Nightscape Photography What you need and how to use it

from Western 4W Driver #118 Winter 2021

Silly Snaps

Nightscape Photography

Disclaimer: Before you start reading this article, I am in no way a professional / master photographer. I am fully self-taught and learnt everything I know from reading articles and watching YouTube, so if I get the terminology wrong or I do things differently than the professionals, you now know why. Everyone has their favourite hobbies or interests and for me it is 4W driving, camping and photography. As a result, I photograph some great places that only my 4WD can get me to. You don’t need a 4WD to do great nightscape photography but you do need a camera, equipment and some basic skills.

What is nightscape photography?

To me, nightscape photography is taking landscape images at night using the night sky with the stars as a back drop. Ideally, you will need an object as foreground interest and it can be anything as boring subjects during the day can become spectacular subjects at night, such as fence posts, old rusty vehicles, derelict buildings, your camping set-up etc.

Image 1 - Narloo Homestead.

Image 2 - Narloo Homestead (light painted).

Words and Images by Karl Fehlauer / Westralian Images

You will also need to, in many cases, ‘light paint’ your subject by using external lights such as torches or strobes so that it stands out against the night sky. Light painting may sound difficult, but with some practice it becomes easier and I will explain the basics further on in this article. Images 1 and 2 (above) of Old Narloo Homestead in the Yalgoo Region are examples of this. Image 1 is taken using only available light, whereas Image 2 has had the homestead light painted in and you can see the difference it makes. Sometimes, depending on the subject and time of year, you can use the moon to ‘light paint’ your subject and this will give a different effect all together. Another option is to use a combination of moonlight and light painting. Image 3 (over the page) is an example of using the full moon to light your subject. This image was taken at about 8.00pm and you can see that it lights up the church quite well. However, the downside is that you lose a lot of the stars due to the brightness of the moonlight. In this article we'll concentrate on single exposure nightscape images only as taking multiple exposures and blending them into a single image is complex and requires a good understanding of masking and blending in post-processing software such as Photoshop.

Image 3 - Using the full moon to light up the church.

what equipment do i need to do nightscape photography?

Firstly, you need a camera - obvious I know, but it doesn’t have to be a top of the line model or the most expensive one, as long as it works, that’s a start. Secondly, you will require a lens and this is where it starts to become a bit more technical. Ideally, you need a lens that has a wide aperture such a F2.8 or wider but if you don’t have one, don’t worry, just use your widest aperture lens and work with it. Thirdly, you will need a cable release or remote control so that you don’t cause vibrations in the camera when you press the shutter button. There are many types of cable releases on the market and they are very cheap but a very handy piece of kit to have. Fourthly, you will need a tripod and yes, this sounds obvious but I have been at events when people have turned up without a tripod and were expecting to hand-hold the camera. Unfortunately, no matter how steady you think you can hold a camera, it won’t work for nightscape photography. The tripod also needs to be a very sturdy one, a $50 cheapy off of Evil Bay isn’t going to cut it if there is any wind about. Ideally you won’t want to be using the centre column of your tripod if possible because in many cases when extended they aren’t sturdy enough and will vibrate if there is any sort of wind blowing, so where possible, keep your centre column down. Finally you will need a decent torch that puts out a decent amount of light and where possible, one that you can vary the strength of that light or be able to turn on and off easily. Now that you have your camera equipment all sorted it’s important to understand how to use it to create your image.

Nightscape photography, like all other genres of photography, requires an understanding of how exposure works to create pin sharp stars in the sky or to create star trails. Here we're going to concentrate on pin sharp stars. One big difference between landscape photography and nightscape photography is that during the day we don’t have to worry about the rotation of the earth, however, for nightscape photography this is critical because if your shutter speed is wrong, apart from either being over or under exposed, the stars will not be pin sharp and will have tails or streaks and this is because the sky is constantly moving. How long you can keep the shutter open will depend on the focal length of your lens. Essentially the wider your focal length is, the longer you can keep the shutter open. The narrower your lens focal length is, the shorter you can keep it open. For example, a 14mm lens on a full frame camera can stay open for up to 36 seconds before stars trails begin. A 50mm lens on a full frame camera can stay open for up to 10 seconds and a 100mm lens can stay open for up to 5 seconds.

