A guide to carp fishing night time photography

I was recently asked if I could write an article for this very website on the subject of nighttime photography. I’m guessing Ben (who runs our website) must have spotted some of my night shots and assumed I must be some sort of expert! Whilst I am extremely flattered to be asked, I’m actually very nervous about writing this article for fear of being outed by a ‘proper’ photographer, given that all of my experience has been learned at the Trial & Error school of photography. That being said, I’ll go through a few headlines I’ve jotted down, then Google a few things to make sure I’m not talking complete nonsense! Here goes…

Cameras

Modern, mirrorless digital cameras with their electronic viewfinders have made it much easier to take great photos at night, giving you a real-time preview of what your exposure will look like, even when shooting long exposures at night, which does eliminate some of the trial-and-error when it comes to this style of shooting. That doesn’t make them the be-all and end-all of night-time photography, though, as the same end results can still be achieved with any DSLR camera once you’ve experimented a little and have some idea of what you are trying to achieve.

Lenses

There is no perfect lens suited specifically to night-time photography; however, lenses with low aperture settings, or f-stops, as they are often described, will allow you to let more light into the camera’s sensor, allowing you to shoot at comparatively faster shutter speeds when required, but this ultimately comes down to what you are shooting and how much movement you wish to capture in your shots. I’ll get into that in a little more depth later in this article, but as a general rule, I would say that if you are looking to freeze any movement in your shots—be that people, stars, or in circumstances where slight amounts of wind might be affecting the subject (such as your bobbins or leaves on trees)—then lower apertures are best. For landscape shots where you want greater focus on the whole scene or you want to capture the motion to create a visual effect, such as water movement or star trails, then higher apertures are more suited to this.

Keep It Steady

One of the key things to remember when shooting at slower shutter speeds is to keep the camera steady when shooting to avoid adding in any unnecessary motion at your end. Depending on the hardware you are using, you may find that there are certain degrees of in-camera and/or in-lens stabilisation built-in, which will help with handheld shooting, allowing you to get certain shots more easily, but there is always more than one way to skin a cat (excuse the phrase). At night, a photographer’s best friend is very often their tripod. Locking your camera on a tripod eliminates (nearly) all possibility of camera shake adding unwanted movement to your shots, resulting in sharper shots. On top of this, using a tripod (or even safely resting your camera on something such as a bucket or the floor and propping the lens up on a lead pouch) will allow you to use either the in-built timer or a remote to take the shot, eliminating any movement that comes with the physical pressing of the shutter button. You may also want to feature yourself in the shot, in which case you will need a tripod. I prefer to take portrait shots in most instances (they look better on social media as they take up more on-screen real-estate when viewed on mobile devices), so you might also want to think about either getting a tripod that allows you to position the camera to shoot portraits or investing in a cage to fit your camera that allows you to fit your tripod quick-release plate to the side of your camera.

Settings

To get the best results when it comes to low-light photography, you are going to want to have full manual control of your camera’s settings. If you’ve always shot on auto or in any of the modes where the camera makes some of the decisions for you, this can seem quite daunting at first, but trust me, you’ll get used to it, and you’ll gain a better understanding of both your camera and photography as a whole by taking the plunge.

ISO

Ramping up the ISO is a quick fix for making your shots brighter, but if you go too high with this, you can bring unwanted noise into your shots, especially in darker areas of the image. Aim to keep your ISO as low as possible and focus more on using slower shutter speeds to get the shot that you want. As a general rule, I’ll set my ISO at 100 and work from there, aiming to never go above ISO 1000.

Shutter Speed

Adjusting the shutter speed of your camera allows you to control the length of time that light is entering your camera. Low-light situations generally call for lower shutter speeds for longer exposures, depending on the ambient light available, the subject you are photographing, or the style of shot you are trying to achieve.

