Photos: Night Exposure Guide

To convert to actual settings, you may want to refer to my Exposure Value Table. These pictures were taken with increasing exposure times and the lens set at f/8 until the exposure time reached 64 seconds, at which point the exposure time was kept constant and the lens aperture was increased.

I first present the pictures in black and white, to illustrate the brightness levels. Following that is a presentation of the same pictures in color, in which I discuss issues related to the color rendition.

Black and White Series

As you can see, nothing but the very brightest lights are visible. This is not really a useful exposure unless you're trying to capture the lights themselves, which might be the case if you were photographing a neon sign.

For all that the light is just about the only thing visible, it's still overexposed; in person, I could make out a bright center circle inside the square, which is not visible in the picture.

Here the things which are well illuminated by the sodium vapor light on the boathouse are becoming visible (notice the masts, for instance). This would be the exposure to use to take pictures of things in bright artificial light, while leaving them dark enough that it's obviously night time.

This shows more detail in the boats illuminated by the light on the boathouse, but also makes it less clear that it's nighttime if the picture doesn't include the sky.

Here, the city in the background is finally beginning to become bright enough to be interesting. This is the lowest exposure I'd use to capture distant lights.

Here the sky is starting to become grey instead of black. This is approximately how the sky and water looked in person, and also captures the buildings in the distance as they appeared at the time. Very bright things, of course, are overexposed and have no detail.

At this point, things are getting brighter than they looked when I was actually there. Reflections in the water from several buildings can be made out, but when I was there in person, only the very brightest one, from the building with construction lights, could be seen.

This image is also unrealistically bright. Notice that lens flare has become a problem; I used a lens with low-end coatings for this picture (a Nikon Series E), so you may have less difficulty, but lens flare is always something to keep in mind due to the high contrast of night pictures.

Unless you're going for strange surrealistic effects and know what you're doing, this is simply overexposed.

Color Series

The sodium vapor light looks orange, which is hardly surprising. You can see a blowup of it, which shows that it's still too exposed to capture detail which was visible in person; I could see a brighter circle within the square fixture when I was there.

This is about what the dimmer things, like the sky and water, looked like in person.

Here things are getting brighter than they actually were. Note that the sodium vapor light is getting so overexposed that it's becoming more white than orange.

The sky is blue enough in this picture that it almost looks like it was taken shortly after sunset - except that the building lights are much too bright for that. Here the sodium vapor light is quite white, which also means that things illuminated by it will appear in full color, instead of monochrome in the shade of the light. Observe the distinct red color of the floats as opposed to the white of the hulls, something which could not be clearly distinguished in the less exposed pictures.

This picture is a bit vignetted, because I opened up the aperture to take it, but ignore that.

The sky is bright enough to be the middle of the day. This much exposure is suitable only when you intentionally want strange and unreal effects.

Copyright (C) 2003 by Terran Melconian. You may mirror this page for personal use. Images may be downloaded and printed. All other rights reserved.
For questions, purchasing prints, etc, email