SHUTTER SPEED

So how do you work out how long you can keep you lens open for? That's easy (well, relatively easy). If you have a full frame camera you need to know the ‘500 rule’ or if you have a crop sensor you need to know the ‘300 rule’. Essentially, for a full frame camera you divide 500 by the focal length of the lens - so using our example above, 500 / 14mm = 36 secs or 500 / 50mm = 10 secs and so on. For crop sensor cameras it is the same, except you divide 300 by the focal length - so 300 / 14mm = 21 secs, 300 / 50mm = 6 secs and so on. Note: these figures are rounded down to make it easier to work with. If you are using a zoom lens, then every time you adjust the focal length you will need to recalculate the shutter speed. As you can see, for nightscape photography wider angle lenses are preferred as you can get a longer shutter time and more of the sky in the frame.

Old farmhouse building in the Karara Rangelands. Unfortunately the trees here were a little tall but I think the image turned out ok.

APERTURE and iso

Now that we have our shutter speed it's time to work out our exposure using our aperture and ISO. To do this, open your aperture up to its widest point. So if it is a F2.8 lens open it up to F2.8, a F4 lens to F4 etc. Just be aware as you close down your aperture (F2.8 to F4, F4 to F5.6 etc.) you will need to increase the ISO substantially and you therefore run the risk of having too much digital noise, hence why it is better to use a lens with a wide aperture. Once you have your shutter speed and aperture selected, you need to increase your ISO and I normally start at ISO 1600 and either work up or down from there. For example, if I am using my 14mm F2.8 lens on my Canon 6D (a full frame camera) I would set the aperture to F2.8, my shutter speed to 30 seconds, my ISO to 1600 and I manually set the focus to ‘Infinity’. Note: auto focus doesn’t work at night! With these settings dialled into the camera I will take a test shot and review the image. If there appears to be any ‘streaking’ of the stars I will decrease the shutter speed and if it is under or over exposed I will adjust the ISO. Normally I will not adjust my aperture as I want as much light coming into the camera as possible through the lens, plus I am not concerned with the depth of field because it is night time and the depth of field is barely noticeable.

choosING A SUBJECT

So, now that you have the basics of how to take a nightscape image, the next thing to do is to find a suitable subject. To do this you need two things - firstly your subject and as I mentioned earlier anything can make a good subject for nightscape photography, you just have to have vision and imagination. The second thing you need is dark skies and preferably clear, cloudless skies. Unfortunately, this isn’t as easy as it sounds because if you live in a major metropolitan centre or large town, then light pollution is going to be a major factor. Therefore, you are going to have to travel out into the countryside until you leave all the light pollution (or as much as possible) behind.

Here in Western Australia, we are very lucky as much of our country inland has little effect from light pollution. Places like the North-Eastern Wheatbelt, the Great Western Woodlands and the Karara Rangelands are all within a two to three hour drive from Perth. If you go further inland to the Goldfields, or north to the Murchison and Gascoyne Regions, you will get darker skies but it will take you longer to get there so these are more suitable for week-long trips. Finally, you don’t want to be in heavily wooded country, as tall trees will obscure most of the sky and the stars. Therefore, you want to be in open country with a clear view of the night sky. My process for taking a nightscape image starts with the planning and this is my favourite part. How I choose a subject will vary greatly but once I settle on a subject or an area, then I start planning the trip to get there. Will it be an overnighter or will I need to be away for a couple of nights or longer? Will I be travelling to remote country and do I need to get any permits or permission from landowners? Once I have all this organised, I start my normal trip planning process such as working out routes, fuel, food etc. On average I can spend at least a week or more planning a trip and the better planned I am, the more enjoyable it will be. One thing I always like to do is get to my location nice and early to scout out the area and choose what my subjects will be and if possible set my camera up well before night fall. That way I am not rushing around in the dark and stumbling over things. One of the benefits of being able to camp where you are taking your images is that you can stay there for as long as you need and when you are finished you don’t have far to travel to go to bed and on this trip that worked out great. In July 2020, just after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted here in WA, two mates and I headed off on a week-long trip from Perth to the Kennedy Ranges via the Karara Rangelands and the Murchison and Gascoyne Regions. It was a great trip and I managed to get a number of great nightscape images from it.

Unimog at Glenburgh Station in the Gascoyne Region. This was taken using only internal lighting in the vehicle to give a different aspect.

I am planning on another big trip and revisiting some of the sites that I visited in July as I have a better understanding of the areas we visited. I have a number of images in mind, so fingers crossed that all goes to plan. Hopefully, I have inspired you to get out and try some nightscape photography. Yes it is a little more difficult than normal landscape photography but with practice (lots of practice) it will become easier and even if they don’t work out, simply being out in the bush is bonus enough. If you like to know more about nightscape photography or other types of photography, check out my website www.westralianimages.com and drop me a line as I am always happy to talk about 4W driving, camping and photography. Now, get out there and take some awesome images.