Flash photography tip: Create a night photo during the day

Thursday 31 October 2024, 20:02 by Elja Trum | 3,037 views | 3 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

With flash light, you can take a photo during the day that looks as if it was taken at night. This means you do not have to wait until the sun has set before taking your night photo. All you need is a colour filter.

Maud - f/16, 1/125s, 100 ISO @ 24mm
Place an orange colour filter (CTO) on your flash. This lights the model. You correct the orange light by setting the white balance to 'incandescent'. The orange light now becomes whiter in your photo. The surroundings, which are not lit by the flash, now get a blue tint.

Now make sure that you underexpose the background in your photo. The easiest way to do this is to use your camera to meter the ambient light and make sure you underexpose by around 2 to 3 stops. Finally, add the flash to light the model correctly with these settings.

The photo above was taken on a sunny day in summer. I used a bare flash at full power from about 1 metre away from the model to overpower the sunlight. I also had to stop the aperture down considerably to make the surroundings dark.

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About the author

Elja Trum is the founder of Photofacts and online photography course website Photofacts Academy. He has been writing about photography since 2006. Elja is also the author of (Dutch) books on composition, black-and-white photography, flash photography and portrait photography.

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3 comments

Matt Houben wrote on Friday 1 November 2024 at 16:26 | reply
Do note that at shutter speeds faster than 1/200 - 1/250 sec. you need to set the flash(es) to HSS.
Translated from Dutch.

Elja Trum wrote on Friday 1 November 2024 at 16:43 | reply
Yes, so you want to stay below that. Good point.

With HSS, your flash fires multiple times in quick succession when taking a photo. That uses power.
Translated from Dutch.

Vercauteren Freddy wrote on Tuesday 5 November 2024 at 16:34 | reply
If I'm not mistaken, in film that's called “Nuit Americain”
Translated from Dutch.

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