Yesterday's News, Today's Muse: Shooting Night Photography on Film

News flash!

There is a little bit of a film renaissance going on, right now!

I can tell you that I’ve been enjoying loading up my classic cameras again and taking them out for more day and night adventures.

I learned night photography on film in the 1990s, back when it was seen as a very difficult and archaic process that yielded more misses than hits. However, when you succeeded, it felt like a majestic home run! Without the instant feedback and resources on the internet, night photographers in the film days would write copious amounts of notes from all their trials and errors, and they would use specific films that played better to longer exposures.

Digital certainly made night photography easier and more accessible for people to master. On the other hand, there’s a series of benefits to photographing night with film: the exciting uncertainty of shooting on analog can push you to pre-visualize, challenge yourself and add a dash of nostalgia to your photographic experience.

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Sutro Baths. Mamiya 7 with a 43mm lens, shot on Fujifilm Acros 100 under a full moon. 8 minutes, f/8.

Why Shoot Film for the Night?

Night photography is a fairly slow and laborious process. Digital technology has sped up that process and given us immediate feedback to adjust our decisions on exposure and light painting in the field. But have those advantages made you more complacent as well?

Film definitely pushes you to pre-visualize and to slow down even more. You’ll think about every decision before clicking the shutter, and that isn’t a bad thing.

With digital, there are relatively few limits to the night sky—either in the field or later in post-processing. You have the tools to switch from color to black and white, and to stack images so that everything from 6 inches to the infinite stars is in focus.

With film, your options are limited—but that can force you to be more creative. There is something to be said for heading into the field with a very specific vision, and film locks you into one palette for the night. (Or at least for 10 to 36 frames.)

Speaking of vision, I also love the variety of film cameras that are geared to let you to see in a different way, whether it is a true panorama camera, the square frames of a twin lens reflex, or even a pinhole camera.

You can embrace these limitations, and just “roll” with film!

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Parroquia de San Miguel Arcangel. This is a rare night photograph taken with a zone plate (pinhole type). Shot on Polaroid Type 59 4x5 color film that has notoriously bad reciprocity failure. Note how the direct light sources from the church reflect the zone plate lens. 4x5 Zero Image Pinhole camera with an f/45 zone plate. Approximately 4 minutes, f/45, ISO 100.

Logistics of Shooting Film

There are some specific logistics to shooting film that we need to get an initial grasp of.

Reciprocity Failure

The main logistical obstacle is reciprocity failure. A digital sensor’s ISO can be adjusted from 50 to 51,200 and beyond. The ISO of film is less pliable. Film is optimized for the ISO it is rated for and can suffer from reciprocity failure during long exposures at very low light levels.

A film’s emulsion is made up of a layer of silver halide chemicals that “react” to light and etch the image onto the film. Common chemistry tells us that a chemical reaction is most potent at the beginning and loses its potency over the course of the reaction. Ergo, the longer an exposure, the less sensitive the film’s silver halide layer becomes to light. The breakdown can start in as soon as 1 second, and it accelerates as the exposure gets longer. Each type of film is made up of different chemistry and therefore reacts differently, so each has a reciprocity failure chart that is often printed inside the box or found on the manufacture’s website.

Developing Time

Another issue is controlling the highlights of night images on film. Because we are inherently overexposing most scenes to get more detail in the dark shadows, we need to be careful not to blow out our highlights. In digital we can take multiple shots and use HDR techniques and blend them together. That would be more laborious with film.

A better option to control the contrast of the scene is by altering the way we expose and develop the film. The old adage of exposing for the shadows and developing for the highlights is the key to success.

There are different strategies depending on how much contrast is in the scene. In moonlight, the best technique is to reduce the development time by about 10 percent. The extreme contrast found in artificially lit locations can be even more problematic. In these situations, an extended development time with reduced agitation in a diluted developer will yield the best results. Experimentation combined with accurate notes will allow you to develop a personalized system to both get consistent results and to customize your look.

(Of course, not everyone who shoots film also develops it. If someone else is doing the darkroom work, discuss all these options with them to achieve the best end results.)

I also recommend dedicating a roll of film to only night photography, as opposed to mixing night and day exposures. Brightly lit daytime frames and dimly lit nighttime frames require different development times for the best image quality, so if you were to shoot them both on the same roll, then one or the other would suffer from incorrect processing.

Film Choice

Two of my favorite films are Fujifilm Acros 100 and Kodak Tri-X 400. The reciprocity failure compensation for each is drastically different, and the slower speed of the Acros handles longer exposures much better than Tri-X. When I meter and add reciprocity compensation on a moonless night, I’m looking at a 4- to 6-hour exposure with Acros—but any decent exposure under those conditions is impossible with Kodak Tri-X!

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Reciprocity Failure Chart. A comparison of reciprocity compensation for two of my favorite films, Fuji Acros 100 and Kodak Tri-X 400.

If you have a favorite film, research the technical data prior and do your own exposure tests to figure out how much you need to adjust your initial evaluation of a scene.

For example, most films start to suffer reciprocity failure between 1 and 10 seconds. But with Acros (as well as with most of Fuji’s color slide films), reciprocity failure doesn’t begin until after 2 or 3 minutes.

Another choice is whether to work with color. When working with film, I shoot pretty much exclusively with black and white. I love bringing the monochromatic look wherever I go. When we shoot digital, we often default to color and forget about the strong lines and compositions that black and white can emphasize even more—but with analog that’s a more conscious decision, because the whole process starts with choosing which film to use.

Metering

This leads up another important question: How do you meter for night exposures?

This was the biggest frustration pre-digital. Most internal meters in film cameras can’t accurately gauge dim scenes at 3 EV or lower. Handheld meters perform a little better, with the best ones working well at as low as -3 EV. (For reference, 0 EV would be the equivalent of a subject lit by dim ambient artificial light, and -3 EV would be a subject under full moonlight.)

