Beginner’s Guide to Night Photography: Tips, Settings & Gear [2025]

Night photography is a completely different experience from shooting during the day. Without the glow of golden hour or the clarity of midday light, you’re left with darkness. And the creative possibilities it unlocks.

It’s a genre that challenges your technical skills and rewards your patience. But it also lets you capture some of the most dramatic, awe-inspiring scenes in landscape photography.

If you’ve ever tried photographing at night and come home with black frames or blurry stars, you’re not alone. Night photography has a learning curve, but that’s exactly what this guide will help you overcome.

In this beginner-friendly guide, you’ll learn the essential night photography tips, including recommended gear, camera settings for night photography, and in-field techniques to help you confidently capture everything from stars to cityscapes.

The Basics of Night Photography

I still remember the first time I tried night photography. I’d been scrolling through incredible images of starry skies for weeks, and I finally decided it was time to create my own.

That didn’t go as planned.

Even though I understood the basic camera settings, I hadn’t learned how night photography differs from shooting during the day. The result? Every photo turned out completely black.

So why does that happen? Why can’t you just use the same settings you rely on during golden hour or daylight?

The answer is simple: there’s barely any light, and that changes everything.

It affects your camera settings. It affects what gear you need. And it affects how you edit your images.

That first outing was frustrating, but it led me to dive deeper and discover what makes night photography so unique. Once you understand those key differences, capturing the night becomes a lot more rewarding.

Let’s start with the essential equipment and camera settings that will help you succeed.

Best Equipment for Night Photography (What You Actually Need)

You don’t need a huge gear list to get started with night photography, but you do need the right essentials.

Unlike daytime photography, where you can often get by with minimal equipment, shooting at night requires tools that help you work in low light and ensure sharp, noise-free results. Some gear is absolutely essential, while other accessories just make your life a lot easier.

Let’s walk through what’s truly important, starting with the one thing you can’t do without.

The Tripod (Essential)

This one’s non-negotiable. No matter how steady your hands are, a tripod is crucial for night photography.

You’ll be working with slow shutter speeds to gather enough light, which means any camera movement will result in blur. A solid tripod eliminates that issue and gives you more control over your composition.

If you’re just getting started, you don’t need the most expensive model, but it’s worth investing in one that’s stable, well-built, and rated for your camera’s weight. Flimsy tripods cause vibrations, and vibrations ruin night shots.

For night photography, I usually rely on the Leofoto LN-364C, and the FotoPro X-Aircross 3 when hiking light. Both have proven reliable in challenging conditions.

Recommended Reading: How to Choose Your Next Tripod

The Camera and Lens (Essential)

It’s not about having the newest or most expensive gear, but your camera and lens combo needs to meet a few criteria:

• Manual control of ISO, aperture, and shutter speed
• Good high ISO performance (for less noise at night)
• Wide-angle lens (12–20mm is ideal)
• Fast aperture (f/2.8 or wider preferred)

You can shoot with slower lenses like f/4, but you’ll need to raise ISO, which increases noise.

If your current gear doesn’t meet all these points, don’t worry, you can still get great results, especially if you use image averaging or noise reduction software in post-processing.

If you’re looking to upgrade, my go-to night photography setup is the Nikon Z6II with the Nikkor Z 14-24 f/2.8.

Remote Shutter (Useful, Not Required)

A remote shutter isn’t mandatory, but it’s definitely useful.

Pressing the shutter button directly can introduce camera shake — even if you’re using a tripod. A remote (or your camera’s built-in timer) avoids this and helps you get tack-sharp results.

You don’t need anything fancy here. A basic wired or wireless remote will do the trick.

Flashlight or Headlamp (Useful)

Setting up in the dark is part of the challenge, and a headlamp makes everything easier; from finding your gear to composing and focusing.

Look for one with red-light mode so you don’t lose your night vision. Personally, I use the Black Diamon Storm 500.

Besides using it for navigating, it’s very helpful when using the focus stacking technique at night.

Optional but Powerful: Add a Star Tracker for Sharper Night Skies

A star tracker isn’t required, but it can make a huge difference if you want to capture more detail in the night sky.

By tracking the movement of the stars, these tools allow you to use longer exposures without introducing star trails. That means sharper stars, lower ISO, and better overall image quality. Perfect for for Milky Way panoramas or deep-sky shots.

If you’re considering a tracker, I personally use the MSM Nomad, and it’s been a game changer for my Milky Way photography. CaptureLandscapes readers get 5% off Move Shoot Move products with the code: capturelandscapes.

