Did you ever take pictures in dark lighting and end up with terrible results?
Nighttime photography takes practice for the average enthusiast like you and me. That's why I like Las Vegas.
Las Vegas has to be one of the best places in the world for experimenting with night photography. Incredible lighting is everywhere. Look around you on the Strip and your eyes take in billions of dollars worth of lighted structures. Could anywhere possibly be better?
I must have taken hundreds of pictures. I deleted lots. That's the beauty of digital cameras. Delete away.
The way to improve your skills is to try to take pictures in a variety of light and motion situations. Las Vegas has plenty of scenes to photograph. At the same time, get to know your camera and what it can do. Each camera has a different balance of form and functionality and night shots are much more challenging with some cameras than others.
Digital camera makers differentiate their cameras by being point-and-shoot and easy to use, by being manually configurable, or by being somewhere in between. Fortunately, most digital cameras allow enough manual settings to get some great photos in dark lighting conditions. Many even have night modes that automatically adjust to common night lighting conditions.
During my last visit, I used my consumer grade Panasonic Lumix to try to get better at night time photography. I wandered around like a nomad in Las Vegas, snapping away at night scenes while adjusting the many settings until I got a few pictures looking alright. I learned that it comes down to a handful of things to adjust:
- Aperture settings, seconds the shutter is open, F-stop settings, steadiness of hand
The settings all make a difference. Finding the right balance sometimes takes several tries. In dark conditions the shutter is likely to be open more than a second. If the camera does not stay steady, the picture will be all blurry. The art of taking pictures in Las Vegas is trying to find places to prop the camera to keep it steady for night shots. I used the many trees along the strip to my advantage and held the camera in my hand with my hand rested on the tree. Then I could have the shutter open for a few seconds without getting blurry pictures. With the shutter open, the lights glow in new ways and the photos reveal many multicolored glows from the many light sources.
With photo editing software like Photoshop or the free open source software Gimp, it's easy to crop the photo just right and adjust the color a little to compensate for the digital camera or to try to add some uniqueness to the picture.
Think back 10 years ago. It was impossible then for the average traveler to take lots of nighttime pictures in Las Vegas without spending a fortune on film and equipment. Even the today's cheaper $100 digital cameras have the potential for taking great nighttime pictures in places like Las Vegas.
What a time to be a traveling digital nomad today.
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