Today’s digital meters are way more sensitive, especially considering that we can raise the sensitively of a camera to ISO 6400 and beyond and still get a very accurate reading. Because of this, when I’m shooting film at night, I often shoot with a second setup that’s digital. I meter with the digital and then apply those settings and add the required reciprocity factor for the film, and that gives me an excellent starting point. Even with this relatively accurate approach, I definitely advise bracketing your exposure to be sure you get an exposure you like and can work with.

My go-to full-moon exposure with Fujifilm Acros 100 is 8 minutes at f/8. One day after the full moon, I add one stop of light—i.e., 16 minutes at f/8 or 8 minutes at f/5.6. For me, a productive night is to finish a roll of film, but honestly I often have time for only 8 to 10 frames.

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Cannon Beach. Wisner 4x5 Technical Field Camera, shot under a full moon on Fujifilm Acros 100. 30 minutes, f/11. Acros is a fine-grain film that allows short exposures in dimly lit scenes, and it lets you extend exposures in dark, moonlit scenes without much loss in reciprocity.

Which Film Camera is Best for You?

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The Mamiya C220.

I like to recommend cameras that are not battery dependent, or ones for which the battery is solely for powering the meter. I also, for night work, highly recommend medium format cameras over 35mm. If you are averaging only 8 to 12 framers per night, it could take three nights to finish a roll of 35mm film, whereas you could finish one roll of medium format’s larger film in one night, and you’ll also get better image quality.

Both Matt Hill and I shot many nights with our beloved Mamiya 7, which yields a large negative and has a bright rangefinder that makes it easy to compose in dark environments. However, the battery in the Mamiya 7 is notorious for draining quickly with long exposures. And that battery also controls the shutter, so if it drains in the middle of your exposure, you’re not only done for the night, but you’ve also ruined your last shot. I always kept a spare battery in my bag for one-night shoots, and brought several extra on longer road trips.

The Mamiya 7 is still expensive even on the used market, so if you are new to this and don’t have an old film camera on hand, I recommend the Mamiya C220 twin lens camera. No batteries, no meter needed. It produces a nice square negative, and it’s one of the few twin lens cameras that had interchangeable lenses. These can often be found for under $400 in good condition and with a lens.

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Thomaston, Maine. Mamiya C220 with an 80mm lens, shot on Fujifilm Acros film. 8 minutes, f/5.6.

The Urban Night on Film

So far this film thing probably seems like it’s loaded with a lot of factors that need to be juggled. But most of the considerations I’ve mentioned so far have been for dimly lit scenes, or moonlight—and those are the most challenging night conditions for film. On the flip side, you can shoot film with fewer concerns in brighter lit urban scenes:

• Color shifts and reciprocity failure don’t come into play much under streetlights.

• The shorter exposures are easier to meter.

• The brighter scenery is easier to see through your viewfinder.

All of this means you can be more productive, because you can shoot more frames!

In the urban environment, color film can be fun to experiment with, or you can see your city in a black and white noir look.

Red Hook. Rollei Rolleiflex 2.8E TLR, shot on Fujifilm Acros 100. This was shot at probably 1/2 second or less. The well-illuminated crooked street light provided ample light for even a slow 100-speed film.

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Olympic Stadium, Montreal. Voigtlander Bessa R, shot on slide film that was then cross-processed to get even more grain and some trippy colors.

Final Thoughts

Film can be fun. It can push you out of your comfort zone and make you study the night light and the view in front of you in a way that digital probably won’t. You can also embrace the reciprocity failure and shoot for very long, continuous star trails without the need to do any stacking in post.

I’ve also been very impressed with what Jason Defreitas is doing with film and star trackers. The Milky Way was impossible to shoot on film because of the low light levels and reciprocity failure, but Jason has done some beautiful astrophotography on film.

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Bannerman Armory, Pollepel Island, New York. Mamiya 7 with a 43mm lens, shot on Fujifilm Acros 100 film. 90 minutes, f/11.

I will say that digital has made me a better film shooter. As I mentioned earlier, when I go out with my combined digital and film setup, I can use the former to quickly find the right exposure for the latter. And because the film exposure tends to be so long, I then use the digital camera to keep shooting, which keeps my overall productivity up.

I hope I’ve inspired you to dust off a film camera you might have sitting on the shelf and to seize the night— with film!

Note: Want to learn more about classic cameras and film photography? Our friends at B&H Photo are celebrating Classic Camera Week from February 8 to 12. Gabe will be hosting several online events where he talks to camera collectors and pros who shoot film, discussing best camera choices. A there will be a happy hour on Thursday to raise a toast to everyone’s favorite film cameras! To learn more about B&H’s week of programming, click the link above.

Gabriel Biderman is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He is a Brooklyn-based fine art and travel photographer, and author of Night Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots (Peachpit, 2014). During the daytime hours you'll often find Gabe at one of many photo events around the world working for B&H Photo’s road marketing team. See his portfolio and workshop lineup at www.ruinism.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

How to Deal With Light Pollution, Part III: Creativity

Note: This is the third in a three-part series about one of the most common questions we get: How do you deal with light pollution? We have three answers: with filters, with post-processing, with creativity. In this week’s blog post, Chris Nicholson discusses the latter of those solutions: using light pollution creatively.

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As Matt and Lance showed in our two previous blog posts, you can quite effectively mitigate light pollution in your night photographs, either by using filters or post-production techniques. There’s a third way too: Instead of avoiding light pollution, find ways to use it to create images you couldn’t create without it.

Many folks believe, innately, that the key to creativity is having the mental space to relax and to work free of boundaries. But the reality is that the opposite is more often true—discomfort in process triggers ingenuity. Sure, easy conditions are conducive to productivity, but they don’t challenge your brain, and they don’t test and stretch your limits.

In fact, psychology studies have shown that most people’s minds are at their most creative when creative mental space is limited. Why? Because unwelcome boundaries force us to seek alternatives and solutions we might otherwise not.

This is precisely why working with light pollution, rather than trying to eliminate it, can lead you to thinking and photographing outside your normal box, and can result in some work that might pleasantly surprise you.