Recommended Night Photography Gear

Here’s a recap of the gear mentioned above. These links support CaptureLandscapes at no extra cost to you.

My Recommended Gear for Night Photography
Tripod (Heavy Duty): Leofoto LN-364C – Built to withstand strong winds and support heavy gear, ideal for challenging conditions.
Tripod (Lightweight): FotoPro X-Aircross 3 – Lightweight and compact, perfect for hiking and travel without sacrificing much stability.
Camera: Nikon Z6II – Excellent low-light performance with high-resolution output, great for night skies.
Lens: Nikkor Z 14-24 f/2.8 – Super wide and fast, ideal for capturing sharp stars and Milky Way scenes.
Remote Shutter: Pixel TW-283 – Simple and reliable, helps eliminate camera shake for sharper night images.
Headlamp: Black Diamond Storm 500 – Powerful, long lasting battery, and includes red light mode to preserve night vision while setting up in the dark.
Star Tracker: Move-Shoot-Move Nomad – Compact and beginner-friendly tracker to capture sharper Milky Way details (use code capturelandscapes for 5% off).

What Can You Photograph at Night?

One of the best parts about night photography is the creative freedom it offers. There’s no single “correct” subject, just opportunities to experiment, explore, and create images unlike anything you’ll capture during the day.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Starry Skies: A great starting point for practicing exposure and focus. Even a simple photo of the night sky can be beautiful.
• The Milky Way: Best photographed from spring through early autumn, depending on your location. Dark skies and low light pollution are key.
• Moonlit Landscapes: Use the moon as a natural light source to reveal details in the foreground. This is perfect for mountain scenes or coastal shots.
• Cityscapes & Light Trails: Night photography isn’t limited to the wilderness. Urban environments offer opportunities for creative long exposures and vibrant light.
• Aurora Borealis: If you’re fortunate enough to live or travel north, photographing the Northern Lights is an unforgettable experience.

Want help planning? Check out our guide to Milky Way photography or Northern Lights photography.

Best Camera Settings for Night Photography (ISO, Shutter Speed & Aperture)

Photographing in low light changes everything you know about exposure. The settings that work during the day won’t cut it at night, especially when you’re trying to capture stars or moonlit landscapes.

This section walks you through the three core settings of the Exposure Triangle: ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, and how to balance them.

Understanding these essential night photography settings is the first step toward consistently capturing high-quality images in the dark.

What Camera Mode to Use

You’ll need to take full control of your settings, that means using Manual Mode (M). While Aperture or Shutter Priority modes work during the day, your camera’s metering system can’t reliably read the dark.

In Manual Mode, you’ll adjust:

• Aperture to control how much light enters the lens
• Shutter Speed to determine how long light hits the sensor
• ISO to amplify that light digitally

If you’re not yet comfortable using manual settings, check out our guide to the Exposure Triangle to get started.

Use an Open Aperture

For night photography, your lens needs to stay wide open, meaning an aperture of f/2.8 or faster. This maximizes the light your camera can gather, allowing you to use faster shutter speeds and reduce ISO noise.

• Common choices: f/2.8, f/1.8, or even f/1.4
• If your lens only opens to f/4, it’s still usable — but you may need to bump up the ISO

Recommended Reading: Introduction to Aperture in Landscape Photography

PS. The aperture is the only setting that remain the same for all your night images. It’s extremely rare that you need a narrower aperture.

Use a High ISO

You might recall that a fundamental guideline for landscape photography is to always keep the ISO as low as possible. This is done to reduce noise and improve the image quality. At night, that won’t work. Instead, you’ll need to increase ISO to 1600, 3200, or even 6400, depending on how dark your scene is.

Here’s a good starting point:

• Moonlit scenes: ISO 800–1600
• Starlit scenes / Milky Way: ISO 3200-6400 (sometimes higher)
• Bright foreground with low sky detail: Lower ISO with longer shutter speed

Take a test shot, review the histogram, and adjust as needed.

Curious how to reduce noise in your night photos? Check out our Noise Reduction Guide to learn how to clean up your images without losing detail.

Recommended Reading: Introduction to ISO in Digital Photography

Use a Slow Shutter Speed

Shutter speed is the third and final setting that builds up the Exposure Triangle. You already know that we need to use a slow shutter speed but that’s a rather vague statement.

The longer your shutter is open, the more light you’ll collect, but also the more chance for star trails if it’s too long.

