The above image was taken with and Olympus E-30 DSLR - it's made up of a series of panorama images taken on a tripod and stitched together. The following step-by-steps should help you to be able to take similar images with any Olympus E-System DSLR (in past I've also used an E-500, E-510 and E-420).

Some people seem to think that good photos are the result of using a good camera - while this is partly true, the biggest part of the equation is the photographer. Although I use an Olympus camera, the principles that apply to nighttime photography are the same. If you use a Canon Rebel, Nikon D40 or any of the more advanced models, have a look at my general guide which is the same as this minus camera-specific notes.

Timing

When it comes to nighttime photography, for me the word "night" is often a bit of a misnomer. When I'm taking pictures at night, I often see photographers strolling up to a similar vantage point with tripods and cameras, just as I'm packing up and going home.

For me the best results will often be achieved in the twilight period - after the sun has gone down, but before the light has disappeared completely from the sky. That way you get the best of nicely lit buildings as well as color in the sky. You also get detail in the unlit part where sometimes there would otherwise be darkness. If you're lucky you might also get some spectacular red, orange or purple colour in the sky. Images taken at the right time tend to avoid a horrible orange/yellow cast resulting from tungsten lighting, particularly in any clouds as a result of light pollution, and large grainy patches from noise in unlit parts of a scene.

Of course if your aim is to record star trails, you'll probably want to start much later, find a location as far away from city lights as possible and stack several exposures for best results.

Camera Support

Using a tripod or other camera support is essential if you want to achieve a long exposure image that isn't blurry. If you don't have a tripod, good results can sometimes be achieved with a small beanbag resting on a suitable surface, or on on occasion when I went out unprepared I ended up using the camera resting on a wall. A tripod is much easier and worth the investment.

If you're buying one, make sure its sturdy enough so that it doesn't move through vibration when you're using it. Its also important to get a good quality head that is designed to properly support the weight you're putting on it. Cheap plastic tripods are almost invariably a waste of money and aren't sturdy enough for a DSLR. Wherever possible, have any Center column down to minimise vibration - for this reason its good to get a tripod that reaches eye level with the center column down. Fortunately if you have an Olympus DSLR with an articulating LCD or even one with out, using a smaller tripod isn't actually that much more of a strain, because you can comfortably see the LCD from a distance.

Mode

I use manual (M) exposure mode when taking shots at night. This is because I often end up taking panorama shots to be stitched together, particularly in a skyline type situation. You need to be aware that as the light level drops, you'll end up with underexposed images unless you decrease the shutter speed or increase the aperture accordingly. An alternative is to shoot in aperture priority (A) and dial in around +1 exposure compensation - but this won't work for panoramas.

I always shoot in RAW - at nighttime this is even more useful, given the difficulty involved with getting a decent white balance reading. Often you end up having to juggle light from different sources - ambient light as well as street an city lights with different color temperatures. In my view this is easiest in post-processing.

Shutter release

There's no point in using camera support if you then move the camera while pressing the shutter. Alternatives on an Olympus DSR include:

• remote shutter releases - either via cable or infa-red (necessary for BULB exposures)
• Timer delay - with a 2 or 12 second option
• Anti-shock. This is accessed by pressing the MENU button and is in the second menu down. This effectively locks up the mirror for a defined period prior to opening the shutter, thus eliminating any vibration from mirror-slap.

Seeing as I don't currently have a remote release, and don't really do any bulb exposures, I currently use the Anti-shock feature, set to 5 seconds.

Exposure

Exposure is determined by a combination of aperture, shutter speed and ISO sensitivity.

At night time I will generally over-expose an image to bring out the color in the sky, and ensure that there is detail in shadows. In order to achieve this and not end up with a whole lot of washed out orange street-lights, its important to take your images when there is sufficient ambient light in the sky. Too early and the buildings will be silhouettes, too late and the image will be a wash of orange tungsten light. Don't rely on your LCD preview to gauge how bright your image is. Because your ambient light is low, the LCD will look much brighter than it actually is. A properly exposed image will look too bright when viewing on the LCD at night.

• Aperture

  In most cases I'll be taking landscape type images at nighttime. Although I'd normally be using around f6.3 during the daytime to get enough depth of field, I often find at night this doesn't give me a long enough exposure to give nice smooth water or long light trails. The other effect I'm frequently also aiming for is that of nice star patterns in street lights. This can be achieved by stopping down to the point where diffraction sets in - or around about f9 on a 12MP sensor, around f11 on a lower MP sensor. If there are no light trails, no street lights that will produce stars, and no water, I'd stick to the same aperture as during the daytime.

