Apart from Brassai or Wegee, I don’t know any other photographers who have seriously devoted themselves to the night.

For me, it’s a subject I really enjoy. I’ve gone out countless times, under the stars, to take photos and capture this atmosphere that I love.

I even dedicated an ebook to it, which you can buy and « read » on this site.

Photographing at night is no longer complicated.

Since Wegee and Brassai, technological advances have greatly facilitated low-light photography: you no longer need to carry a tripod or a flash to take pictures in these conditions.

Sensor sensitivity has increased significantly, and image stabilization systems allow for decent handheld night photography.

This is what I often did when loading my cameras with Ifford Delta 3200 film or, in the past, using a digital camera.

How to take great night photos

Be prepared

Know the terrain – Is it lit at these times?

If you want to photograph an area at night and it’s not lit by the time you plan to go, taking pictures will be impossible without a tripod.

Find out as much as possible before heading out, and choose your location and time accordingly to avoid wasting your time.

Know your equipment – Have the right equipment

L’objectif

Everything works fine with a tripod.

However, if you want to shoot handheld, you’ll need a sufficiently fast lens (f/2.8 and below).

For example, if you use a 28mm focal length lens (35mm format), you will need to shoot at 1/28th of a second (which is rounded up to 1/30) to avoid motion blur.

*This rule is relevant for 35mm format sensors; it must be adapted according to the size of the sensor if different.

Stabilization

The minimum shutter speed required to avoid camera shake can be significantly reduced thanks to lens and/or sensor stabilization.

For example, with systems like these, using our 28mm lens mentioned earlier, we could achieve sharp images at 1/8th of a second.

The film

The choice of film is limited for handheld night photography. You’ll need at least ISO 400 film, which you can push to ISO 1600, along with a very fast lens.

Similarly, don’t expect too much in terms of image quality with 35mm film. Grain will always be visible, and the film’s dynamic range is limited.

The different cycles of the night

The early night hours are noisy

The noise and bustle of workers going home or weekend parties put me off. I prefer the quiet that’s conducive to observation.

But to create an ebook entitled « Night, from Sunset to Sunrise, » I obviously had to photograph this activity.

So I photographed human activity from a distance to be consistent with the contemplative style of the book.

The calm of the late hours

My favorite time of year, and the one that best suits the style of images I create, is when the streets are empty.

It’s this calm, this absence of human activity, that I want to capture in my images.

The practical advantages are also obvious: the late hours allow you to photograph places that are very busy during the day with an unobstructed view.

But everyone has their own style and preferred subjects.

The difficulty of photographing at night

The allure of the night for a photographer

From an aesthetic point of view, the night and its multitude of light sources are of great interest to the photographer.

Indeed, what may appear flat and boring under sunlight can become interesting under the artificial lighting of a streetlamp or a shop window.

Beautiful images are hard to achieve

In practice, it’s often difficult to get good images at night.

Night photography is often frustrating for beginners because what you see doesn’t always translate to film. This is especially true with film:

You sometimes misjudge exposure times and end up with a black image, or you lose the essence of what you wanted to capture due to excessive grain.

But among these (many) failures, striking images emerge that justify these nocturnal forays. An atmosphere or a vision that exists at no other time of the day.