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LESSON 7
Capture Dramatic Night Views

Focal length: 135 mm / F-number: 8.0 / Shutter speed: 5 sec / ISO: 400 / White balance: Custom (3600K / M5)

Night views while travelling or from scenic locations are very popular scenes to take photographs of. In this chapter, you will learn how
to capture a night view beautifully, accurately reproducing the impression you got from the actual scene.
First, set the camera to the P-mode, and try the following tips.

Shooting with a tripod

A tripod is the most effective tool for taking beautiful
photographs of night views. When shooting in low-light
situations such as night views, the shutter speed
slows down to increase the amount of light entering
into the camera, and the ISO sensitivity becomes
higher. As a result, the image tends to become
unclear due to camera shaking, or grainy with the
increased noise.

This photograph was shot with the shutter speed set

to 3.2 sec. At this shutter speed, the image gets
completely blurred no matter how hard you try not to
move your body.
Shutter speed: 3.2 sec

If you secure the camera on the tripod, you can shoot

clear photographs without blurring even at slow shutter
speeds. At the same time, set the ISO sensitivity to
the lowest possible value. Although this will further
slow down the shutter speed, you dont need to worry
about blurring because the camera is secured on the

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tripod. In addition, the low ISO sensitivity can reduce

noise. The minimum value of the ISO sensitivity varies
depending on the models, but the values from ISO100
to ISO 400 are recommended.
When you use a tripod, disable the SteadyShot
function to avoid malfunction. In addition, the vibration
of the camera caused by pressing the shutter button
may cause blurring. To prevent such blurring, setting
the 2-second self-timer is effective.

Focal length: 50 mm / F-number: 10 / Shutter speed: 5 sec / ISO: 200 / White

balance: Daylight

Shot with a tripod, the above photograph is not affected by blurring. With the long exposure time, the light shining on the water looks
beautiful, evenly spreading across the surface.

Now, what should you do if you dont have a tripod?

If you don't have a tripod, support your body against a nearby wall or pole, or place the camera on a handrail or other flat surface to
keep the camera steady and reduce blurring.
If you cannot do the above, your first priority is to use faster shutter speeds to reduce camera shaking. If blurring occurs at the shutter
speed automatically determined by the camera, increase the ISO sensitivity manually. The available maximum value of the ISO
sensitivity varies depending on the models. As the ISO sensitivity is increased to ISO6400, 12800 and above, the shutter speed gets
higher, and the image is less affected by blurring. However, the image may suffer from noise and loss of detail.

Focal length: 24 mm / F-number: 2.8 / Shutter speed: 1/40 sec / ISO: 3200 /
White balance: AWB

This photograph was shot with ISO3200. By keeping the faster shutter speed, it succeeded in preventing blurring. However, if you
check the enlarged image, you can see it is a little grainy with noise compared with the image shot with the lower ISO sensitivity. Also,
in terms of the resolution in detail and the texture of the water surface, the photograph shot with the tripod looks better than this one.

If noise is noticeable like in this case, the "Hand-held Twilight" mode in Scene Selection (shooting mode) is effective. In this mode, 6
images are shot continuously by one press of the shutter button, and these images are combined with high precision while processing
noise. This process allows you to shoot night views with noise reduced compared with a normal single shot.
However, as the "Hand-held Twilight" mode in Scene Selection is one of the auto shooting modes, you cannot change the settings of
colour and brightness described in the next section.

Adjusting the brightness and colour

If you have learnt to shoot without blurring, adjust the
brightness and colour based on your image.
The brightness can be adjusted with exposure
compensation. The human eye recognises the night
sky as "dark", and lights of buildings and illuminations
as "bright". However, the camera tries to render all

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scenes with the same brightness standard, whether

they are dark or bright. Therefore, when shooting
night views, where dark parts like the night sky and
bright parts like building lights are mixed, the exposure
determined by the camera may not properly
reproduce the brightness detected by the human eye.
This makes it difficult to get the desired results when
shooting night views, as represented by symptoms Focal length: 120 mm / F-number: 6.3 Focal length: 120 mm / F-number: 6.3
/ White balance: Fluorescent: Warm / White balance: Fluorescent: Warm
like a washed-out night sky or clipped colours of the White (-1) Saturation: +3 / Exposure White (-1) Saturation: +3 / Exposure
street illuminations. compensation: 0 compensation: +0.7
In addition, the brightness of the photograph is also
affected by the settings of the camera itself such as
Creative Style.
First, try shooting without exposure compensation,
and adjust the exposure by examining the results.

Without exposure compensation, this photograph

became underexposed due to the strong street lights.
The townscape behind the building was blacked out.
By setting the exposure to +0.7, the photograph was
rendered with appropriate brightness.

Now, lets move on to the colour adjustment. You can

use white balance to adjust the overall colour tone. Focal length: 16 mm / F-number: 6.3 / Focal length: 16 mm / F-number: 6.3 /
Shutter speed: 13 sec / ISO: 200 / Shutter speed: 13 sec / ISO: 200 /
Auto white balance [AWB], in which the camera White balance: AWB White balance: Fluorescent: Warm
automatically determines the colour tone, can White (-1) Saturation +3
reproduce the actual colours faithfully. However, when
shooting night views of a town, selecting [Fluorescent:
Warm White] will add a bluish tone, which may be
more suitable for conveying the characteristics of
artificial lights.
Also, the strong lights such as urban buildings and
illuminations tend to become whitish in a photograph,
and their colours do not look as vivid as expected. In
such cases, adjust the saturation to the + side from
the option settings in Creative Style, so that the lights
will be more vivid and colourful.

By making such adjustments, you can shoot photographs of night views that can deliver the dramatic impression you feel at the sight
of the actual scene.
Like other scenes, the best colour tone for night views can vary depending on your preference and intention. Make full use of the
adjustment functions such as exposure compensation, white balance and Creative Style, and find your favourite shot.

Convenient fixed focal length lenses

With small F-numbers (fast maximum apertures), fixed focal length lenses allow a large amount of light to enter into the camera.
Therefore, you can shoot night views with reduced blurring and noise, even in low-light situations. In addition, you can shoot portraits
or snapshots with backgrounds greatly defocused.

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Focal length: 50 mm / F-number: 2.0 / Shutter speed: 1/640 sec / Focal length: 50 mm / F-number: 1.8 / Shutter speed: 1/80 sec /
Exposure compensation: -1 Exposure compensation: -0.7

This quintessential fast "normal" lens This is a mid-range telephoto lens

offers outstanding corner-to-corner
resolution, while the combination of
F1.4 maximum aperture and circular
aperture design makes it possible to
elicit silky-smooth defocusing effects
SAL50F14
to enhance image depth and isolate
important visual elements. Due to the
large aperture, more light is allowed,
facilitating easier hand-held shooting,
even in low-light situations.
with the 50 mm focal length perfect
for portraiture. The large aperture
and circular aperture design can
produce beautifully defocused
backgrounds. Moreover, by working
SEL50F18
together with the built-in Optical
SteadyShot image stabilisation
system, it can shoot crisp and clear
images under low-light conditions.

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