A good general rule:

• 15 to 20 seconds for wide-angle lenses
• Use the 500 Rule to estimate max shutter length without star movement:
  500 ÷ focal length (in mm) = max shutter time (in seconds)

For more accurate results, try the more advanced NPF Rule.

Recommended Reading: Introduction to Shutter Speed in Landscape Photography

But what if you want to go beyond those limitations?

That’s where a star tracker comes in. By rotating your camera in sync with the Earth’s movement, a tracker lets you use much longer shutter speeds without creating star trails, meaning you can capture cleaner, sharper, and more detailed night sky images at lower ISO values.

CaptureLandscapes readers get 5% off Move Shoot Move star trackers with the code capturelandscapes at checkout. I personally use the MSM Nomad for lightweight travel.

Setting the White Balance for Night Photography

While White Balance isn’t as critical as your exposure settings (especially if you shoot in RAW), it still makes a big difference in how your night images look straight out of camera.

Auto White Balance tends to add too much warmth at night, often resulting in images with an unnatural orange cast.

Instead, switch to Kelvin (K) mode and manually dial in your color temperature. A setting between 3200K and 3800K is a good starting point for most scenes under a clear night sky.

Note: You can fine-tune White Balance during post-processing if you’re shooting RAW, but getting close in-camera gives you a better visual reference while out in the field

Recommended Reading: Mastering White Balance in Photography: A Comprehensive Guide

In-Field Night Photography Tips for Better Images

Once your gear is set up and your settings are dialed in, it’s time to turn your attention to actually capturing the shot. This is where many beginners run into frustration, but with a few practical tips, you’ll avoid the most common night photography mistakes.

How to Focus at Night

Autofocus has come a long way, but even the best cameras struggle in low-light environments. If you rely on autofocus at night, chances are you’ll end up with a soft or completely blurred image.

That’s why manual focus is essential for night photography. And yes, it takes some practice.

Here’s a simple method that works well for sharp focus on stars or distant lights:

1. Switch to Manual Focus
2. Turn on Live View
3. Look for a bright star or distant light
4. Zoom in digitally using Live View
5. Rotate the focus ring until the light appears as small and sharp as possible

Take a few test shots, zoom in on the image preview, and make fine adjustments until the stars are pin-sharp.

Recommended Reading: How to Focus in Night Photography

Composing Your Shots in the Dark

Setting up a good composition at night takes patience. The lack of light makes it harder to see foreground elements clearly.

One trick is to use a headlamp to illuminate nearby rocks, trees, or terrain while setting up your shot. This helps you evaluate the composition and avoid distractions in the final frame.

Live View can also help, even if it only shows faint outlines, it’s usually enough to fine-tune the position of your camera.

Once things are roughly in place, take a test shot:

• Check exposure
• Zoom in to review sharpness
• Adjust framing if needed

One of the most overlooked night photography tips is to take test shots regularly, this helps refine your exposure and composition when it’s too dark to see clearly. Take the time to zoom in on the image preview to make sure you’ve optimized everything you can.

Also, remember: If your camera or lens has image stabilization, turn it off when mounted on a tripod. It can actually cause blur when the camera is perfectly still.

Note: On damp or cold nights, lens fog can be a problem. If you’re shooting for a while, bring a lens dew heater or anti-fog wipes to keep your lens clear. It only takes one foggy frame to ruin your shot.

Final Thoughts on Getting Started With Night Photography

If you’ve made it this far, you’re already ahead of the curve. It can feel intimidating at first, but like most things in photography, it gets easier (and more rewarding) the more you practice. With the right night photography settings, gear, and tips, you’ll soon find that photographing at night becomes second nature.

Don’t worry about memorizing everything right away. You can print this article or download our free Night Photography Cheat Sheets to bring along in the field. They’ll help you stay on track and avoid common mistakes.

Remember, the key to success is preparation and patience. Take your time, enjoy the experience, and don’t be afraid to experiment.

Have you been out capturing the night sky? Share your results or questions in the comments below, I’d love to hear how it’s going.

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Frequently Asked Questions

More Night Photography

I’ve gathered some more night photography articles and resources below that you might find useful:

• The Best Settings for Night Photography [Article]
• 5 Common Night Photography Mistakes to Avoid [Article]
• The ‘500 Rule’ for Night Photography Explained [Article]
• Image Averaging and Time Blending for High Quality Night Photos [Article]
• 7 Tips for Better Night Photography [Article]
• How to Plan and Photograph the Milky Way [Article]
• Northern Lights Photography Made Easy [Course]