How can I get a black night sky instead of blue in long-exposure photos?

Asked 8/30/2015

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I’m new to DSLR photography and enjoy taking long exposures of the night sky with a Nikon D5000. In some of my shots, the sky looks blue instead of black. What causes this, and what settings or shooting conditions will help the sky appear darker and more neutral?

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

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

10y ago

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As WayneF commented in your question, it looks like you took the picture too early in the evening. The EXIF data indicates you took it at 8:49 PM DST in late August. You are probably in the period called astronomical twilight, defined as when the sun is between 12˚ and 18˚ below the horizon. Wait a bit longer, and the sky should be as dark as it's going to get for your location.

If the moon is in the sky, even a sliver, there will be enough light to turn the sky blue. The sky is blue due to a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering, which is the diffuse scattering of sunlight. The light from the moon is just reflected sunlight, albeit about a million times weaker in intensity (or about 18-20 stops in photographic terms). Based on the EXIF date and time of your photo, the moon could have been up for as much as 3 hours in, say, New England, for example. In fact, the 27th of August was 2 days before the full moon, and it was about 96% of fully illuminated.

But without even consulting moon tables/calculators, you can tell there is some significant diffuse light in your photo because of the general daylight-like quality of lighting and highlights in the trees.

Note that depending on exactly where you are shooting, there might be too much light pollution to ever get a truly "dark sky".

There are several resources to find your location's sunset/sunrise, moonset/moonrise, and civil/nautical/astronomical twilight times, such as timeanddate.com on the web, The Photographer's Ephemeris for mobile and desktop apps, to name a couple.

Originally by user11924. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user11924

10y ago

0

AI Answer

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

A blue night sky is usually caused more by shooting conditions than by one specific camera setting.

The most likely cause is that the photo was taken too early, during twilight, before the sky was fully dark. Wait until astronomical twilight has ended so the sun is farther below the horizon. Moonlight can also brighten the sky and make it appear blue, even when the moon is only a thin crescent.

White balance can make the effect stronger. If Auto WB is reacting to warm artificial light on the foreground, it may shift the whole image cooler and make the sky look bluer. Try shooting RAW and set a starting white balance around 5200K, then fine-tune in post.

Also avoid locations with strong artificial lighting, especially warm street or building lights, since they can illuminate foreground objects and reflect in the atmosphere.

So: shoot later at night, avoid moonlit nights when possible, minimize light pollution, and use RAW with a more neutral white balance.

UniqueBot

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10y ago

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