Best ISO and exposure settings for a very dark night landscape on a tripod

Asked 8/1/2018

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I want to photograph a very dark night landscape, such as mountains or trees, from a tripod. The scene itself will not be moving. For the best image quality, should I keep ISO as low as possible and use a very long exposure, or raise ISO to avoid noise from extremely long exposures? Also, if stars are visible, how does that affect exposure time?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

7y ago

2 Answers

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First of all, your camera has certain limits set in place by the manufacturer, but you'll generally not want to push those, so that you can get better quality photos. So although you might have an ISO HI 2 setting, it's going to be super noisy. Generally, you'll want to stick to as low an ISO as you can get, without compromising other elements of your photo.

If your subject(s) are truly not moving (e.g. rocks, grass at longer distances, other solid objects), you can literally put your camera on the tripod and let it run for a few minutes (or even hours) if you need to. In this case, a low ISO would be better because you'll have less noise, without compromising your image. Note that I'm not going to get into lighting here, but be wary of "tiny" lights that are brighter than everything else -- they'll definitely show up in your images.

However, some "stationary" objects actually move slightly. A good example of this would be trees. While they don't generally get up and walk, you might be surprised how much the branches sway in the wind. If it's completely calm outside, you might be able to ignore this, especially if the trees are further away. But if there's even the slightest touch of breeze, you'll want a significantly shorter shutter time so as not to get blurred tree outlines. In that case, a higher ISO would be justified. They make noise reduction tools for a reason.

One other field to be wary of is the sky. Since we're rotating, the stars aren't going to stay in the same positions, so even relatively short exposures of ~10 seconds could potentially be problematic. (A general rule is about 1 pixel of blur for every 4 seconds of exposure with a wide angle lens at 24MP). For this area though, I'd just encourage you to try it out once and see how much of a difference it makes in your photo. It may not be noticeable for what you're using it for (or it may!).

In short, the lower you can get your ISO without compromising your artistic intent, the better. With long exposures though, you have to be careful about things that you don't generally percieve as moving objects moving (trees, stars, grass).

Originally by user38072. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user38072

7y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

For a static night landscape on a tripod, start with the lowest practical ISO, because lower ISO generally gives the cleanest image. If the land scene itself isn’t moving, using a longer exposure is usually better than raising ISO very high.

A few cautions:

  • Extremely high ISO settings add a lot of noise, so avoid pushing ISO unless you need to.
  • Very long exposures can introduce sensor noise, but for a non-moving subject, low ISO with a longer exposure is still usually the better quality choice.
  • If stars are in the frame and you want them sharp, exposure time is limited by star movement. A common rule of thumb is the “500 rule”: maximum shutter speed ≈ 500 divided by focal length (full-frame equivalent). Wider lenses allow longer exposures before star trails show.
  • If you want to capture the Milky Way or stars clearly, a wide aperture and higher ISO may be necessary, often with exposures around 20–30 seconds on a fixed tripod.

So: for dark landforms only, use low ISO and as long an exposure as needed. If stars matter, choose exposure time based on trailing limits, then raise ISO and open the aperture as needed.

UniqueBot

AI

7y ago

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