Professional cameras normally work great for your evening parties, night walks or other types of nighttime photography. But phone cameras don’t always provide the quality you would like them too. Turning on the flash isn’t the only thing that can make your photos more visible and high quality. That’s why we are here to explain what makes good night photography, and how to achieve it with your iPhone.
The first thing you will want to learn, before using the flash at all, is that flashlight can make nighttime photos way too bright sometimes. Therefore, you should choose wisely when to use it. In most cases, using the night mode of your iPhone is the better choice. It usually activated automatically, but it is important to know that this mode uses higher ISO and lower shutter speed, to allow more light into your lens. So, if you want a good quality photo, you need to keep your iPhone as still as possible, avoiding any movement. Here is where a tripod comes in handy, as it holds your camera nice and steady until the photo is taken. The difference is very clear.
Another thing to take in account is that blowing up the brightness of your camera before taking the shot is the worst thing you can do. It destroys the quality and sharpness and is impossible to edit after. A lower brightness may look too dark while shooting but is gold when editing afterwards. There is when you can adjust all the lightning settings, and as the photo maintained a good quality, it will look much better.
Finally, we come to the flash. It might seem very practical to just use it every time, but there is one important thing to know about it. The flash works best when subjects are not too close, but also not too far from your iPhone. If they are too close, they will appear way too white and bright, which makes the photo look terrible. But if they are too far away, the flashlight won’t reach them. A good distance would be anything between two and four meters, as the light will hit your object perfectly.
For an even cooler effect on your night photos, find natural lighting, instead of using the flash. Anything from candles to streetlights or billboards can be useful and will make your nighttime photography have an interesting touch, also because these lights aren’t always white. A neon lightning billboard can be a huge change and is also fun to edit afterwards. Another thing that works great is not shooting in the middle of the night, but around sunrise or sunset, where its dark, but still some purple/orange light helping you illuminate your shot. A full moon can also do the job.
We hope these tips were helpful and start making you more independent from your flash and the automatic features of your iPhone. Photography is about creativity and creating means to go out there and find new ways every day to make the best out of it, so take your iPhone, go outside, and have fun shooting some photos!
