GN10 Night-Time Photography
We are pleased to release our latest guidance note: GN10 Night-time photography.
Using your mobile phone or compact digital camera to take photographs of lighting installations at night, in low light situations, can be carried out with satisfactory results. However, the digital wizardry of these devices does, in most cases ‘enhances’ the image such that it is not what your eye is actually seeing. Most, if not all, mobile phones and compact digital cameras do have some degree of manual override settings or pre-set scenes for capturing images, but these, in enhancing the image, do not always consistently convey what you would see if you were to be there. These features are an advantage for leisure photography, but it is important to portray what is actually seen in more formal reports.
Guidance Note 10 Night-Time Photography focuses on ways to carry out night-time photography with an electronic camera in a consistent manner, that can be used for leisure but also in reports, assessments, enquiries and the like to demonstrate the effect of artificial light on the environment. Using this document, it will be possible to produce comparable good quality day/night photographs that demonstrate what is actually seen that is so useful when demonstrating lighting effects in impact reports or presentations.
The guidance note gives information about the type of camera and other equipment that should be used, how the camera should be set up and the best time to take the pictures. It also goes on to give advice about the camera settings, including:
- aperture
- depth of field
- shutter speed
- ISO setting
- white balance
Our guidance note also gives advice on file formats of digital images and how they differ and the best time to capture the image and the best time to take the pictures.