The approach is basically adopting a tone of “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” Or maybe we can say about light pollution, “If you can’t lose it, use it.”

Below are a few ways you can employ this strategy.

Backlight the Horizon

If you’re shooting on a dark night in a dark location, grand landscapes can sometimes be challenging to photograph. Why? Because the horizon can get lost in the exposure when the dark landscape blends with the dark sky. But when light pollution is in the background, it will silhouette the horizon, backlighting the interesting things that lie at the transition from earth to sky.

Figure 1 is an example of this. I was shooting the Milky Way from high in the tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park—high enough that the grand mountains below were relatively small in the background. Framed against a dark horizon, they would have been much harder to discern in the composition. However, the light pollution from nearby Denver helped—it provided the backlight necessary to create separation between the mountains and the stars.

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Figure 1. Milky Way in Rocky Mountain National Park. Nikon D810 with a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. 15 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 8000.

Silhouette a Subject

In precisely the same way that light pollution can backlight a horizon, it can also backlight a nearer subject, and you can use that to silhouette distinct objects in your composition just like you might with a sunset.

I made the photograph in Figure 2 on the outskirts of Borrego Springs, California. It’s of two of Ricardo Breceda’s famous iron sculptures that dot the surrounding desert. The horizon light is pollution from a distant town. In this image, that light pollution not only helps define the horizon, but also separates the sculptures from the background and artistically defines their shapes without revealing their details.

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Figure 2. Borrego Springs, California. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. 16 minutes, f/8, ISO 400.

Light pollution is caused not only by distant cities—it can also be a local issue. Bright streetlights, nearby power plants, passing car headlights, etc., can all throw unwanted light into your night scenes. Instead of avoiding them as intrusions, keep your mind open to incorporating them into your compositions.

Car headlights were a “problem” in Joshua Tree National Park when I was shooting there one night in 2017. I kept waiting for occasional vehicles to pass before starting and re-starting star exposures, because the headlights were spilling unwanted light on the trees and rocks. But then I noticed how those lights were backlighting those same trees and rocks, as well as the dust in the high-desert air. So I changed my strategy from waiting to shoot between cars to waiting for cars to come around the distant bend and backlight the landscape. The result is the photograph in Figure 3 (with a little extra light painting on the leaves).

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Figure 3. Joshua Tree National Park. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, light painted with a distant car and a Coast HP5R flashlight. 15 seconds, f/4, ISO 6400.

Light the Clouds

One of my favorite ways to use pollution also solves another night photography problem: overcast skies. A solid ceiling of clouds can prove challenging at night, particularly in new-moon conditions when they can make for a dead sky. But if there’s a little light pollution nearby, that can illuminate the underbelly of those clouds and give you an interesting background to work with.

That’s precisely the visual dynamic that I liked when creating the photograph in Figure 4. Lance and I were shooting with a few participants of our 2019 workshop in Cape Cod. Clouds rolled in, obscuring the stars. But the clouds were catching the lights of nearby Provincetown, Massachusetts, creating a moody background for the lighthouse.

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Figure 4. Highland Lighthouse, Cape Cod National Seashore. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens, light painted with two Luxli Viola LED panels. 30 seconds, f/4, ISO 1600.

Go Surreal

One of the reasons most night photographers don’t like light pollution is because it doesn’t look natural—it doesn’t look “real.” But rather than avoiding light pollution for that reason, you can deliberately use it to create surreal images.

A fine example of this is an image (Figure 5) that Tim shared in a recent blog post on color. He was shooting in the San Francisco area on a foggy night, and the fog was saturated with the colored lights from the city. But rather than correct or avoid the orange sky, he used it to create a hypnotic, dreamlike, apocolyptic-type background.

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Figure 5. San Francisco. © 2019 Tim Cooper. Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon Z 24-70mm f/4 lens, light painted with a Coast HP7R flashlight. 15 seconds, f/4, ISO 800.

Seize the Light Pollution!

There are surely countless other ways you can use light pollution to create unique night imagery. Even if working this way is not your normal style, it is still a good creative exercise. Again, anything that squeezes our boundaries or forces us out of them is good for creativity.

I’m not suggesting that including light pollution in your photographs is always the correct solution, but it should be a method you’re comfortable employing. This approach is just as valid as using filters or post-production to deal with the same problem. All three strategies are tools that are good to learn how to use, so that you can always be ready with the best solution for whatever creative problem you need to solve in a given situation.

What are some ways you’ve found to be creative with light pollution in your night photographs? We’d love to see! Share your images in the comments section or on our Facebook page, or post them on Instagram and tag us (@nationalparksatnight).

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

New Year’s Revolutions: Six Steps to Shaking Up Your Night Photography in 2020

Are you as good a night photographer as you will ever be?

If your answer is yes, then, as the contemporary cliché goes, you’re doing it wrong. As with any art, “mastering” photography is not a goal, but rather a perpetual process. You are never as good as you will someday be—and that’s a good thing. Endless are the ways to grow and improve.

That growth happens naturally, as you work past your first 10,000 worst photographs, and then past your next 10,000 worst, and so on. But that growth, as well as the direction of it, can also happen deliberately. You can decide what to work on, and how to do that work. You can set destinations for your talent, and you can choose the roads that get you there.

The new year is the perfect time to do all of that. When the time comes to change the calendar on the wall, I also like to think about how I can better my photography skills in the year ahead. Each January I think about one big thing I’d like to learn or improve upon, and I keep it in mind on shoots throughout winter, spring, summer and fall, all in an effort to take some control over how I get better.

If you’d like to take this task on for yourself in 2020, below are six ideas for progressing in night photography. Choose one and focus on it in the year ahead. Then, at the end of this post, I’ll make you an offer.

1. Learn a New Technique

I think of photography techniques as tools, and the set of techniques learned as my toolbox. The more tools in my box, the better I can take advantage of different light conditions, different landforms, different weather, and so on. The more tools I have, the less often I need to turn away from a challenging photographic opportunity.

