Night photography

The very long exposure times of early photographic processes didn't mean people didn't try to take photographs at night from quite early on. The development of mechanical clock drives meant cameras attached to telescopes could eventually capture successful images of celestial objects.

The first-known attempt at astronomical photography was by Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre, inventor of the daguerreotype process which bears his name, who attempted in 1839 to photograph the Moon. Tracking errors in guiding the telescope during the long exposure meant the photograph came out as an indistinct fuzzy spot.

John William Draper, New York University Professor of Chemistry, physician and scientific experimenter managed to make the first successful photograph of the moon a year later on March 23, 1840, taking a 20-minute-long daguerreotype image using a 5-inch (13 cm) reflecting telescope.

The increasing use of street lighting throughout the second half of the 19th century meant it was possible to capture nighttime scenes despite the long exposure times of the equipment of the period.

Developments in illumination, especially through the use of electricity, coincided with the shortening of exposure times. By the beginning of the 20th century newspapers and journals often showed night time views usually of illuminated urban streets or places of amusement such as Coney Island.

In the early 1900s, a few notable photographers, Alfred Stieglitz and William Fraser, began working at night. The first known female night photographer is Jessie Tarbox Beals. The first photographers known to have produced large bodies of work at night were Brassai and Bill Brandt. In 1932, Brassai published Paris de Nuit, a book of black-and-white photographs of the streets of Paris at night. During World War II, British photographer Brandt took advantage of the black-out conditions to photograph the streets of London by moonlight.

Photography at night found several new practitioners in the 1970s, beginning with the black and white photographs that Richard Misrach made of desert flora (1975–77). Joel Meyerowitz made luminous large format color studies of Cape Cod at nightfall which were published in his influential book, Cape Light (1979). Jan Staller’s twilight color photographs (1977–84) of abandoned and derelict parts of New York City captured uncanny visions of the urban landscape lit by the glare of sodium vapor street lights.

By the 1990s, British-born photographer Michael Kenna had established himself as the most commercially successful night photographer. His black-and-white landscapes were most often set between dusk and dawn in locations that included San Francisco, Japan, France, and England. Some of his most memorable projects depict the Ford Motor Company's Rouge River plant, the Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station in the East Midlands in England, and many of the Nazi concentration camps scattered across Germany, France, Belgium, Poland and Austria.

During the beginning of the 21st century, the popularity of digital cameras made it much easier for beginning photographers to understand the complexities of photographing at night. Today, there are hundreds of websites dedicated to night photography.

Common subjects photographed at night or in low light include the following:

• Celestial bodies – the Moon, stars, planets, etc. (see astrophotography and star trail)
• City skylines
• Factories and industrial areas, particularly those that are brightly lit and are emitting smoke, steam, or another aerosol
• Fireworks
• Nightlife or rock concerts
• Lit caves
• Roads with or without cars
• Abandoned buildings or other artificial structures that are only moonlit
• Bodies of water that are reflecting moonlight or city lights – lakes, rivers, canals, etc.
• Lightning during thunderstorms
• Aurora (northern or southern lights)
• Lava
• Amusement rides
• Lit aircraft
• Bioluminescence

A long exposure time causes the lights on moving cars to streak across this image.

The following techniques and equipment are generally used in night photography.

• A tripod is usually necessary due to the long exposure times. Alternatively, the camera may be placed on a steady, flat object e.g. a table or chair, low wall, window sill, etc.
• A shutter release cable or self timer is almost always used to prevent camera shake when the shutter is released.
• Manual focus, since autofocus systems usually operate poorly in low light conditions. Newer digital cameras incorporate a Live View mode which often allows very accurate manual focusing.
• A stopwatch or remote timer, to time very long exposures where the camera's bulb setting is used.
• A camera lens with a wide aperture, preferably one with aspherical elements that can minimize coma
• A smartphone with a night photography mode, such as Night Mode on Huawei phones, Night Sight on Google Pixel phones, Night Mode on Samsung Galaxy phones, Night Mode on iPhone 11 Pro and Nightscape on Oneplus phones

High ISO

A night shot of downtown San Francisco at ISO 3200 on a full-frame rangefinder camera

Advanced imaging sensors along with sophisticated software processing make low-light photography with High ISO possible without a tripod or long exposure. Digital SLRs have high end APS-C and full-frame digital SLR sensors which have a very large dynamic range and high sensitivity, making them capable of night photography. These large sensor cameras are able to collect more light than smaller sensors due to the size of the imaging area. Combined with large aperture lenses and other equipment and techniques, this allows for photography with high quality in very dark locations.

