Bright lights at night

A/Ox4 · Dec 11, 2014

One of my favorite things to photograph is emergency services... Fire engines, ambulances etc. The problem I face is that all of the emergency vehicles here use bright led lights for their warning lights. At night this creates large flares and seems to over power the photo.

Any tips on fixing this?

Stradawhovious · Dec 12, 2014

Photograph them during the day, or use a speedlight (may not end well if the driver doesn't have a sense of humor)

Any time you take a picture at night and a vehicle is involved, their lights (headlights, light bars, tail lights etc) will take over the exposure unless an external light source is used.

For example... Notice how you can't see any of the cars in this photo, but you can certainly see their head and tail lights...

Really nothing you can do about it in lieu of additional lighting unless you ask the EMTs to kindly refrain from using their lights... which I doubt will go over well. You could however use it to your advantage and utilize a rear curtain sync with a speedlight on a long shutter to get a pretty cool effect...

bratkinson · Dec 13, 2014

As an amateur, I'm not expected to produce completely professional results, although I do try my best.

I've found the easiest way to handle bright lights and dark areas together is to expose somewhere in the 'middle', essentially over-exposing the bright lights a bit and underexposing the darker areas a bit. Then, during post processing with Lightroom or Photoshop Elements (the programs that I use), use the 'highlights' and 'shadows' sliders to adjust the exposure. The 'trick' is to not have blown out the highlights to the point where all details are washed out, and not to underexpose the darker areas so much as there is no visible details. It's not a 'great' solution, but it's easy enough and works well enough for me that I'm happy with it.

Note, too, the same problem occurs with indoor photography and a brightly lit outdoors cause the windows to get blown out exposure. I use the same technique there, as well.

Alternatively, depending on your post processing skills, take two shots, one properly exposed for the bright lights and the second exposed for the darker areas. Then combine them during post processing. However, if it's the emergency vehicle is moving along the roadway, I think I'd try the auto-bracket capability on my camera and set it for + and - 2 full stops. That way, the vehicle won't have moved very far in the fraction of a second between exposures.