Night Portrait

This can be either a portrait at night or in a very low-lit room, or a picture of a person or people outdoors with a fantastic night landscape scene as their background. Imagine you’re on vacation with friends or family and, while walking around after a great dinner, you decide to photograph them standing in front of a beautifully lit fountain at night.

The trouble with a night portrait is lighting the foreground and background. Many digital cameras have a night portrait mode that will help by holding the shutter open long enough to properly expose the background while using the flash to expose the foreground.

Set the ISO to the lowest setting possible, such as 50 or 100 depending on the camera, if the foreground is very dark. Set the ISO to the highest or second highest setting if the foreground is somewhat lit. This may seem backwards to some of you, but the reason is simple. If the background is dark, a higher ISO will only increase image noise without substantially brightening the picture. You’re better off using a longer shutter speed.

If you’re using a camera that does not have a night portrait mode, but you do have the option of controlling the aperture and shutter, set the aperture to a small f-number such as f4.5.

Set the shutter speed according to the cameras light meter. Meaning, try a setting of 5 seconds; press the shutter release button halfway to see if the camera’s light meter suggests the picture will be over or under-exposed. Adjust the shutter speed as necessary. This is a trial-and-error procedure that can take some time, but it’s the only way when using the manual mode.

Now that the shutter and aperture are properly set, turn the flash on. Use the flash to light the people in the foreground.

Finally, because we’re using a long shutter speed, set the camera’s timer to trigger the shutter in order to avoid camera-shake. If you like, you’re welcome to join your friends in front of the fountain.

Important note: the camera may have a very difficult time focusing at night. Digital cameras require a lot of light and contrast to find a focus point. Hopefully your camera has a manual focus option. Some cameras allow you to set a predefined distance for the camera to focus. Set the manual focus to 5 feet (1.5 meters), or however far away the subject is, before capturing the picture. Remember, you’re using the flash and it won’t reach anything farther than 10 feet (3 meters) away. The people you’re photographing must be closer than that.

Try using these settings when in a bar or club. Set the manual focus to 5 feet (1.5 meters) and position yourself about that distance from your subject. Hold the camera steady, or not, and press the shutter button. This results in a fantastic action picture. The background is visible, but most likely blurry, while the subject is glowing with some fun light trails all around.

In this case, the flash is used to freeze the action and the long shutter is used to enhance the ambiance. Try this with different white balance settings for different colorcast effects.