Into the Night

If you have ever taken photographs at night using film rather than digital, you will know how far things have come. Digital made trial and error a lot easier yet it still involved a lot of guess work for long exposures in the early days.

Our current system now includes many of our pioneering innovations that make experimenting more rewarding when shooting into the night.
Many people may have forgotten that we were the first to introduce Live View and we built on that by adding computational power that made full use of the live image. If you have not tried before, why not dig a little deeper into the menus and experiment with Starry Sky AF, Live Composite and Live Time. Hand held long exposures are also much more flexible thanks to the exceptional stabiliasion or why not try Live ND and the F1.2 Pro Lenses.

Here we have pulled together a number links to articles and videos that provide inspiration and guidance, encouraging you to push your creative side. You may not get to reproduce a shot straight away like the one from Australian photographer Denis Smith above but it is fun trying.

Astro Adventure

Sometimes it takes a little perceverence to get the shot you are looking for. In this article, landscape photographer Tom Ormerod shares his passion for night skies while trying out the M.Zuiko Digital ED 17mm F1.2 PRO on an Astra Adventure. Things did not go as planned the first time around but he achieved some stunning images in the end.

Find out how he did it.

Serenity: How I got the shot 

Finnish photographer Hannu Huhtamo has taken the artistic side of light painting to new levels. See how he does it including a short behind the scenes video:

Go long

Learn some of the techniques you can master with really long exposures in this article by Markus Hulliger that also highlights the benefits of our regular firmware upgrades. It is always worth checking the E-M5 and E-M1 series models to see if you have the latest firmware installed.

There can great new functions added from one year to the next.

Capturing Movement 

Slowing down the shutter speed to show movement is not restricted to night time shooting but this is where combining your main subjects with interesting lighting can pay dividends. If you prefer to stay inside to experiment then take a look as Janne and Joonas show you a few tips from our Average Picture Club Series made during lockdown. These can also be used outside in all sorts of mixed lighting conditions outside.

Live Composite and Sparklers

Lewis shows how to set up Live Composite mode and the sort of effects you can achieve with simple hand held lighting.

Over the moon

A short video on setting up your camera to capture the perfect moon shot.

Shoot for the stars

Join Olympus Visionary, Peter Baumgarten for over an hour as he explains how to achieve the best night sky images.

How long can you hold it?

Really want to test out how good the image stabilisation is? Janne and Joonas demonstrate just what you can do with this remarkable technology.

Setting up Starry Sky Mode

A short video how to set up Starry Sky on the E-M1 Mark III

Just Starting

If all this is a little intimidating, don't worry. Take a look at our academy section to learn the basics about photography including shutter speeds and apertures.

Photography Tips: Astro (English only)

Our US colleague have a wealth of material on Astro that you can access below. As yet it is only in English but we hope to bring some of the best to more languages soon.