BSI-CMOS is another type of CMOS sensor that is gradually entering the compact camera segment which is superior to the traditional CCD sensors. Cameras with small sensors such as: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100, Nikon 1 J2 and Canon PowerShot G1X give good images up to ISO 400.[1]

Moonlight photography (capturing scenes on Earth illuminated by moonlight) greatly differs from lunar photography (capturing scenes on the Moon illuminated by direct sunlight). The Moon has an effective albedo of approximately 0.12, comparable to worn asphalt concrete. Since the Moon is essentially a dark body in direct sunlight, photographing its surface needs an exposure comparable to what a photographer would use for ordinary, mid-brightness surfaces (buildings, trees, faces, etc.) with an overcast sky.

The sunlight reflected from the full Moon onto Earth is about 1/250,000 of the brightness of direct sunlight in daytime. Since log₂(250,000) = 17.93..., full-moon photography requires 18 stops more exposure than sunlight photography, for which the sunny 16 rule is a commonly used guideline.[2]

• 
  Clun lake and castle by moonlight, 1920s
• 
  São Paulo, Brazil
• 
  Chay kenar Boulevard in Tabriz, Iran
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  An exposure blended night image of the Sydney Opera House
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  Amusement rides
• 
  Four image panorama of Washington Park, 30 second exposures each.
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  An exposure blended image consisting of 30, 2.5 and 10 second exposures
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  Early night photograph of the Luna Park, Coney Island, from the Detroit Publishing Co. collection, 1905.

This section includes significant night photographers who have published books dedicated to night photography, and some of their selected works.

• Brassai
  • Paris de Nuit, Arts et metiers graphiques, 1932.
• Harold Burdekin and John Morrison
  • London Night, Collins, 1934.
• Jeff Brouws
  • Inside the Live Reptile Tent, Chronicle Books, 2001. ISBN 0-8118-2824-7
• Alan Delaney
  • London After Dark, Phaidon Press, 1993. ISBN 0-7148-2870-X
• Neil Folberg
  • Celestial Nights, Aperture Foundation, 2001. ISBN 0-89381-945-X
• Karekin Goekjian
  • Light After Dark, Lucinne, Inc. ASIN B0006QOVCG
• Todd Hido
  • Outskirts, Nazraeli Press, 2002. ISBN 1-59005-028-2
• Peter Hujar
  • Night, Matthew Marks Gallery/Fraenkel Gallery, 2005. ISBN 1-880146-45-2
• Rolfe Horn
  • 28 Photographs, Nazraeli Press. ISBN 1-59005-122-X
• Lance Keimig
  • Night Photography, Finding Your Way In The Dark, Focal Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-240-81258-8
• Brian Kelly
  • Grand Rapids: Night After Night, Glass Eye, 2001. ISBN 0-9701293-0-0
• Michael Kenna
  • The Rouge, RAM Publications, 1995. ISBN 0-9630785-1-8
  • Night Work, Nazraeli Press, 2000. ISBN 3-923922-83-3
• William Lesch
  • Expansions, RAM Publications, 1992. ISBN 4-8457-0667-9
• O. Winston Link
  • The Last Steam Railroad in America, Harry Abrams, 1995. ISBN 0-8109-3575-9
• Tom Paiva
  • Industrial Night, The Image Room, 2002. ISBN 0-9716928-0-7
• Troy Paiva
  • Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration, Chronicle Books, 2008. ISBN 0-8118-6338-7
  • Lost America: The Abandoned Roadside West, MBI Publishing, 2003. ISBN 0-7603-1490-X
• Andrew Sanderson
  • Night Photography, Amphoto Books. ISBN 0-8174-5007-6
• Bill Schwab
  • Bill Schwab: Photographs, North Light Press, 1999. ISBN 0-9765193-0-5
  • Gathering Calm, North Light Press, 2005. ISBN 0-9765193-2-1
• Jan Staller
  • Frontier New York, Hudson Hills Press, 1988. ISBN 1-55595-009-4[4]
• Zabrina Tipton
  • At Night in San Francisco, San Francisco Guild of the Arts Press, 2006. ISBN 1-4243-1882-3
• Giovanna Tucker
  • "How to Night Photography", 2011. ISBN 978-1-4657-4423-4
• Nora Vrublevska and Dan Squires
  • "Cambridge at Night", 2013. ISBN 978-1-935489-27-6
• Volkmar Wentzel
  • Washington by Night, Fulcrum Publishing, 1998. ISBN 978-1-55591-410-3

• Available light
• Light painting

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Night photography.

• Comprehensive tutorials and articles about how to do night photography by The Nocturnes