The Canon 80d keeps on constantly growing its core user base with more and more photographers and videographers turning to it as their camera body of choice. The camera offers you some excellent image quality for its price tag and its excellent photo and video performance ensures that it also provides you with the versatility for pretty much any gig you may land.
Although the Canon 80d is a very popular camera with users with all levels of photography and videography experience, with its price tag being more towards the lower end of the intermediate camera price bracket, a large number of entry level photographers end up purchasing it. With the 80d having so many people using the camera, it really is easy to see why we constantly see people reaching out for advice on the camera and how they are able to ensure they get the best image quality possible when using it.
In addition to this, over the last few years, the various night photography sub-niches have seen a massive increase in their popularity too. These two come together and have lead to a huge number of people reaching out each month asking for Canon 80d night photography tips and tricks to capture the best image quality possible when using the camera.
As we know a large section of our reader base use the 80d as their camera of choice, we have decided to publish this article to try and help as many people as possible who are looking to improve their Canon 80d night photography. We have a number of tricks that you are able to use that are spread over a wide range of night photography sub-niches to try ensure that we have some time for everyone. That said though, we know that some of these are dependent on what you are planning to actually do with your Canon 80d so we would recommend that you pick and choose our suggested tips that best apply to you and your needs.
Consider An Online Night Photography Course
Our regular readers will probably be aware of this but we know that our articles get a ton of first-time readers viewing them who may not be aware that as a reader of Photography Paws, you are able to claim a trial of Skillshare premium without you having to spend a single cent. With the Skillshare platform offering a ton of excellent photography courses we would highly recommend that our readers consider taking this offer up.
Skillshare has one of the best online night photography courses currently available that has managed to rightfully earn itself an excellent reputation amongst the community over the years. A huge amount of photographers have enrolled on it and left it great reviews due to the improvements that the course has been able to deliver to their night photography skillset. As we touched on earlier, our readers are able to enroll on these courses without having to spend any money where as the vast majority of people have had to pay to complete the course and improve their night photography skills.
Invest In A Suitable Tripod
As we touched on back at the start of the article, the Canon 80d is an excellent camera body and although it was initially designed for intermediate level photographers, it does have a huge number of entry level photographers using it. Many entry level photographers may not have a tripod in their camera accessories and we constantly see people trying to capture photographs at night while holding their camera in their hands.
Although hand held photography, especially with the Canon 80d can be a viable option in many photography niches, we feel that it does not offer the stable platform required for night photography. Additionally, there are some excellent, cheap tripods on the market these days that have great reputations and can offer you some much-needed image stabilization without you having to break the bank.
We cant recommend a tripod enough when it comes to night photography as it offer the image stabilization that your Canon 80d requires to offer optimal image quality for your photographs. The lack of available light during night photography often means that even the slightest movement of your camera can spoil your photograph so implementing a tripod, or at the very least a monopod helps to prevent this.
Consider Getting Some Steel Wool
This next tip is going to depend on what you are actually planning on photographing with your Canon 80d but adding some steel wool to your camera accessories can be a great way to spice up the photographs that you can capture. The photograph of the bridge above offers a great example of this as without the subject spinning the steel wool to add some additional light and movement, it would just be a boring photograph of a bridge at night.
If you think outside of the box then you are able to use this simple, easy, and cheap trick to your advantage to allow you to capture night photographs of local landmarks with your Canon 80d while also ensuring that your photographs stand out from the competition. If you are trying to grow the social media profiles for your photography business then this really can help your content stand out and draw followers to your profiles.
If you are planning on trying to intergrate some steel wool into your night photography sessions then please be sure to check the local regulations for where you live. Some areas will restrict the use of steel wool due to it presenting a fire hazard but most areas will only do this during the dry season anyway.
Get Yourself A Remote Trigger
This one is a no brainer if you are planning to try your hand at astrophotography or any other night photography sub-niche where you will be working at some super zoom length ranges. When working with a high zoom lens, especially at night, even the slightest vibration in your Canon 80d, even as small as you pressing your camera trigger button can blur your photograph.
This is why we usually recommend that our readers invest in either a wired or wireless remote trigger for their Canon 80d so they are able to trigger their camera sensor without actually having to touch their camera body. Although this may sound like an entry-level photograph tip or trick, we have seen countless intermediate level photographs be surprised at just how much of a benefit this can have when working with a high zoom lens at night.
Take Advantage Of The Landscape
This is another quick, easy, yet free trick that we constantly see even intermediate level photographers miss out on and that is to use the local landscape and scenery to frame your photograph better. A quick look around your location can present a much better photograph for you and the picture above offers a very simple example of this with the moon in the great, the mountain in the mid-ground, and the trees in the foreground.
We know that not everyone has easy access to mountains though but almost every location does have something that you are able to use to help frame your photographs. Urban locations will often have tall buildings, statues, or bridges that can be used to the same effect and let you add both scale and depth to your photograph that would otherwise be missing.
Experiment With Manual Focus
We have noticed that there is a problem with many people who are new to photography building up a habit of just letting their auto focus systems do all of the focusing for them during their sessions. Many of these people rely on this habit so much that we have noticed a number of intermediate level photographers who have not developed their manual focus skillset and this is definatley a huge mistake, especially for night photography.
The lack of available light at night will often cause you no end of problems with even the best auto focus systems as they essentially just constantly adjust their focus while tracking for a subject. With manual focus you are able to manually control what your Canon 80d is actually focusing on allowing you much better control of the photograph as well as the subject too improving your image quality.
If you are an entry level photographer then we would highly recommend that you put some time in to get better at using your manual focus as it is a useful skillset to have in a large number of photography niches. If you are an intermediate level photography and you are yet to start developing your manual focus skillset then we would highly recommend that you make it one of your main priorities as soon as possible.
Play Around With Your Camera Settings
As we mentioned back at the start of the article, the Canon 80d offers an absolute ton of versatility for its price point in the market and although you can learn to use this to your advantage, if you are new to using the camera, it can often be a little overwhelming. This is why we always recommend you spend a few hours playing around with your camera settings to see who the change your image quality when getting a new camera.
Although there are tons of basic camera setting benchmarks out there for night photography, we would highly recommend that you play around with them to see what you prefer. On top of this, the available lighting at different locations may require different settings on your Canon 80d for the best possible image quality too even though you are working in both locations on the same night without an hour of each other.
