lengths. Long telephotos
will reduce your exposure time, as discussed above.
Framing an interesting composition with the Milky Way (or the Polar
Star) is not hard. It’s like including the Sun at a particular point
in the sky in a daylight landscape.
All you have to do is wait for the right period of the year and time of day.
If you are composing your image with star trails in mind, here’s a
good rule of thumb. Try to have Polaris (northern hemisphere) or Sigma
Octantis (southern hemisphere) in the frame.
Trails will appear as concentric circles, centred on these stars.
Star trails will look different depending on what direction you’re
pointing your camera in.
You may want to experiment a bit to work out which kind of trails
will best suit your composition. Another thing to consider when
composing your shot is the following
A magnificent sky with a pitch-black landscape as a foreground tends not to work. Unless you are aiming for a silhouette against the sky.
Me, sitting on a rock in silhouette against the sky (nearby Bobbio, Italy). Olympus OM-D EM-10.
You’ll want to avoid a pitch black or dark and very noisy foreground.
Try to shoot when you have a low to moderately bright moon above the
horizon. It should be low in the sky and behind you. This lights the
foreground and the scene in front of you.
Or you may want to consider bringing some lamps or flashguns with you. This allows for light painting, making the foreground and/or interesting objects visible.
One way to frame more interesting landscapes is to exploit objects in
the foreground. Those can fill the frame, adding interest. Try using
isolated trees, mountain peaks, vehicles, buildings, roads or rocky
formations.
A lucky shot thanks to this van parked right in front of the Milky Way in Cap-Blanc-Nez (France). Sony RX100Mk2 + LPR filter.The lighthouse in Bresken (Netherlands) against the winter sky. Olympus OM-D EM-10.
Or introduce some objects in the frame. This will stage a more
eye-catching landscape at night. Consider placing tents lit from the
inside, or include a person in the frame.
Either as a silhouette
or them holding lights/lasers pointed at the sky. You can also light a
campfire or create light trails by driving a car into the scene.
View
over the Giant’s Tomb (Belgium). The Moon in its late quarter, low on
the sky on my right, helped to lit the foreground and the fog rising
from the river. Olympus OM-D EM-10, Panorama of 12 photos (focal length
24mm on a full-frame DSLR) in a 4×3 grid.
Sometimes, you can improve an image by intentionally allowing some movement in the sky against a fixed landmark.
I was in Cap-Blanc-Nez (France) at a time when the Milky Way was
behind the obelisk. I shot ten photos of the same scene in order to do
some MFNR for my final image. As I said, since I had a fixed landscape,
MFNR required me to create two stacks and process them individually.
This was to account for both the landscape at night and the sky.
I always start by applying MFNR to the landscape. The Milky Way
and the stars showed some degree of motion blur. In the end, I decided
that the image with the blurred, yet recognisable Milky Way was a lot
more powerful than the image without a blurred sky.
The Obelisk in Cap-Blanc-Nez (France). Sony RX100Mk2 + LPR filter.
How to Shoot Different Types of Nighttime Landscapes
Before you begin, lower the LCD brightness to the minimum. This
gives you a better idea of the brightness of your image and stops you
being blinded five minutes every time you look at the screen!
Take a test shot to verify that you are using the correct camera
settings for stars, that the focus is on the stars and that the
composition works. Next, decide whether you want to obtain star trails or star dots (and the Milky Way).
Star Trails
If you are shooting star trails, take a new test shot, this time
several minutes long. Your image will be horribly noisy and probably overexposed.
But this gives you an indication of what the trails will look like in
your final image. It also shows you whether the Polaris (the South Star)
is in the frame or not.
Next, make sure that you have turned off any long exposures noise
reduction. Your battery must be fully charged and your memory card empty
with enough space to record plenty of images.
If only it were true that you could record star trails by shooting a
single photo with night-long exposure time. Only using film can do this
in reality.
In practice, leaving your digital sensor on record for a very long
period of time results in it heating up. This causes purple hot
pixels and luminance noise which cripple your image quality.
You are better off using an intervalometer,
and taking a huge number of relatively short exposures, say 30 seconds
to 1 minute. Then you can stack them together in post-production to give
you your trails. You may want to allow a few seconds between each
shot to give the sensor time to cool down.
At the end of the sequence, put your lens cap on and take a photo.
This is called a “dark frame”, which you can subtract from your stacking
to help suppress hot pixels in your final image.
For decent trails, you will need to record the sky for at least 30
minutes. The longer you record for, the longer and more defined
your trails will be. So you may wish to increase this time.