So every year I try to focus either on some new (for me) technique, or I try to hone a skill that I want to better master, or I push the boundaries of how I use a strategy so that I can create new ideas or aesthetics in my photographs.

For example, two years ago I realized that all of my light painting involved adding light that was a warmer color temperature than ambient, because I love that contrast. But I loved it so much that light painting that way became a habit rather than a conscious shot-by-shot choice. So my goal for 2018 was to work on using color temperatures that blended with the ambient light. I did that all year, and got good enough at it so that now my second nature is to always choose which strategy I prefer, rather than to default to one or the other.

Last year I chose another goal. I realized that I was always shooting night scenes at high ISOs. Of course sometimes that’s necessary, such as when photographing star points. But I shot at high ISOs almost all the time, for several reasons. Some of them were good, but my most honest reason was because I was intimidated by investing larger swaths of time and wasting those investments on mistakes. There are many advantages to slowing down at night, so in 2019 my goal was to break that habit and shoot long any time I could. I wanted to become more confident in an approach that would yield better images.

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Last summer I photographed Badlands National Park with Matt Hill for a few days. In the past I would have likely defaulted to shooting this image with a short star-point exposure or by stacking a series of short exposures to create the trails. But in the middle of my “long-exposure 2019” commitment, I opted for a ten-minute shutter speed, which allowed me to use ISO 100 for better image quality. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens, light painted with a Luxli Viola. 10 minutes, f/5, ISO 100.

What’s my goal for 2020? Using hyperfocal distance is the best way to ensure accurate focus in a night photo, but the technique isn’t easy. I understand hyperfocal enough to use it, and even enough to teach it. But it’s not a habit. I can’t employ it from implicit memory. By the end of this year, that will have changed.

2. Try a New Camera

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Last spring I was able to play with the best-in-class high ISO performance of the Nikon Z 6 in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, as well as a couple of times since. I’m looking forward to using one even more in 2020 so I can grow better accustomed to the intricacies of mirrorless. Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon 14-24mm lens. 8 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400.

We all know that we should practice using our camera so well that we can operate it in the dark. (That goes double for night photographers, because we need to do that literally.) While that is great advice, there’s a downside—routine is not the most fertile ground for creativity. Research is clear that having obstacles between inspiration and output pushes your mind into more creative places.

One of the ways to harness this idea is to use a new camera. Buy something new to the market. Or something very old from a previous owner. Or rent something you’re unfamiliar with. Or borrow your friend’s favorite camera. Then let the challenge of learning to use it open new creative channels in your mind. Pushing your brain always comes with benefits.

Moreover, using a new camera exposes you to new features that your current body might not offer. Perhaps it’s sharper autofocus, or in-camera focus stacking, or better live view, or cleaner high ISOs, or so on.

I’m a DSLR guy. The ins and outs of using one are embedded in my process, to the point where using something else is a hindrance. So in 2020 I intend to become more comfortable using a mirrorless camera—in particular, the Nikon Z 6, which Gabe Biderman recently dubbed the best camera for night photography. I have no intention of switching permanently, but I’d like to learn the different technology so I’m comfortable using it when doing so is advantageous.

3. Try a New Lens

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If you really want to stretch creative boundaries, try an “extreme” lens like the Nikon 8-15mm fisheye zoom. But be warned: It can be addictive—good luck getting it off your camera. Nikon D5 with a Nikon Fisheye 8-15mm f/3.5-4.5 lens. 30 seconds, f/3.5, ISO 6400.

Adopting a new lens not only changes where you stand to make a photograph, but it can also change how you see. Have you ever found yourself in a rut when shooting? Changing lenses is one of the quickest ways out. And adding a new type of lens to your arsenal is one of the best ways to start seeing scenes differently.

Perhaps try a superwide rectilinear, such as the Irix 11mm. It will force you to get closer to your primary subject and adapt how you use your backgrounds. Or test something with a crazy-wide aperture and shallow depth of field, like the Nikon Z 58mm f/0.95 S Noct. Or experiment with using a macro at night and tackling all the logistical changes that brings to your workflow. Or get really crazy and create with the deliberate distortion of a lens like the Nikon 8-15mm fisheye zoom.

4. Go Outside Your Box

Look at your photos from the past few years and identify patterns. Then, this year, break them.

For example, if you notice that you always shoot from eye level, then start every composition with your camera on the ground. If you always shoot star points, then aim for more star trails. If you always shoot landscapes, try urban scenes. If you always light paint from the side, try using backlight.

This list of examples could go on forever. For every way to do something in photography, there’s also a different way. Find it and try it. You might discover a whole new approach to creating photographs. Or not. Either way, working outside your norm will give you fresh ideas for your usual fortes.

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Last spring I traveled to Borrego Springs, California, to co-lead two of our workshops with Lance Keimig and Atlas Obscura. I had no interest in shooting the place—I was there strictly for work. But once there, I quickly fell in love with seeing and photographing the desert sculptures. The subject matter is completely outside the box of what I’m usually drawn to, and that was a good thing, because shooting it was a creative push for me. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, light painted with a Luxli Viola. 10 minutes, f/5.6, ISO 500.

5. Travel to a New Location

Traveling to new places can be wildly stimulating. You’re seeing new things, which leads to photographing in new ways. The mind gets excited by new input, and anything that fires your synapses in a different order will be good for growing your artistic self.

If you’ve lived your whole life in New England, travel to Arches National Park and see how quickly your inspiration soars. If you frequent the southwest, head to the peaks of North Cascades. If you’re always shooting mountains, try the primal environment and wildlife of the Everglades. If wildlife and flat landscapes are your main gig, head to the forests of Shenandoah.

Want to branch out of photographing the U.S.? There’s a big, beautiful world to explore with your camera. Go shoot the standing stones of Scotland’s Orkney Islands, or the shifting sands of the Sahara, or the continent-edge sea cliffs of the Nullarbor Plain, or the urban art and architecture of Barcelona.

