Metering for Night Photography




We’ve done several videos on metering now and I will link to those for further information below. Today we’re talking about some techniques for metering night scenes. Shooting at night is one of the things I’ve found that camera metering systems have the most difficulty with. The dynamic range is often beyond the capabilities of digital sensors and film both so it does present a very challenging situation. You’re eye is typically your best tool and you need to pay very careful attention to what kind of exposure you’re trying to get. We’ll cover a few techniques in this video and look at some examples.

Previous shows on metering:

Episode 6 :: Exposure

Episode 16 :: Metering Without a Light Meter

Episode 25 :: Dynamic Range

Episode 60 :: Zone System

Episode 61 :: Zone System Approach to HDR Techniques


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23 responses to “Metering for Night Photography”

  1. Thanks again. Yup, night photography is a whole different world. I second using 'auto' to give you a ballpark, then move to manual for full control. Also, I bring a BIG flash unit to light up the foreground, sides of buildings, etc. Tripod or a beanbag, cable release, small flashlight… It IS more involved, but it's also very rewarding when it works and you GET the shot that matters.

  2. Hi Ted! I went out shooting at night, when was full moon with my Nikon F100 on a tripod. Somehow it’s difficult to meter for the moon itself. It came out blurry and disperse but otherwise the shoot was good. Should I maybe underexpose/bracket to -1.3 or 1.7? Thanks!

  3. I would say that your vids are just as good as one can't say in a 10-12 minutes frame. Photography is a huge topic and we always are looking for more details. Many people simply don't get the concepts in a way of art and some of us take it in a subtle way and the minutes or hours we spent here meant how much we appreciate. Thanks again for your effort.

  4. As always very interesting, thanks for your thoughts. I really love your clear and decent kind to explain things. Something completely different, at 3:12, the cat 🐈 is in the camera 😂😉… Pets… unpredictable… 🙈

  5. What I love most about a Ted Video is that it has some authenticity for the art of photography, while we hobbyist are mining specific photo instructions for technical perfection. However, Ted gives me, and obviously, many others, but not ALL, the soul of photography. He never says what is the best way to do anything. He shares his own process, and how he feels before and after.

    Ted presents this stuff, so it doesn't feel as though he's selling us on any belief system or dogma (or products).

    Thanks Ted for just being Ted, cuz I may not follow what you say, but I trust you enough that you'd not ever let me get into too much trouble. For instance I didn't use the suggested Rodinal, It was too hard or too expensive to get to my doorstep. But I did some research and am now happily trying some HC-110. The Kodak stuff seems to kinda follow the principal for chemicals that you laboriously put in my head.

    Gonna try 1+79 for a stand solution.

    Thanks again for sharing your philosophy, and to those who criticize rudely: There is only two types of anything, those who catch on slow and those who don't

  6. Hi,

    Thank you for your videos! I'm getting back into film these days. I started 20+ years ago with Nikon FM-10, then DSLRs with Nikon d7000, recently Sony a6000… but getting back with the Flexaret VII from cupog, as suggested by you.

    For night photography on film, I've heard of the Schwarzchild Effect, where you have to expose film longer than what you meter for because of a "reciprocity effect". Would you be able to point to a good database to get all the "cheat sheets" for different types of film?

    Thanks again! 🙂

  7. Nice topic but you lost me 7 minutes and 10 seconds into the video. 7 minutes and 10 seconds into the video, yet nothing had been said about what adjustment to make. Too much talk spent on what the topic is without giving us the details of what to do. I wonder how 160,000 plus viewers sat through 12 minutes. I lost interest after listening for 7 minutes.

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