Cool Things to Photograph at Night
You’ll find all kinds of things to photograph when the sun goes down, and each one requires a somewhat different technique. Here are some suggestions to get you started:
The moon
When shooting the moon, remember that it is a very bright object.The Sunny 16 Rule may work for you in this situation, but I’ve found that many cameras get confused by the dramatic variation in brightness with shots like this, so you may need to experiment a bit. If you can get enough magnification out of your lens so that the moon fills up at least half of the frame, you’ll need to shoot a fairly fast shutter speed or even set the EV value to underexpose the frame. And be sure to use a tripod.
Sunset
The sky is full of rich, gorgeous colors around sunset. Base your exposure on the sky itself, not your subject or anything on the ground. And take a few extra pictures, bracketing your exposure to make sure you get the shot.
Dusk
I have found that photographing lighted buildings and headlight trails works particularly well when you can get the rich blue colors of dusk in the sky at the same time.