• Shutter Speed

  If there is water in the scene, often one of my main aims is to get that to look the way I want. To make it completely smooth, a shutter speed of around 60 seconds or longer is required. The rougher the water, the longer the exposure. For most situations a shutter speed of 30 seconds is enough to get a fairly smooth look. If I'm concentrating on light trails, it often depends on how much traffic there is. With only a handful of cars, you'll probably need to get the shutter speed to a point where its open for the length of time it takes for one car to enter the scene and leave it - no more.

ISO Sensitivity

On most E-System cameras (except for E3 & E30) this is an easy choice. ISO 100 will produce the cleanest results. With the E3 & E30 dynamic range is optimised for highlights at ISO 200, though noise is still lower at ISO 100. With these cameras I still normally use ISO 100, simply because this gives the longest shutter speed and the smoothest water if there is any in a scene. Multi-exposure HDR images are also an option to consider to maximise dynamic range if its a problem.

Noise

Long exposures can introduce both regular noise (random noise), particularly in dark parts of the image and a second type of noise also known as "hot pixels" or "fixed noise". This is especially true when taking exposures of several seconds and in hot environments. The problem is more pronounced in earlier cameras with CCD sensors such as the E1, E300 and E500, but is significantly better with the NMOS cameras (E410 onward).

There are two types of noise reduction on an Olympus DSLR. Both are accessed by hitting MENU and are in the first camera menu.

1. Noise Reduction:

   The options here are ON or OFF (plus AUTO on models newer than the E3). For long exposure images I use "AUTO" on newer models, but recommend using "ON" if you use a camera with a kodak sensor - ie. E1, E500, E300 & E400. This feature takes a second exposure of equal length with the shutter closed and subtracts "hot pixels" from the first frame. NOT don't use this unless the exposure time exceeds the level where fixed noise ("hot pixels") becomes a problem - 3 seconds for the kodak cameras and 8 seconds for the NMOS cameras.

   Note: This feature doesn't work unless you have the camera in single-shot mode.

   The image on the right is a sample comparing the random noise with Noise Reduction on and off (see its not all pretty pictures is it!). It will open to a full size sample in a new window.

   An alternative approach that can be used is to keep the noise reduction setting on "OFF" and create your own dark frame reference image to be subtracted manually in post processing using the same exposure time as the initial image. This is especially useful if you want to make Panorama images at night, or if you're stacking multiple exposures.

   For probably the most thorough explanation of dark frame subtraction on an Olympus camera read:

   • Dark Noise and Hot Pixels in the Olympus E-510 by Andrzej Wrotniak
   • Dark Noise and Hot Pixels in the Olympus E-3 by Andrzej Wrotniak
   • Dark Noise and Hot Pixels in the Olympus E-30 by Andrzej Wrotniak

2. Noise filter:

   the options here are: OFF, LOW, STANDARD, HIGH. I currently set this to "OFF" because I want to capture the maximum level of detail, and handle noise reduction in post processing if needed. Although I shoot in RAW, its still handy to set in camera if you're using the Olympus software to convert images because this picks up the in camera settings as the default.

3. Sharpening:

   I have my sharpening settings set to the lowest possible. In general Olympus lenses if focused properly are sharp enough so that they don't need any additional artificial sharpening. Adding sharpening in the early stages of the workflow significantly increases noise levels - so turning off both noise filter and sharpening, you start off with a cleaner source image.

Exposure Stacking

This is a technique that can be handy for several reasons:

1. blending several "identical" images can eliminate random noise in an image without loss of detail
2. In situations where you want to record star trails it may be beneficial to reduce the level of light pollution from artificial light
3. For particularly long exposures, taking several shorter images with a single dark frame will reduce the total time it takes to record an image.
4. In situations where the dynamic range is greater than that able to be recorded, exposures can be bracketed and merged

Chimping

Chimping (ie. checking the camera LCD after every shot) is quite useful, especially seeing as it lets you get an idea of how light trails or water looks in the final image. You do however need to be aware that the image looks brighter in the LCD at night - unless the image looks too bright at night, its probably underexposed which will lead to excessive noise if brightened in post-processing.

Water...

looks fantastic at night with reflections. Depending on the exposure, you can make rough water look foggy, or as smooth as a mirror.

People

You can make people who are walking through a photo disappear. This is particularly true of those who are wearing dark colours and don't stop. Others may take on the appearance of ghosts.

Charge your batteries

Long exposures drain your camera batteries far quicker than short ones, so if you don't charge the battery, you'll seriously limit the number of shots you take. This is particularly important when using live view in addition to long exposures on an E4x0 series camera.

Experiment

With light trails, bursts of flash and images where there are no lights at all. A long enough exposure can turn a desert by night into a bright scene with lots of star trails.

1. Panoramas

   While you've got the tripod out, its a perfect time to make a panorama image. Just make sure the camera is on "M" for manual, and that images overlap by about 25%.