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In 2019 I was able to photograph Devils Tower National Monument for the first time. Being able to spend a week in a new location catalyzed my creativity. Never had I shot so many stitched night panos, but it was a perfect location for that technique, so I got a lot of practice. Nikon D5 with an Irix 15mm f/2.4 lens. Nine stitched images exposed at 20 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 6400.

6. Reshoot an Old Location

Just as valuable as visiting new places can be revisiting old ones. You may think you know a place, but the more you go, the more you’ll realize you don’t know.

For one thing, you will be different. You will know more about photography than you did last time.

Moreover, the weather will be different. The light will be different. The clouds, the trees, the flowers, the leaves, the stars, the moon, the palette, the hues—everything can and will change. There’s always a new way and a new time to see an old place, and finding that will push the boundaries of the work you produce there.

(For more on this idea, see our blog posts “Revisiting Locations Can Lead to Seeing with New Eyes” and “How Revisiting Locations Can Improve Your Night Photos.”)

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Since the mid-1990s I’ve visited and photographed Cape Cod National Seashore so many times that I couldn’t even count them, and that includes shooting at Highland Lighthouse. It would be easy to think I’ve run out of ways to photograph it, but this past October, different weather and some group light painting led me to a take I hadn’t done before—and now this is one of my favorite images I’ve ever made there. Nikon D5 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens, and light painted with a Luxli Viola. 30 seconds, f/4, ISO 1600.

Use 2020 to Grow

So there you go. Above I offered some ideas. Now here I offer a promise:

In the Comments section below, or in the comments on our Facebook page, tell us how you plan to push your creative self this year. Pick one big thing to focus on, and keep it in mind as you shoot during the next 12 months. You don’t have to do it every time out, and you don’t need to do it for every shot—just make that goal part of your routine so that you begin to develop a true mastery, thereby creating a new tool that you’re comfortable using whenever you need it in the future. At the end of the year I’ll get in touch with everyone who responds, we’ll follow up on how it went, and I’ll write another blog post featuring your stories.

Are you comfortable with how you will pursue night photography in 2020? Then get out of that comfort zone now. Pick a way to grow and see the new heights you can reach in a year.

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Seizing the Season: How to Photograph Holiday Lights

The holiday festivities are in full swing, and everywhere you look—from the stores to the streets, from the houses to the parks—the world is sparkling with a celebration of lights.

All this holiday cheer warms the spirits and sends people out in throngs to experience festivals and homes adorned with sparkles and gleams. Including, of course, photographers!  And I’m one of them.

I recently braved the masses to experience one of the classic locations that brings in people from all over the world during the holidays—Rockefeller Center. It has the massive tree and skating rink on one side, and the spectacular Saks light show (Figure 1) on the other. Between both these sights runs a segmented water fountain and rows of angels.

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Figure 1. An ethereal take on the Saks lights show. Nikon Z 6 with a Lensbaby Sol 45mm f/3.5 lens. 1/80, f/3.5, ISO 500, with a white balance of 5000 K.

Everyone was taking pictures with their phones, which do a decent job in such a well-lit space. But my goal was different. I wanted to get creative and make some photographs that might be worth hanging on the wall.

Would you like to get out and do the same, whether in a bustling place like Rockefeller Center or in the quiet of a suburban neighborhood? In this article I want to inspire you to level up to create something that goes beyond the snapshot. That’s right—we’re going to shoot some holiday lights!

Exposure Guidelines

Because you can experience a variety of conditions under the lights, the best exposures will vary from scene to scene.

Apertures play a big factor, whether you’re shooting wide open to turn the lights into a colorful blurred background or whether you’re stopping down to turn the direct light sources into star points.

Your shutter speeds will be dictated by whether you can use a tripod. Is there movement in the scene that will be amplified by a longer exposure? If you can’t use a tripod, choose a shutter speed above 1/60.

When shooting holiday lights, I let my ISOs fly and think about aperture and shutter speed first. Obviously, avoid any higher ISOs that add too much noise to the scene. The lower the ISO, the smoother and richer those colors will be. But today’s cameras tend to perform great up to 3200, 6400, and even 12800—so don’t be afraid to aim high if you need to!

Tips for Working Outdoors

Figure 2. Vallerret’s Ipsoot photography gloves.

Layering up and arriving early are key factors to successfully seizing the multitude of outdoor lights.

Make sure you are warm and comfortable, and especially protect your extremities from the cooler winter temperatures. My favorite hand-insulating combo is produced by our friends at Vallerret: the Ipsoot gloves (Figure 2) with merino wool liners. Add a hand warmer to the zipper pocket on the Ipsoot and you’ll be able to keep on clicking until the wee hours!

As for your feet, Smartwool socks and full-foot insole warmers will guarantee you can keep trudging through cold or snowy parks and hills.

Getting to your location by sunset will guarantee that you can take advantage of the shorter blue hour that happens in the Northern Hemisphere’s winter months. Urban city lights perfectly coordinate with the cobalt color of the sky during civil twilight (Figure 3), and that’s the time when everything is likely to fall into the dynamic range of the camera. This is also helpful in rural areas when you want to combine the twilight sky with a well-decorated home.

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Figure 3. Even though this was shot at twilight, I needed three frames to capture the tonal range of the bright lights and the darker shadows. Fujifilm X-T1 with Fujifilm 10-24mm f/4 lens. f/8, ISO 800 and blended shutter speeds of 1, 4 and 8 seconds.

If you miss the 20-minute twilight, shooting with moonlight (not this year) or bracketing and blending the scenes with more contrast will help battle big swathes of dark negative space in your photographs (Figure 4).

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Figure 4. The full moon definitely helped add drama (I love the tree shadow) and balance the exposure, but I still needed to blend two images to retain the highlights realistically in the luminarias. Fujifilm X-T1 and Fujifilm 10-24mm f/4 lens. f/16, ISO 400, and blended shutter speeds of 30 and 60 seconds.

