7 Ways To Avoid Common Shutter Speed Mistakes
If you’re new to photography or just getting started with night photography, one of the most important things you need to know is how to avoid common shutter speed mistakes. Here are seven tips to help you to be a master of night photography and to prevent common shutter speed mistakes:
7 Ways To Avoid Common Shutter Speed Mistakes
Before using the camera for capturing pictures, ensure you have done the following things to your camera. Here are the tips you can follow-
1. Use A Tripod
Not using a tripod while capturing photos is one of the most common shutter speed mistakes. This is especially true for night photography when dealing with long exposures. On the other hand, a tripod will give your camera a firm position and makes an image sharp.
2. Adjust Your Shutter Speed
Another common mistake is that you may not arrange the camera’s shutter speed after calculating the lens’ focal length. The shutter speed should be set to the reciprocal of the lens’ focal length. If it is not done, then it will lead the camera to shake and blur.
3. Employ A Remote Shutter Release
Another way to avoid camera shake and blur is using a remote shutter release. This way, you don’t have to touch the camera to take the picture, which can cause vibration.
4. Use A Low ISO
Using a high ISO can lead to noise in your photos. For night photography, it’s best to use a low ISO to avoid this.
5. Use A Wide Aperture
A wide aperture will help you capture more light, which is essential for night photography. If a wide aperture is not set to the lens, it will not gather light, and your picture will not look decent.
6. Use A Slow Shutter Speed
Select a slow shutter speed to ensure sufficient light and detail in your images. However, you need to be careful that you don’t use too slow of a shutter speed, as this can lead to blur.
7. Use Image Stabilization
If your camera has image stabilization, make sure to turn it on. It will lessen camera shaking and blurring issues and make your picture decent.
Other Mistakes You Should Avoid in Night Photography
You already know what to do to get a nice image. But there are also other mistakes to avoid, which are essential for night photography. Get to know a few shutter speed mistakes and how you can avoid them:
1. Using Too Slow Shutter Speed
Again, too much slower shutter speed is not good for taking snaps of starry nights. It will bring shaking issues to your camera, resulting in blur seen in images. Moreover, the same blurry matter happens if the subject moves. How fast your shutter speed is depends on a few factors, including the focal length of your lens and how steady your tripod is.
But as a general rule of thumb, your shutter speed should be matched to 1/f, where f represents the focal length of your lens. So, for example, you should set the shutter speed to 1/50 of a second if the lens is 50 mm.
2. Not Using A Wide Aperture
You should confirm that you are using a wide aperture for night photography because a wide aperture brings sufficient light to the camera, which impacts the quality of a picture.
The same aperture you’ll need will depend on the light available and the shutter speed you’re using, but as a general rule, you should try to keep your aperture no lower than f/2.8.
3. Not Using A Long Exposure
To capture the beauty of the night sky, you’ll need to use a long exposure. Unfortunately, this means using a slow shutter speed, which can introduce a camera shake and blur your subject if it’s moving. The best way to avoid these problems is to use a tripod and a remote shutter release.
4. Not Using Image Stabilization
Many cameras have an image stabilization facility in them. The work of this feature is to lessen the shaking problem while capturing photos. Do not forget to use this if it has on your device.
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