Six Tips for Taking Better Camera Phone Photos at Night

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I’m fairly certain that the thought of shooting photos at night is rarely given consideration by the average photographer, who rightfully expects a bad exposure. I am supremely confident, however, that the idea of shooting at night with a camera phone is laughable, causing the photographer many years of humiliation and painful, underexposed memories.

In an attempt to test this theory of laughability, I took a series of photos in a dark parking lot illuminated only by a pair of floodlights and a nearby streetlight. While many of the photos turned out awful, some of them were surprising, given the poor lighting conditions.

Here’s six tips I picked out from my nighttime experience that you might find useful. The last two are editing tips, but I think they’re valid points.

Tip 1: LED flashes are useless.

Personally, I’m partial to photography using natural light, but that’s probably because I don’t know how to effectively use a flash. However, calling a tiny LED light next to the camera lens a “flash” is ridiculous and bit of an overstatement. You would probably have better results using a flashlight. A little trial and error will give you an idea of what dark conditions work best for your phone.

Tip 2: Don’t move.

This is a no-brainer, but seriously, don’t move. Try to position the shot so you have something solid to brace yourself against, like a wall or a tree. Trying to freehand a night shot (or any low-light shot) is hard enough - doing it with a camera phone is nearly impossible.

Tip 3: Avoid extreme light/dark situations.

If your camera phone isn’t that great, chances are good that two extremes of light will confound it to no end. The shot becomes under or over exposed, depending on how the camera feels at that moment. Instead, try to go with a middle ground to achieve decent results. (Note: In my experience, this problem is not nearly as bad in the daytime.)

Tip 4: Even in darkness, there are shadows.

Work with as much as the night is willing to give you. In many cases, there will be a light source somewhere, which means that shadows will probably be present. Use them to your advantage. Shadows add mystique any photo, but night shadows are even more mysterious.

Tip 5: Don’t auto correct in Photoshop.

Once you get the photos into your favorite editing software (Photoshop in my case), don’t reach for the “Auto Levels” adjustment. If you do, Photoshop will compensate way too much, thinking the photo is underexposed. Instead, take it into manual and try various level adjustments yourself until you find a happy medium. You took the photo at night for a reason, so don’t let Photoshop try to make it daytime.

Tip 6: Desaturate.

Since most of the color will be lost with a night shot, you might find it easier to manipulate the photo after desaturating it or changing the color mode to grayscale. Doing this turns the editing job into a simpler brightness/contrast edit and eliminates any poorly resolved color in the photo. We are talking about a camera phone, so simplifying the editing process makes for a better final product.

I’m speaking from a 2 mega-pixel camera perspective, so if you’ve got a better camera phone, try some night photos and let me know how they turn out. Now get out there and shoot!

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