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Home → Photography Techniques

An Easy Way to Compose Landscape Photos at Night

By Spencer Cox 49 Comments
Last Updated On February 10, 2018

When you’re out taking nighttime landscape photos — Milky Way photography, or photos of the Aurora Borealis — one of the most difficult tasks is to compose your photos exactly how you want. The reason? It’s simply too dark to see anything. Looking through the viewfinder on a DSLR, it can be tough to make out any of the scene’s important features. Live view might be even worse, often showing absolutely no detail at all. The most common solution is to guess at your composition, wait 20 or 30 seconds for the exposure to finish, and adjust afterwards via trial and error. It’s a slow process — but there’s another method. This is one of the few times when the best option is to use your camera’s highest ISO.

1) Use That Crazy ISO Value

Finally, there’s a good reason to set ISO 409,600!

The idea here is to shrink your waiting time as much as possible. When you use an ultra-high ISO value, you can take photos with a much quicker shutter speed, saving you lots of time in the field. The final photo isn’t meant to be published; instead, it’s something you should use as a compositional aid.

Without this technique, your typical settings for the stars or Milky Way may look something like this:

  • f/2.8, 30 seconds, ISO 1600

Those settings will provide a photo that’s bright enough to use as a compositional aid. However, it will take 30 seconds of waiting to get there (and 60 seconds if you’re using long exposure noise reduction). Instead, try something like this:

  • f/2.8, 2 seconds, ISO 25,600

You’ll have a photo that’s just as bright, and it takes 1/15th the time to capture. The downside? Your image quality will be horrible — but that doesn’t matter. You’re not actually going to use this photo or publish it. The photo only exists as a way for you to “see in the dark,” and narrow down your final composition more quickly.

Personally, for night photography, it often takes a handful of test photos before I find the exact composition I want. If you’re the same way, this technique can save a huge amount of time in the field, especially over the course of an entire night. Other than guessing the proper composition on your first try, this is the quickest way to capture the nighttime photo you want.

Check out the comparison below, starting with a test photo at ISO 12,800, and then my final composition at ISO 3200:

Super high ISO night landscape photo
NIKON D800E + 20mm f/1.8 @ 20mm, ISO 12800, 6 seconds, f/2.2
Here’s a super-high-ISO test photo, not to be published. Some cameras certainly go beyond ISO 12,800, too; this is just the tip of the iceberg. But, even here, it cut my exposure time to just 6 seconds, which isn’t a very long wait.
Milky Way landscape photo
NIKON D800E + 20mm f/1.8 @ 20mm, ISO 3200, 20 seconds, f/2.2
The final photo, with an improved composition (shifted slightly up and to the left). Taken at a lower ISO and a longer exposure to provide better image quality.

There is still a component of trial and error, which is unavoidable. But, on a dark night, when you can’t even see the scene with your own eyes, this is a much quicker way to capture the right composition. It completely eliminates 20- to 30-second delays in the field.

And, of course, you should feel free to delete the ultra-high ISO photo when you’re back from the field. It’s not something you’re likely to need, unless you’re writing an article about this technique :)

2) Conclusion

I know this is a quick tip, and you might already be using it in the field. Still, if not, it has the potential to make a significant difference in your nighttime landscape work. Although I only started using the ultra-high-ISO technique a couple years ago, it’s quickly become one of the main steps in my night photography workflow. My hope is that you will find it equally useful.

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Filed Under: Photography Techniques Tagged With: Landscape Photography, Night Photography, High ISO, ISO, Composition

About Spencer Cox

I'm Spencer Cox, a landscape photographer better known for my macro photography! My photos have been displayed in galleries worldwide, including the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and exhibitions in London, Malta, Siena, and Beijing. These days I'm active on Instagram and YouTube.

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Venu
Venu
December 6, 2017 3:19 pm

Great tip. Thanks for the article.

But wondering, for wide angle landscapes (daylight or even astro), isn’t wide angle zoom more easy for composition than wide angle prime?

