nighttime

How to Photograph the Moon (Part 1)

Ever since I’ve owned a camera I’ve wanted to take photos of the night sky. When I first got a DSLR camera 5 or so years ago I thought getting decent shots wasn’t very likely with the inexpensive gear I had and it was something best left to the pros. It was only after I became comfortable with the manual mode on my camera that I realized that shooting at night was completely doable.

Dark Sky Finder Helps Nighttime Photographers Find the Least Light Polluted Spots

For those of you who partake in any sort of nighttime photography, it’s no secret that light pollution can be the bane of your existence. Thankfully, there’s a neat, simple online resource that can help you better prepare to avoid this enemy of great Milky Way photography.

It’s called Dark Sky Finder, and it’s an easy-to-use website that gives you an up-to-date, radar-style view of what light pollution across the United States looks like.

How to Create ‘Vortex Star Trails’ in Nightsky Astrophotography Time-Lapses

A common technique used in still astrophotography is the creation of startrails, a method by which a photographer overlays multiple long-exposure shots of the stars to create a weaving of constellations. But, as time-lapse photograph and astrophotography have merged in a fairly recent trend, a number of artists have been bringing the idea of startrails to motion-picture, creating what many refer to as ‘vortex startrails.’

‘Cities at Night’ as Captured by Astronauts Aboard the International Space Station

Since 2003 astronauts have been snapping up photographs of our beautiful planet from the International Space Station. All of these photographs have been archived together into a resource called The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. It’s through the utilization of this resource, as well as a database compiled by Spanish Astrophysicists that a little project called Cities at Night exists.

Camera & Sky Move as One in This Twisted Time-Lapse

It’s safe to say we’ve all seen our fair share of night-sky time-lapses. Most often, they tend to show off grandiose views of mother nature as the stars (seemingly) rotate in the background. But the truth of the matter is, we’re the ones rotating, not the stars.

So what would happen if a night-sky time-lapse photographer used the stars – or more precisely a star – as a fixed axis, instead of Earth? Well, you would end up with a trippy time-lapse like the one you see above.

BTS: Corey Rich on the Most Effective Way to Set Up & Shoot a Night Sky Time-Lapse

As part of Nikon’s continuing effort to promote its gear and ambassadors while teaching you something at the same time, the company has put together yet another inspirational and educational video we felt was worth sharing with you.

Featuring outdoor and editorial photographer Corey Rich, the above video walks you through the process of setting up and shooting a night sky time-lapse.

Tutorial Shows You How to Capture Quality Night Sky Time-Lapses

Five months after releasing his first tutorial video on shooting and processing time-lapse photography, Dustin Farrell is back at it again. This time he's gone more in depth, featuring some behind the scenes of his nighttime time-lapse workflow, from the gear he uses (and suggests) to the actual creation process of the video.

Striking ISS Photo Shows How Dark North Korea is Compared to Its Neighbors

A new photo released by NASA and taken from the International Space Station shows just how dark North Korea really is, and we don't mean figuratively. Taken on the night of January 30th as the ISS was passing over the Korean Peninsula, a nearly completely blacked-out North Korea jumps out at you, surrounded by its well-lit neighbors.

Long Exposure Photography of a Moving Car at Night Using a Carbon Boom

I have a passion for automotive photography at night, but for the most part I'm forced to shoot static images. Long exposures require a stable support for your camera and that's only achievable when everything's locked down -- including the car. Sure, light painting, traffic trails and even the occasional star trail all help to introduce dynamism to static automotive images but sometimes there's no substitute for shooting the car whilst its moving.

Nighttime Scenes Illuminated with the Soft Glow of LED Lights

Photographer Harold Ross is a practitioner of "light sculpting." Visiting various outdoor landscapes at night, he uses LED flashlights and other sources of light in order to selectively illuminate portions of his images. The resulting photos, which together form a project called "Night," show various locations in a style that looks more like an illustration or rendering than a photograph.