To avoid draining your battery too quickly, if you do not have a DSLR
with an optical viewfinder, turn off the LCD screen in favour of the
smaller electronic viewfinder if possible.
Pine tree in Fondry des Chiens (Belgium). Star trails are obtained stacking 60 images, each 30 seconds long. Olympus OM-D EM-10.
The beauty of star trails is that you can almost always record them, even in less than ideal conditions. So long as you can see some stars up there, you’ll get stars trails, even above a luminous cityscape.
A word of caution. The bright cityscape,
if not darkened by the use of neutral density graduated filters, will
force you to use an exposures time of just a few seconds at best. You
will have to record (and then process) hundreds of images before you get
some good trails.
Finally, I may be wrong but, as far as I know, this is the only kind of night landscape you can achieve when shooting film.
Point Stars and the Milky Way
If your aim is to avoid star trails, you need to determine your
maximum exposure time. Use the 600, 500 or 400 rule I introduced above.
Adjust your ISO to expose to the right of your image.
Be careful to avoid blowing out the highlights and the horizon (usually the brighter part of the sky on a moonless night).
The lighthouse in Breskens (The Netherland). Olympus OM-D EM-10.
This may result in having to increase your ISO above a value you are
comfortable with. If you’re concerned that, in doing this, you are going
to ruin the image, think again.
You will more likely ruin it by keeping your ISO too low. This will underexpose your image.
Here are a few techniques you can use to deal with digital noise:
1. Turn on the in-camera long exposure noise reduction.
2. Use denoise algorithms available in all the major editing software
and third-party plugins for Photoshop and Lightroom such as Noise Ninja or Topaz Denoise.
3. Shooting more photos and apply a Multi-Frame Noise Reduction (MFNR) technique.
Number 3 is my personal favourite of the three. In a minute, I will explain how MFNR works and why you should give it a try.
Shooting Night Landscape Panoramas
There are many reasons why you may want to shoot a panorama.
The most obvious being to capture a scene that you cannot fit into a
single shot. You may want to take the kind of “panorama” that you could
get with a wider lens because your wider lens doesn’t allow you to mount
an LPR filter.
Finally, you may intend to print the image in a very large format; panoramas can have a resolution of many tens to a few hundred megapixels.
I mainly use panorama because, until now, I could only use my small 48mm LPR filter on the Sony RX100 Mk2.
For shooting panoramas, it is best to allow a superposition of 30-40%
between shots. You’ll do best to know the angular field of view of your
lens and rotate the camera by half of this value.
Since one tends to shoot panoramas with the camera mounted in
portrait orientation, you will have to consider the vertical angle of
view. For example, for my Samyang 12mm on the Olympus EM-10, the
vertical angle of view is 58.72 degrees. This means I can rotate the
camera by 30 degrees at a time. I can do this quickly and easily using
the graduated scales on the tripod head (if you have them).
One of the best tips for shooting night landscape photography is as
follows. Whether you are shooting star trails, the Milky Way or a night
landscape panorama, you want to shoot multiple sets of images. One with
the correct exposure for the sky and one to properly expose the
foreground, for example. This allows you to get the best exposure across
your final image through bracketing.
The
Chateau de la Hulpe, few miles from Brussels (Belgium). This is a night
landscape panorama of 12 photos (focal length 28mm equivalent on
full-frame) arranged in a 4×3 grid. The final image has a resolution of
about 80 megapixels. Sony RX100Mk2 + LPR filter.
A Few Tips for Editing Your Night Landscape
After having photographed your night landscape in RAW format, you need to edit it.
I usually choose the white balance that best suits the image first.
Then I fix the image exposure by adjusting the black and white point.
And then I alter the highlights and shadows. Following this, I will make
other minor adjustments such as amending the contrast and so on.
Nothing fancy.
Don’t be afraid to sharpen and micro-contrast (clarity) your sky.
This makes the milky way and stars pop out BUT … be careful not to
overcook it.
If the Milky Way you have captured isn’t as detailed and saturated as
the one you saw online, deal with it, suck it up and keep it real.
Sometimes you just have to accept that your location on the good
Earth has not allowed you to get those incredible images of the
colourful core of the Milky Way. And, no, the Universe is not conspiring
against you… it is simply indifferent to your needs and wishes.
A big “don’t” is to assess the quality of your photos solely on the
basis of pixel peeping. You already know that the sky will be super
noisy when you blow your image up to full size. Do it to look at the
improvements gained by applying the Multi-Frame Noise Reduction
technique to reduce digital noise in your shots.
