Photographing your town at night

Now is a good time to shoot some urban nightscapes. By the time summer arrives, twilight doesn't occur until much later and that might suit you less well. Obviously it depends on your own circumstances.
Gear needs
Your DSLR and normal lenses are fine for this sort of work but long exposures are the norm so a good, stable tripod is recommended, that together with a lockable remote release. A non-lockable release is fine if you just want to use the camera's slow shutter speeds – most DSLRs extend to 30secs – but with the B (bulb) setting, which lets you keep the shutter open for long as you like, a lockable release is essential.

Important non-photographic essentials include suitable clothing, protective kit for the camera, a watch for timing B exposures and a torch – a wind-up head torch is a good idea. It is also taking someone with you, for safety and for companionship during your time when you are hanging around waiting for the exposures to finish.
Techniques to try
Auto white-balance is fine but do feel free to try the preset, perhaps incandescent or fluorescent. AWB is fine and colour casts can add to the image anyway.

In low light the temptation is to whizz up the ISO scale and shot at ISO1600 and higher. The best thing, though, is to stick to ISO100 or 200 and go for high quality and long shutter speeds. By the way, windy days, bridges that gently move, traffic vibration, poor technique, wobbly tripods, can all result in blurred images so watch out for that.

Office blocks and lit buildings are obvious subjects – and it is raining, even better, especially, if your chosen location has cobbled streets.

Stop down to small apertures and highlights come as pinpoints of light and that can effective. Including streetlamps can result in flare – if they are in shot, there is nothing you can do about it so just go with the fact. In fact, on rainy evenings with water droplets landing on the lens you can get some graphic flare effects.

Light trails of moving traffic is a popular subject and it is easy to do. just find your scene, open the shutter and the moving traffic with its head and rear lights on will record as colourful lines. Popular places to try this technique is on bridges over main roads, roundabouts and busy junctions. Obviously, take great care with traffic and where you place the tripod.
We will have more on shooting traffic trails later in the month.

You've read the article, now go take some fantastic images. You can then upload the pictures, plus any advice and suggestions you have into the dedicated Photo Month forum for everyone at ePHOTOzine to enjoy.

Why not enter our Long Exposure photography competition too!