Creative Tricks

As always, you can get creative in many ways. Try different kinds of compositions, different angles and shooting from different heights. Below are more fun options I love to play around with.

Lensbaby

Most people are capturing a “straight” interpretation of the scene. But Lensbabies inspire you to create a magical and mysterious spectacle!

My favorites for creating a unique look to night lights at any time of year are the Sol, Composer Pro and Twist. Each of these lenses lets you place the selective focus anywhere in the frame, making any direct light sources turn into beautiful discs of bokeh.

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Figure 5. From left to right, the Lensbaby Sol 45, Composer Pro II 35 and Twist 60.

With both of the images below, the idea was about finessing the composition and timing the exposure with the lights. The “straight” shot with the 24-70mm lens (Figure 6) allowed me to go wider and include the flowing water. Seeing that movement led me to choose a slower shutter speed of 1/8 and then put my camera into burst mode and hold down the trigger. This helped guarantee at least one sharp shot in the bunch while also highlighting the moving water.

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Figure 6. Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon Z 24-70mm f/4 lens. 1/8, f/8, ISO 640, with a white balance of 5000 K.

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Figure 7. Nikon Z 6 with a Lensaby Sol 45mm f/3.5 lens. 1/15, f/3.5, ISO 100, with a white balance of 5000 K.

But I also love the look of the Lensbaby (Figure 7). The Sol is easy to use with a focal length of 45mm. It also has a fixed aperture of f/3.5. I wasn’t able to include the water fountain, but the selective focus made the scene seem like a dream!

Defocus

As photographers we’re trained to get everything sharp. But deliberately going soft can also be incredibly creative, and it can work especially well when dealing with light sources. Try manually focusing to turn the lights into big balls of color.

For the image in Figure 8, the beautiful out-of-focus highlights that the Lensbaby creates inspired me to try defocusing. The swirling bokeh of the Twist lens looked even better when all the lights from the tree were soft.

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Figure 8. Nikon Z 6 with Lensbaby Twist 60. 1/60, f/3.5, ISO 250.

Zooming

One of my favorite techniques to employ with direct light sources is zooming during the exposure. In order to do this in a brightly lit area like Rockefeller Center, you’ll want to use your lowest ISO and stop down the aperture to f/16 or f/22. You could even use a 3- or 6-stop neutral density filter.

Why are we diminishing the light so much? So we can work with a longer shutter speed. The longer you can zoom, the more creative you can get.

For the image in Figure 9, I used the LCD on the back of the camera to compose and practice a few different compositions. The 24-70mm lens worked perfectly, as the star remained in the frame as I zoomed. With a longer lens (I also had the Nikon 28-300mm with me), I would have lost that important part of the composition at the longer focal lengths.

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Figure 9. Nikon Z 6 with a 24-70mm f/4 lens. 6 seconds, at f/22, ISO 50.

The trick to the zoom technique is to hold your position at the beginning and end of the exposure so that you can freeze the subject in both spots. For example, this exposure was 6 seconds. I set the zoom to its widest position, triggered the exposure, counted to 2, then started to slowly zoom, timing the movement so there was another 2-count at the end. This helped balance the visual of the tree versus the effect of the zoom.

Black and White

When you’re shooting something that’s colorful by nature, it’s hard to think outside that color box. But that different take is exactly why a monochrome approach to shooting holiday lights can be so captivating.

I ended my night at Rockefeller Center by looking for a quieter scene (Figure 10). I loved the simplicity of the white lights covering the trees and knew it would look good in black and white. I wanted to embrace the people moving on the sidewalk, so I experimented with 1- to 15-second shutter speeds. The shorter exposures made the figures resemble ghosts walking through the scene.

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Figure 10. Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon 24-70mm f/4 lens at 28mm. 1 second, f/9, ISO 640.

Indoor Opportunities

No need to layer up here! With your camera in hand (or on a tripod), you can celebrate your precious ornaments and indoor lighting arrangements in a variety of ways.

Ornaments

Every year our good friend and ranger at Biscayne National Park, Gary Bremen, shares his pictures and the stories behind each ornament on his Facebook page. My sister just started doing the same, and my wife Nancy can definitely spin a yarn about each one of her ornaments. Why not do the same? (Figures 11-14.)

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Figure 11. Boots Ornament. Each shot with Nikon D750 with a Tamron 90mm macro lens. 1/8, f/8, ISO 800.

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Figure 12. Teardrop Ornament. 1/125, f/3.5, ISO 800.

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Figure 13. Light Bubble Ornament. After experimenting with shutter speeds from 1/125 to 1 second, I settled on 1/30 to best interpret the movement in the ornament. 1/30, f/3.8, ISO 100.

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Figure 14. Beer Ornament. Don’t forget that holiday beers are decorative and taste great! 1/30, f/8, ISO 400.

Photographing ornaments is often best done using a macro lens. Because macros have extremely shallow depth of field, you’ll want to use a tripod to ensure you nail the focus and get a precise distinction between your main subject and the blur of the background (Figure 15).

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Figure 15. Note the difference between the size and shape of the background lights when shooting at f/3.5 (left) and f/11 (right). Nikon D750 with a Tamron 90mm macro lens.

Portraits

The holidays are a time for many family photos. So get creative and use the lights as a symbolic background for your portraits.

The key to producing that colorful bokehliscious background is to compress the depth of field and have the tree lights out of focus. Use a portrait lens between 85mm and 135mm (a 70-200mm is a perfect lens), along with a flash.

For the portraits in Figure 16, I set up my camera and tripod about 15 feet from the tree. I then placed a chair about 6 feet from the lens and made sure it aligned nicely with the lights behind it. I used a Profoto A1 flash off-camera, mounted on a light stand and connected via a remote trigger. This created a pleasing light combination that helped separate the subject from the background.

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Figure 16. Sandy, Brooks and Helen. All images shot with Nikon D750 with a Tamron 90mm macro lens and a Profoto A1 flash. 1/30, f/3, ISO 400.