Multi-Frame Noise Reduction
MFNR is a great technique to both clean photos of random digital
noise and to increase the details. The technique consists of shooting
multiple shots of the same scene. Then you average them to smooth out
the random digital noise, whilst enhancing details.
In practice, MFNR will improve the signal-to-noise ratio. If nothing moves, MFNR is straightforward. Simply stack the images as individual layers in Photoshop and blend them using either the “mean” or “median” mode.
The median mode is a bit better at reducing ghost. The improvement in
photo quality is dramatic, as you can see in the comparison below.
Here, I took 8 shots indoors on my Sony RX100 Mk2, f/2.0 1/30 ISO
12800. The photo is in 100%crop. The top half shows the image without
any noise reduction, while the bottom half shows the final result after
using all 8 shots to perform MFNR. I guess results speak for themselves.
Comparison between a shot before and after doing MNFR. Sony RX100Mk2 ISO 12800.
Things get a bit more complicated when dealing with objects that move
in or out of the frame between the shots e.g. stars. Recently, I shot a
starfield with my Olympus using the old legacy lens Zuiko 50mm f/1.4
(100mm equivalent on a full-frame).
I took 32 photos (exposure time 5 seconds, f/2, ISO 12800) with the
camera mounted on a fixed tripod, aimed roughly in the direction of the
Milky Way above my head.
Obviously, in the almost 3 minutes I needed to record the 32 images,
the stars had moved quite a lot; simply stacking and averaging these
shots will result in a blurred image, as demonstrated below.
Stack of 32 non-aligned images of the same star field: this is how much stars move in less than 3 minutes.
The trick is to align the stars between shots before stacking and
averaging them. This can be a tedious task to perform by hand, in
particular with many frames.
Fortunately, if you have Photoshop CC, you can use the auto-align function to align all frames by their content.
If your image contains enough contrast and useful details, the
auto-align works beautifully. You can get a very clean image out of many
high ISO shots.
See the image below for a comparison between 100% crops of a single shot, left, versus the final image after MNFR, right.
The effect of doing MFNR on a Starfield after auto-aligning the 32 frames. Olympus OM-D EM-10 12800 ISO.
When the landscape, which does not move across the frame, is visible, you have an extra step in the process.
Under these circumstances, you will have to do two stacks: one for
the sky, one for the foreground. Blend the two stacked and averaged
images together. There are great in-depth tutorials online for this.
Edit your night sky photos with an open mind. Sometimes you’ll find
that during editing, you come across something fantastic that you can do
with your image that you never considered whilst on location. Don’t
dismiss this just because it’s not what you were originally going for.
I recently went to Cap-Gris-Nez in France. I planned on capturing the
lighthouse with the Milky Way next to it. Because the lighthouse was on
with the lamp revolving, I wanted to capture the light beams passing
out of the lighthouse.
I snapped some images of the sky, some of the foreground (for HDR)
and of the lighthouse. Then I followed with a series of photos with very
short exposure times to freeze the light in distinct beams coming out
the lighthouse.
Once at home, I started processing this huge volume of photos. And then an extremely underexposed image I took for the HDR of the landscape at night came to my attention.
I could have easily turned it into a very moody, low key portrait of
the lighthouse. As I edited it with this new idea in mind, it became
clear that this was how I wanted to portray the location.
The lighthouse in Cap-Gris-Nez (France). Olympus OM-D EM-10.
I hope you enjoyed this article. Go out and capture the beauty of that starry night above your head!
Me and the Milky Way (Bobbio, Italy) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Free Photography Ebook
Five Tips for Low Light Photography – Free Quick Guide
Low
light is the bane of every photographer. It wreaks havoc on quality,
and working with it places additional demands on both the photographer
and the camera.
What do we mean when we talk about low light?
And how do you take great photographs when there isn’t much light available?
This guide will look at these questions and more, as Jo Plumridge gives you her top five tips for low light photography.
People often shy away from taking photos in low light, mistaking it for simply ‘bad’ light.
And
yes, shooting in low light is technically and compositionally
challenging. Still, it’s possible to produce visually stunning images
with a bit of know-how.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
Types of low light
What gear do you need to successfully photograph in low light conditions?
5 tips for creating outstanding low-light photography!
If you’ve ever had an image ruined due to low lighting, you really need to read this informative guide!
You're our chosen "blog follower" for the month of January. We hope you'll enjoy spending that "Benjamin".
FREE $100
I'd like to GIVE you one of these!
Tell your friends about following this blog, which automatically registers them for our February 28th pick. If they have any questions, just have them type this link into their web browser "www.bit.ly/3IHdDOr" and click ENTER.