In instances where there are moving subjects, such as people, I try to keep the shutter speed high enough so as not to make their motion appear blurred but low enough to allow as much light in as possible. To add another layer to that, if there are lights in the shot (a bivvy light, a headtorch, illuminated bobbins, etc.), then you want to keep the shutter speed fast enough so that you are not allowing too much light from these items to create blown-out highlights in your shots.

For more scenic shots where nothing is moving (such as a shot of your swim showing your bivvy and rods), using even slower shutter speeds will allow more natural light to enter the camera, providing greater detail in the darker areas of your shots. Try putting your camera on a tripod at night and having a play with different shutter speeds from 1/1 to 1/30 and seeing the results for yourself—it’s the best way to learn.

Most DSLRs also have the function for a bulb release to be used, which allows you to manually open and close the shutter using a remote trigger for even longer exposures (some Canon cameras come with an in-built bulb timer too, so you don’t have to do it manually), which can produce some really interesting results such as star trails.

Aperture

Aperture is the other way that your camera lets light in to create an exposure. Try and think of shutter speed and aperture like taps (stay with me, lol)... If shutter speed is controlling the length of time that you allow the tap to run for, then aperture is the flow regulator, controlling how much water comes out of the tap at once. A higher aperture (e.g., f/16) means that less light will enter the camera, while a low aperture (e.g., f/2.8 or lower) means that more light is entering the camera. Balancing aperture and shutter speed is the key to getting the perfect exposure and look for your photographs in all light conditions. Again, setting the camera on a tripod at night and playing with different combinations of fast shutter speed, low aperture, and slow shutter speed, high aperture, will teach you more about night-time photography than any amount of reading ever will.

Focus

Focusing your shots is obviously very important. Again, modern mirrorless cameras with their digital viewfinders can make focusing easier in low-light conditions, whether that is via manual focusing or autofocus, but if you don’t have a mirrorless camera, you can always use a small torch to light up the subject enough to set the focus exactly where you want it, then switch it off before you take the shot. With a mirrorless camera, I generally use autofocus to set the focus, then switch the lens to manual focus to lock the focus off before taking the shot, which saves me refocusing if I decide I like the composition but want to try changing the aperture or shutter speed for a different effect. In really low-light situations, though, I’ll use a small torch and live-view on my camera’s screen to zoom in and really dial in that focus before taking the shot; where enough light is present in the shot for me to shoot handheld, I’ll use autofocus.

Natural/Available Light Sources

Lighting is EVERYTHING when it comes to photography. When it comes to night-time or low-light photography, you are going to need to consider what light is available and where it is coming from in order to be able to use it to your advantage or to stop it from affecting your shot in a way you don’t want it to. Maybe you are fishing in an area where there is light pollution from nearby roads or buildings. This can add a great look to your shots, so use it to your advantage. The same can be said for moonlight. It is surprising how much these seemingly low-light sources can illuminate your shots when using slow shutter speeds.

Shooting RAW

I always shoot in RAW, as this gives me much more control over my images when it comes to editing them. If you’ve never shot RAW before, give it a try. You’ll be surprised at how much detail you can pull out of the shadows when you are editing your shots and, equally, how much more contrast you can add to a cloudy sky. If there are small amounts of noise creeping into your shots, you can easily reduce this in the edit as well. Editing is a huge subject, though, and one that is too vast to cover in any great detail here. The one thing I will say, though, is to always aim to get your shots looking as close as possible to how you want them to look in-camera, then use your editing software to make minor adjustments if necessary or for creative effect. It’s not a magic method of turning poor shots into good ones, but it can be used to make good shots even better.

In Summary

At the end of the day, it gets dark! So get out there and have a play using the above as loose guidelines, see what works and what doesn’t, and enjoy your own photographic adventure. As long as you are happy with your results, then you are doing something right, and if you aren’t, then keep on making the tweaks until you are. In that sense, photography is a bit like carp fishing: the more time and effort you put in, the better your results will become.

Be lucky and tight lines,

G.