Trying to take a perfectly balanced photo during the blue hour also presents challenges. These three tips will help you capture more successful images for your portfolio.
For most photographers, blue hour is defined as the period from dusk to dawn or dusk. While this is literally true, I will refer to the blue hour as the period of time during which you can clearly see the stars while still having enough ambient light in your scene. Photographing during these times comes with specific challenges that you may not realize until you try to capture your first scene.
Find a place
Finding your position is paramount for all types of landscape photography, but it’s even more important when you’re photographing a location with very little light available to you. This obviously applies more to blue hour photography at sunrise than at sunset as you can plan where you are and set up before blue hour begins. However, sometimes we don’t have that luxury and capturing the perfect blue hour shot time is crucial.
If you’ve ever taken astrophotography at night, you know how difficult it can be to compose in the dark. I wrote a Full article on how to maximize your time searching for location But the three main tips are:
- Make a note before going based on the photos you have seen from the same location
- Keep your footage simple, you may not have enough time to find a completely unique composition
- After your first visit, stay tuned and find more works for when you return
One thing you’ll see when you first arrive at a place you’ve seen online is that it can look completely different from what you expect based on social media. I have been to a lot of places that are new to me but have watched countless times only to find out that it is nothing like I imagined.
Using Mobius Arch as an example, you’d never guess to take a picture of you standing on a large rock right next to it trying not to slip out and carry your camera. Those are limitations that should be known before you arrive instead of trying to figure them out when time is of the essence.
Balanced exposure
Timing is extremely important when trying to execute this type of shot. The time period to capture the image we want is an extremely small window (this is for North America, these intervals can be stretched slightly at the poles). The goal is to capture enough light on the scene and the stars in the sky as one exposure. In my experience, this moment only lasts about 5 minutes.
Take these two example images. The only difference between these photos is that the one on the left was taken at f/4 and the one on the right was taken at f/8. I adjusted the photo on the right by +.25EV so their exposures were identical. together. Pay attention to the light balance in the photo and how many stars you can still see. These images were taken only 6 minutes apart. The sweet spot allows you to capture enough light on your scene and still have enough to work with in your editing to show the stars. Ideally, you also want to capture your scene with a healthy balance between low aperture and low ISO for the highest quality image you can use.
You might be wondering why you can’t lock your composition and take a photo while the stars are more present and wait for more light to take a second photo and stitch them together in Photoshop. This is an option, but many of you may not feel comfortable with those techniques, and it’s easier to keep it all in one exposure no matter how good you are at editing. More importantly, doing this wouldn’t be possible with the layout I ended up with. To capture the entire archway, I had to take 3 photos at 16mm and stitch them together into a panorama. This is clearly not possible if I try to capture the panorama at two different times and blend them together in Photoshop.
Sun problems
The last tip may be the most important, but it is important to understand the aforementioned tips. The darkest part of the sky after sunset or before sunrise is 180 degrees from the sun. This means that many times your compositions may only work for sunrise or sunset, not both. So it is extremely important to know where the sun will rise and set based on your composition.
If you’ve ever tried to capture a beautiful sunset that happens behind a mountain range, you’ve probably experienced this. A situation where you are exposing details in the mountains but the sky is completely devoid of detail because it is too bright to capture in an image. What may not be so obvious is what happens long after the sun has completely set. The night sky where the sun goes down will still be too bright to ever capture any stars while there is still light on your scene. Next time you’re out taking pictures and the sun goes down, first notice the darkest areas of the sky and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.
On top of that, the most pleasing light on your scene during the blue hour will also happen to be facing where the sun goes down. Even though the sun has not reached the horizon, you can still consider the area where it is rising/setting as your light source. Sometimes you’ll get a nice soft light and other times you might get more shadows in your scene. This is the magic of the blue hour. The tonal range you get during this time is entirely based on the atmosphere the sun is reflecting off of.
This image would not have been possible without the techniques in this article. Trying to time an ultra-wide-angle panorama like this would be a huge headache if not possible. By planning my shot, determining the exact times when I can capture the stars and details in my scene, and knowing where the sun will be, I can capture just about anything I need. in one exposure. If you’re interested in how I made this edit, be sure to watch the video at the top of the article. Hope this helps and you’ve found something to work with the next time you’re trying to capture your own starry blue nightscape.