Wrapping Up

These aren’t the only ways to be creative with holiday lights—the options are infinitely varied. We’d love to see what you come up with! Please share your photos in the comments section or on our Facebook page.

So don’t be a Scrooge this season. Get out there in the cold night air, and seize those holiday lights!

Gabriel Biderman is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He is a Brooklyn-based fine art and travel photographer, and author of Night Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots (Peachpit, 2014). During the daytime hours you'll often find Gabe at one of many photo events around the world working for B&H Photo’s road marketing team. See his portfolio and workshop lineup at www.ruinism.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Sometimes it Takes Two Takes: How Revisiting Locations Can Improve Your Night Photos

I learned early on in my career that revisiting sites and images over time can lead to a deeper understanding of the landscape, as well as to better and less obvious photographs. In a way, this is like going back to reprocess an older image after gaining more knowledge of post-processing software, except you’re remaking the image in person—bringing additional personal experience, acquired skill and a more mature mindset to the scene.

Of course, multiple factors can change in addition to the photographer’s vision or perception, most of which have more to do with the location than the photographer. Places are different across the seasons, in different weather and during different phases of the moon.

If you first visit a place in winter, perhaps coming back in early summer to include the Milky Way core in your image would be worthwhile. Other less obvious things can change the nature of a location too––a streetlight that has burned out or been replaced, a car parked in an unfortunate spot, or some other distraction that prevents (or creates) an ideal composition.

In this week’s post, all five of us present examples of photographs that we made on different occasions in the same location.

Panorama Point, Capitol Reef National Park

by Gabe Biderman

I love all the Utah parks, but if you were to ask me which was my favorite … well, I’d have to tip my hat to Capitol Reef National Park.

I was fortunate enough to visit this Gold Tier International Dark Sky Park twice, the first on an epic road trip with Matt, Chris and my brother-in law Sean in 2016. We stopped at the aptly named Panorama Point and fell in love with the S-curve of the road cutting through the spectacular red rock landscape. We talked about driving the car, with headlights on, down the road to emphasize the line, but Matt suggested that we level up by taking advantage of the car’s moonroof—we could hold his Pixelstick out of it and carve a unique band of light around the curves.

It was a true team effort. I ran all three of our camera rigs from the top of Panorama Point, Matt drove the car without the headlights on, and Chris held the Pixelstick straight through the roof. It took a few attempts under the mostly full moon, but this has remained one of my all-time favorite collaborative images.

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Take 1, April 2016. Nikon D750 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens at 24mm, light writing with a Pixelstick. 2.5 minutes, f/8, ISO 800.

When Matt and I returned to Capitol Reef to lead a workshop in June 2018, we knew we wanted to share Panorama Point with the group. This time there was no moon and the road that cut through the dark foreground led exactly to the core of the Milky Way. I wasn’t even planning on shooting that night, as I had already taken what I felt was a pretty unique shot of this location—but this was just too good to resist.

The Milky Way was definitely the dramatic feature and could have very well stood on its own with a thin silhouetted foreground. But I wanted to revisit the road. This time I aimed my camera down the opposite end as it curved toward the core. By total coincidence, a car drove down while I was exposing, and this time it ruined the shot—it was way too bright, despite no one holding a Pixelstick!

Because the conditions were so dark, to get the best image quality I shot multiple high ISO frames that I would later blend in Starry Landscape Stacker. To get a clean foreground with good detail, I let in an additional 3 stops of light and shot at a lower ISO (1600). I then blended the sky and foreground. (You can see how I processed the final image in the video that accompanies the blog post linked above.)

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Take 2, June 2018. Nikon D5 with an Irix 15mm f/2.4 lens. Sky composed of multiple frames at 25 seconds, f/2.4, ISO 6400; foreground shot at 13 minutes, f/2.5, ISO 1600.

Mesquite Flat Dunes, Death Valley National Park

by Chris Nicholson

In 1995 I drove cross-country with a college buddy who was also a photographer. When we got to southern California, we saw that our route took us close to, though not through, Death Valley National Park. For a moment we considered veering toward the park, but instead opted to beeline toward the Pacific. Big mistake. Twenty years later, I finally made my way back and instantly fell in love with this stark and beautiful landscape. I developed an affection for this place that’s so strong, I’ve returned a half-dozen times in the four years since.

One of my favorite locations in the park to photograph is Mesquite Flat Dunes. Everything about this area lends itself well to landscape photography—the strong lines of the dune crests, the patches of playa in the troughs, the ripple patterns in the sand, the way light and shadow interplay, the desert-mountain background on every horizon. Really, you can’t go wrong here.

Well, I suppose you can go wrong, and I have, more than once. One case to prove the point: On my third trip to Death Valley, I wanted to locate and light paint a single shrub among the dunes. I found a good candidate, composed it, lit it … and lit it, and lit it, and lit it … and just wasn’t creating what I wanted. I could see the final result in my head, but couldn’t get the light to match it. Eventually I abandoned the idea and moved on to more successful matters.

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Take 1, February 2017. Nikon D3s with a Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 lens, light painted with a Coast HP7R flashlight. 8 seconds, f/8, ISO 200.

Later that year, on my next trip to the park, I was out in the dunes again, determined to find a way to make my old idea work. I adjusted a few things about my strategy:

• I shot later in the evening, toward the end of twilight, when I could have a nice blue sky but also get some stars.

• I found a shrub on a more gradual slope, which provided a more uniform background.

• That slope was also wide, which provided me an angle from which I could backlight while facing downhill, from well outside the frame—which meant I could light paint from one spot to create nice, hard-edge shadows that didn’t drift off the bottom of the frame.

Not only did this approach work much better than what I’d tried and failed at just 10 months before, but the result ended up being one of my favorite photos of the year. And actually … maybe one of my favorite photos I’ve ever made in Death Valley.

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Take 2, November 2017. Nikon D3s with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens, light painted with a Coast HP7R flashlight. 20 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 1600.