Say if you have 20mm prime vs 15-30mm wide angle lense, isn’t the 15-30mm wide angle more easier to compose the frame because of it’s zooming abilities? If you have to buy one lense, which one would you buy– wide angle zoom or wide angle prime? I see you used prime lens for these pictures, but I think wide angle zoom makes it more sense over prime in landscape/astro. Am I missing something in terms of quality of shots?

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Spencer Cox
Spencer Cox
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Reply to  Venu
December 6, 2017 3:36 pm

You aren’t missing anything — zooms are frequently ideal for nighttime photography. Personally, although I did take this photo with the 20mm f/1.8, my current go-to lens for nighttime photography is the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8. The only downside is that these lenses don’t tend to have as wide of an aperture, which does decrease the light you can capture, and the overall image quality somewhat. But if you have an f/2.8 zoom, it isn’t a major concern.

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Venu
Venu
Reply to  Spencer Cox
December 6, 2017 3:49 pm

Thanks. Mostly I was using 24-120 zoom for landscape/nighttime, and came across your article.

I was thinking of getting some wide angle lense for landscape/astro/architecture. I was set on either tamron 15-30mm/2.8 or nikon 20mm/1.8. Leaning towards tamron after your comment, but your prime lense shots also look fantastic. Need to finalize, now that PL has provided some apt links for enablement. :)

0
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VN
VN
December 6, 2017 3:19 pm

Great tip. Thanks for the article.

But wondering, for wide angle landscapes (daylight or even astro), isn’t wide angle zoom more easy for composition than wide angle prime?

Say if you have 20mm prime vs 15-30mm wide angle lense, isn’t the 15-30mm wide angle more easier to compose the frame because of it’s zooming abilities? If you have to buy one lense, which one would you buy– wide angle zoom or wide angle prime? I see you used prime lens for these pictures, but I think wide angle zoom makes it more sense over prime in landscape/astro. Am I missing something in terms of quality of shots?

0
Reply
VN
VN
December 6, 2017 11:23 am

Nice tip to make things easier…Thanks.

I have a question about landscape photography in general, and astro in particular about using a wide angle lense for the ease and quickness of composition.

Two lenses, say ‘tamron 15-30’ and ‘nikon 20mm prime’ are both for wide angle purposes. Wouldn’t tamron 15-30 be a bit easier and faster to compose than the 20mm prime, as tamron allows a bit of zoom? Which of the two is a better choice for daylight landscape and night astro photography?

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MarcM
MarcM
December 1, 2017 11:44 am

Fantastic tip, Spencer! I’m usually on site before sunrise when there is little light. I hate waiting for that long exposure just to find that my composition is askew. Now I can bump up my Nikon D810 ISO to 12,800, take a quick shot, analyze the compo, readjust, and try again. Your tip is going to save me all kinds of time!

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Mario
Mario
December 1, 2017 8:10 am

When I‘m out doing astrophotography with the D750 I always have ISO 50.000 and 1s with no MirrorDelay on U1, and ISO 6400, 15s, 3s Mirrordelay on U2. Saves a ton of time ?

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Anthony Kaduck
Anthony Kaduck
November 30, 2017 8:30 pm

That’s a great tip. Simple but effective. Can’t wait to try it out. Thanks!

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Roberto
Roberto
November 30, 2017 2:15 pm

Thank a lot for your photography advice. i´m really into photography. I´m a bigginer. Afew months ago I started with my Nikon D3300. Although i make a lot of mistakes , i continue taking pictures.

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Rafael
Rafael
November 30, 2017 8:38 am

Great tip, thanks! Haven’t thought about pumping up the ISO for previews before. :)

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Dave
Dave
November 30, 2017 7:47 am

Great tips!! Alternatively, you can compose the scene at dusk and , if it is safe, leave the tripod there. Later come back, mount the camera and shoot. You may still have to do some trial and error.

0
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Paul Handover
Paul Handover
November 30, 2017 7:33 am

What a great tip. Must try that asap!

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Reply

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