Long Exposure Photos of Rock Faces Lit by Flashlights, the Moon, and the Stars

Earlier this month, we featured a neat light painting experiment by photographer Matt Holland that involved long exposure photos of rock climbers wearing colorful lights. The climbs resulted in colorful light trails that tracked the course each climber took.

Over the past four years, photographer Neal Grundy has also been working at combining long exposures, light painting, and rock climbing. Unlike Holland, however, his work is more focused on illuminating the faces of large cliffs rather than creating squiggly trails of light.

Starry Street Photos of Chicago Captured Using an Off-Camera Flash

Japanese photographer Satoki Nagata moved to Chicago in 1992 to document the city and its people. His background is in neuroscience (he has a PhD in the field), but his passion is creating intimate documentary photography projects in his city.

During a recent winter, Nagata decided to try his hand at using a flash for street photography at night. Instead of mounting his flash to his camera, however, he decided to use it off camera. Combined with the light rain and falling snow, the flash turned many of his photographs into abstract and surreal images that almost look as though he overlaid photographs of stars.

Starry Nightscape Photos of Major Cities Around the World

German photographer Jakob Wagner is a master of nighttime cityscape photography. For his series titled Nightscapes, traveled to various countries all over the world, shooting gorgeous images of urban environments that are teeming with points of light from buildings and cars.

Black Marble: NASA Releases Incredibly Detailed Photos of Earth at Night

You've probably heard of The Blue Marble, an iconic photo of Earth captured in 1972 from 28,000 miles away by astronauts on the Apollo 17 spacecraft. Well, NASA has just released a number of photographs titled "Black Marble." They offer the same perspective as the iconic photo, except these new images show what our planet looks like at night!

Gorgeous “Rooftopping” Photography of Toronto in Time-Lapse Form

Toronto-based photographer Tom Ryaboi is one of the godfathers of "rooftopping", which involves climbing to the tops of skyscrapers, pointing a camera off an edge, and capturing cities from high perspectives that most people never experience. It's an activity that's not for the faint of heart; rooftoppers sometimes even dangle their feet off the edge of buildings.

Over the past year, Ryaboi has been working hard at combining rooftopping photography with his newfound passion of time-lapse photography. The result of his efforts was City Rising, the gorgeous time-lapse video seen above (be sure to watch it in HD).

A Nighttime Photograph of a Mountain Biker on an Arch

This idea came to me after I had shot this photo in the daytime. I had been seeing a lot of celestial-type shots on the Internet, but most were just landscapes with no action. My main focus is action sports, and I love a challenge. I figured I would give it a try.

Starry Night Photographs of Landscapes Covered in Lights

Korean photographer Lee Eunyeol creates beautiful nighttime scenes by installing lights in various landscapes. His artist statement reads,

Starry night expresses private spaces given by night and various emotions that are not able to be defined and described in the space. I’ve chosen analogue type for the expression which attempts to install electric bulbs in an objet to be expressed using back space of night by taking advantage of huge studio. There are two spaces in photographs. One is a space before electric bulbs of familiar landscape are installed and the other is a space after electric bulbs expressed by dispersing personal emotion are installed. Unified light from these two spaces generates a mysterious landscape.

In each of his photos, it almost looks as if the stars have fallen from the sky onto the ground.

Moonlight Photographs by a Nocturnal Photographer

Argentinian photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg started as a photojournalist before turning to documentary photography and developing his trademark style of shooting under moonlight and using strobes and long exposures to illuminate his subjects. His portrait subjects are asked to remain motionless for long periods of time as he photographs them using a large format film camera. He recently applied his style to a series on residents of Northern Kenya -- a location that's typically photographed under the harsh midday sun.

Nighttime Locations Illuminated Through Light Painting on an Epic Scale

German photographer Berthold Steinhilber has an awesome technique for lighting expansive locations at night: he tediously paints in the light manually with a powerful 1.8-pound headlamp powered by a 12-volt car battery. Depending on the scale of the location, his large format film exposures last anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours, with the aperture set between f/8 and f/16. The above photo took 1.5 hours at f/16.