Marshall Point Lighthouse, Maine

by Lance Keimig

I’ve had the good fortune to teach at Maine Media Workshops for the last several years, and over the course of five or six workshops there, I’ve been able to photograph some of the area’s iconic lighthouses on multiple occasions. Marshall Point Lighthouse is one that never fails to give up a picture that I’m excited to go home with.

A photographer’s vision may change and develop over time, influencing the way that they might respond to a location. But in the three examples shown here, the local conditions at the lighthouse were more significant than anything else.

I first visited this beautiful Maine lighthouse in August 2016 and had the incredible good fortune to experience a little aurora borealis. That led me to photograph the lighthouse from the south, the opposite from where most people usually set up. The exposure was dictated more by the appearance of the aurora than the lighthouse.

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Take 1, August 2016. Nikon D750 with a Sigma 24mm f/1.4 lens. 15 seconds, f/4, ISO 1600.

In June 2017, the beacon had been replaced with a much brighter and cooler LED light source, which changed the scene dramatically, even bathing the shoreline across the bay in bright greenish light. My first thought was that the residents of the homes across from the lighthouse must have been dismayed at the change, as their backyards were continuously illuminated by the crazy-bright light. Fortunately I figured out how to compensate for the brightness, by positioning my camera in a way that prevented the lantern from blowing out completely.

By choosing a closer and lower camera position on the northwest side of the lighthouse, as well as blending separate exposures for the lantern and landscape, I was able to keep the bulb out of the frame and therefore control the exposure better than on my first visit. The Milky Way core is in the background, and dictated the overall exposure. In hindsight, I should have used ISO 100 for the lantern exposure to preserve maximum dynamic range.

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Figure 2, June 2017. Nikon D750 with a Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens at 20mm. Two exposures of 1/3 and 20 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 1600.

Finally, in both July 2018 and this past May when I went to Marshall Point, lightning was flashing out at sea. The lightning enhanced the images from those nights, and made for a memorable experience.

I used a longer overall exposure and lower ISO to preserve dynamic range and also to allow more time to increase the chances of catching a lightning strike. As it turned out, I captured three of them! I used Lightroom’s Merge to HDR feature to combine the images. The wider angle of view of the 15mm lens allowed me to include the reflection of the lantern in a puddle in the foreground.

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Take 3, July 2018. Nikon D750 with a Tamron 15-30 f/2.8 lens at 15mm. Three blended exposures of 8 seconds, 20 seconds and 110 seconds, f/4, ISO 400.

Zion National Park

by Tim Cooper

Zion National Park just may be my favorite park to photograph. Not because it’s more spectacular than any other park, but because it’s simply so rich with photo possibilities. It seems everywhere you look, there is some version of beauty to capture. Day or night, cloudy or sunny, spring or fall, you can always find a photograph here.

My first visit to Zion was in 1994, and since then I’ve led workshops there almost every year. Frequenting the park has given me the opportunity to revisit locations that I love.

I’d had this particular image in my mind for some time but had never been able to pull it off, for one reason or another. Finally during a workshop in 2011 the conditions and timing were just right—or so I thought. A nearly full moon provided the foreground illumination I wanted, and the semi-clear skies allowed for a chance at good star trails. I located the North Star and framed it with the tree and the distant mountain.

Full-moon nights are tricky conditions for capturing star trails. The brightness helps illuminate the foreground, but makes using long exposures difficult. In this example I had to stop down to f/5.6 to achieve a 12-minute shutter speed. While I liked the shot, I never really loved it. The foreground illumination is uneven, the star trails are a bit short (12 minutes isn’t really long enough when pointing north), and I somehow ended up with a gap in the trails.

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Take 1, November 2011. Nikon D700 with a Nikon 24mm f/2.8 lens. 12 minutes, f/5.6, ISO 200.

Fortunately, I was able to visit again the following year. Same place, similar moon phase. But this time I started a little earlier in the evening, which allowed the moonlight to provide more even illumination throughout the foreground. Conditions dictated an aperture of f/8 and a shutter speed of 5 minutes. That was clearly not long enough for star trails, so I needed to shoot multiple frames to stack in post-production. After setting up my composition, I calculated that to get an hour and a half of exposure time, I would need to shoot 18 5-minute exposures. I set my ShutterBoss II intervalometer and sat back to enjoy the night.

My reshoot solved all the problems, and I had an image I was happy with.

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Take 2, March 2012. Nikon D700, Nikon 35mm f/2 lens. 18 5-minute exposures at f.8, ISO 200.

Newfound Gap, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

by Matt Hill

Visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park two years in a row was a real treat. One of my favorite views includes a portal to see the road you drive to get up to Newfound Gap. So, car trails plus star trails!

On my first visit, I had a crazy mix of clouds, thunderstorms and Milky Way. Plus, the namesake smokiness the mountains exude was drifting over the peak into the scene. (I wrote about this photo last year—see “How I Got the Shot: Car and Star Trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.”) It was simply magical. But so much about executing the image involved compensating for obstacles to my vision. Which is fine—that’s part of photography—heck, it’s part of art (and life) in general. But I knew there was more potential in that place and in that idea.

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Take 1, May 2018. Nikon D850 with a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. 960 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 400.

This year, I was running a workshop in Great Smoky Mountains with Lance. We took the group (and Chris, who was visiting from nearby!) up to Newfound Gap, and all the obstacles from the year before were absent. The weather was entirely different. Clear. Crisply cold. Expectant. Awaiting the coming moonrise. So I set up to shoot it again. The result was a pastel mix of yellows and greens from the horizon to the star field, and then clear-as-a-bell star trails.

I was smitten. Both photos earned a place for months as the lock screen on my phone. And if I had to choose, I couldn’t say which was superior. I love them both. You?

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Take 2, May 2019. Nikon Z6 and a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8. 871 Seconds, f/4, ISO 200.

We all reshoot, right?

When have you revisited a location to improve upon an idea? We’d love to see your images and hear your stories!

Please share in the Comments section below or on our Facebook page.

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 30 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

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UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT