9 Nikon D7200 Night Photography Tips To Up Your Game!

Today we will be going over a number of Nikon d7200 night photography tips that we have come up with to try and help as many of our readers as possible when taking pictures during the night or in low light conditions. As our readers level of experience with photography ranges from entry level up to full time professional, we have a spread of tips in the article for people of all levels of skill.

Table of Contents

Invest In A Suitable Lens

It doesn’t matter how many people we see reaching out for advice, the number one tip to help them increase their Nikon d7200 night photography potential is to use a suitable lens for the niche. In our opinion, picking up a lens like the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 (Click here to check for product prices and availability) is the perfect way to improve your photographs of the night sky without breaking the bank.

We feel that the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 offers the best bang for your buck to increase the image quality that you are able to capture in low light. It’s 14mm focal length allows you to capture huge wide-angle photographs of the night sky while the f/2.8 aperture captures the night sky in all its glory. On top of this, the lens is also a great little wide angle and ultra-wide angle lens for general use too and will make a great addition to your photography accessories.

One of our favourite night time photographs that was captured using the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens. We feel that it is an excellent showcase of the lenses capabilities and what it can offer your Nikon d7200. — One of our favorite nighttime photographs that was captured using the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens. We feel that it is an excellent showcase of the lenses capabilities and what it can offer your Nikon d3400.

The image above is an excellent example of what the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 can offer you and its low price tag should make picking it up an obvious choice. If you are one of our regular readers then you will probably know we always try to share a third-party, independent review of all the lenses or cameras that we recommend to our readers.

We feel that the video below is one of the best independent reviews of the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 out there. One thing we would like to point out is that the lens in the video is actually under the Samyang brand but it is the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 just branded for the Asian market whereas Rokinon is the North American and European brand.

Choose An Appropriate Tripod

Another solid way to improve your Nikon d7200 night photography is to simply pick up a high-quality, budget-friendly tripod like the Zomei Z699C (Click here to check for product prices and availability). We recently published a full review of the Zomei Z699C tripod that you may find useful if you don’t already have a tripod as part of your photography kit.

The simple tip to use a tripod to increase your image stabilization and reduce camera shake make for your long exposure photography of things like the milky way may seem like common sense but it is often overlooked. As nighttime photography usually involves a lot of timelapse or long exposure photography having a tripod is pretty much essential.

It offers a stable base for your camera rig and reduces the chance that it will accidentally move and change the angle it is capturing at and ruin the whole photograph or video in the process. Thankfully, even a basic tripod can easily provide what you need for this so if you already own a tripod you will probably able to use that one and get the same benefit of the tripods that cost hundreds of dollars.

[the_ad id=”2652″]

Get Your Hands On A Intervalometer

Another great bit of kit that you can pick up to improve your night sky photography is a cheap but decent Intervalometer (Click here to check for product prices and availability). We would always recommend the one linked and shown in the image above as the Nikon d7200 is one of the cameras that is has been specifically designed to work with right out the box.

An Intervalometer improves your night photography by further reducing camera shake by removing your need to actually touch your camera body. The Intervalometer allows you to control a bunch of your d7200’s functionality remotely and thus removing the need to touch your camera and potentially ruing your long exposure, star trail or timelapse by knocking it and changing the angle it is capturing at.

Experiment With Steel Wool

A great little photograph that uses steel wool to the photographers advantage to improve the overall image quality of the photograph. — A great little photograph that uses steel wool to the photographer’s advantage to improve the overall image quality of the photograph.

Depending on the sub-niche of night photography you are wanting to partake in, picking up some steel wool (Click here to check for product prices and availability) can be a quick and easy way to add some much-needed life into a photograph that would otherwise be boring. Not only does it add a light source into the image but it also adds a sense of movement and uniqueness to the image.

If you have not used steel wool for your photography before we would highly recommend that you watch the tutorial video below. It will quickly show you how to easily get the best out of the steel wool for your photograph.

Experiment With ND Filters

Another quick and easy way you can improve your nighttime digital photography skills is to look into picking up some budget-friendly ND filters (Click here to check for product prices and availability). If you are taking photographs of urban scenery at night then putting an ND filter on your lens can help reduce the amount of light pollution that your lens will pick up and improve your overall photograph.

That said, we would like to point out if the focus of your night shots is star trails or the milky way then an ND filter will actually limit the amount of light from the stars that your sensor will be able to pick up and have a negative effect on the image. It all comes down to the particular sub-niche of night photography that you are working in.

Our articles where we review the Gobe ND filters and our article where we review the Hoya ND filters may help you choose what filter to pick up.

Start with ISO 3200

Tweaking with your camera settings is a quick, easy, and free way to improve your night photography potential. Tweaking your ISO setting is the easiest way to get good results but the ideal ISO number will change depending on your location.

It is usually agreed that you start out with an ISO of 3200 and then adjust as required with most locations ending up somewhere between an ISO of 800-3200.

Watch A Professional Night Photography Tutorial

We would highly recommend that our readers watch the video below. It is free, short, and offers some excellent tips and tricks from one of the leading photographers out there right now. We feel it is actually more beneficial than many of the pricey ebooks on night photography that have flooded the market in recent years.

Know When and Where to Look

We always see night photographers reaching out and asking for locations near them that offer excellent views of the night sky as well as what time of year they should be out trying to capture the photograph. In our experience, the best way to work this out is to simply look for local photography groups in your area.

Tools like Facebook and various photography forums make it very easy to find these groups and then you can leverage the members experience to get the best locations and times of year to snap photographs of the night sky.

Tweak Your Camera Settings For Night Photography

Although we have already mentioned tweaking your camera settings earlier in the article, the video below offers a more in-depth overview that may be worth watching if you have only recently picked your Nikon d7200 up.