The Nikon Coolpix L340 is probably the most popular entry level bridge camera on the market right now and although it already has an absolutely huge core customer base of photographers who use it, the L340 still sees consistant sales with each passing month. This is down to a number of factors including the excellent performance that the Nikon Coolpix L340 offers relative to its price tag, the surge in popularity of night photography right now, and the steady increase in the use of bridge cameras too.
Now, although we see a large number of different questions being asked with each passing month related to the camera, one of the most frequently asked questions that we do see is based around how to improve your Nikon Coolpix L340 night photography. As we mentioned above, night photography is surging in popularity right now and the L340 has a huge customer base of existing users that is increasing rapidly. Due to this, we have decided to dedicate this article to helping our readers improve their Nikon L340 night photography with these tips and tricks.
With its 20.2 MP camera sensor while also offering a solid 28x optical zoom, the L340 is definitely able to provide you with some outstanding nighttime photographs. That said though, just like many of the other entry level camera bodies on the market right now, one of the main issues that we see when it comes to the various problems people are having are usually down to user error rather than problems with the camera.
We have no doubt that our tips, tricks, and suggestions below will be able to help any of our readers who are looking to improve their night photography image quality when using the L340. That said though, depending on your location, the sub-night of night photography that you are working in, and your goals for your photographs, you may not have to implement them all.
Consider A Free Night Photography Course
With the Nikon Coolpix L340 being an entry level camera body, we see so many people making fundamental mistakes in how they go about their night photography sessions. Thankfully though, these can almost always be easily and quickly fixed without too much of an issue. As one of our readers, you are able to take advantage of a two month Skillshare premium trial membership and use it to enroll on their excellent night photography course without having to spend any cash.
This is well worth doing as the majority of people who have enrolled on the course had to pay for it but you are able to get it without having to spend a cent. In addition to this, the course has one of the best reputations amongst photographers while also having excellent reviews from previous students who have already completed it. The course only takes around an hour to complete with it being jam packed with excellent, high quality videos jam packed with entry level, and intermediate level tips to improve your night photography image quality.
In addition to this, as the membership trial lasts for two months, once you have completed the night photography course, you are then able to enroll on any of their other excellent photography courses too if you wish. This allows you to rapidly develop your skillset without having to spend a cent and is probably one of the quickest ways that you will be able to improve.
Invest In A Suitable Tripod
With the Nikon Coolpix L340 offering up to 28x optical zoom and many of the photographers who use it using these higher zoom capabilities, you should definitely be trying to add a decent, cheap tripod to your collection of camera accessories as fast as possible. Although many of our readers will probably already have a tripod in their collection of camera accessories, we know that some people do try to use higher zoom ranges on cameras while holding it in their hands.
At this level of zoom, even the slightest movement or vibration in the camera body can cause you issues ranging from blurring your image to totally changing what your camera is actually pointing at. The image stabilization offered by a tripod helps to prevent this while offering a number of other benefits too so a decent, cheap tripod like the Zomei z699c should be the next camera accessory that you look to add to your collection.
Get Yourself A Remote Trigger
As we just mentioned, if you are using the higher zoom ranges available on your Nikon Coolpix L340 for something like Astrophotography then there is a high chance that you can get some blurring in your photograph. A large number of people seem to think that this is due to the L340 being an entry level camera body but its not, this is often due to the slight vibrations in the camera body when manually pressing your camera trigger button to capture your photograph.
This is an issue with intermediate and professional level cameras when working at super zoom levels but thankfully, there is a quick, simple, and cheap fix that totally prevents this. A simple, cheap remote control for your camera body removes the requirement for you to touch it to trigger your shutter and thus, removes the vibrations and slight blur on your photographs. This is a quick and easy win to help sharpen up your image quality if you are planning to use your Nikon Coolpix L340 at its upper zoom capabilities and offers a ton of bang for your buck considering how cheap these remote controls actually are.
Take Advantage Of The Landscape
If you are planning to use your Nikon Coolpix L340 at its lower zoom ranges then you are able to take advantages of the various features around you to help enhance your photograph and add that additional layer to the image that can help it stand out. If you are in a rural area then mountains or hills with trees can work well as shown in the image above. If you are in an urban area then there are usually a number of different things that can work too such as tall buildings, statues, and bridges.
You can often blend your night photography sessions with your Nikon Coolpix L340 in with these well known landmarks in your local area to capture some pretty unique looking photographs of features that are commonly captured by other photographers. Using the night sky as a back drop, especially with the moon or bright stars behind it can help your image stand out on social media and attract clicks to you too.
Experiment With Manual Focus
Due to the poor lighting for night photography, you should really be looking to develop your manual focus skills with your Nikon Coolpix L340. This allows you to tweak your focus as required and can offer a solid improvement to your image quality but so many people, especially entry level photographers tend to ignore their manual focusing skills and focus on other aspects of photography.
Thankfully, you are able to quickly develop your manual focusing skills and you don’t need it to be nighttime to practice developing this skillset either. You can mess around with your camera and practice manually focusing in on different things at different focal lengths to get some solid practice in and you will quickly develop a feel for how best to manually tweak the focus on your Nikon Coolpix L340 for night photography.
Play Around With Your Camera Settings
The Nikon Coolpix L340 offers you some solid customization of its settings and although there are a number of different benchmarks available online that you can use for some starting settings for your camera for night photography, you should always tweak them. Different locations have different lighting and different focal lengths will need different settings so blindly sticking to some settings you found online for your Nikon Coolpix L340 night photography is a mistake in our opinion.
Plan Your Night Photography Session
Our final tip to help you improve your Nikon Coolpix L340 night photography is to actually plan your session and so many photographers make this mistake. Ideally, you will be wanting to checking the weather, particularly cloud cover, wind, and rain as they affect your visibility, check the cloud cover as they can affect lighting and any potential for some astrophotography, check the visible stars in your location, the phase of the moon, and anything else that you may need.
This helps to reduce the chance of you getting to your location only to find that it is raining with low cloud and that the moon is at its quarter moon phase when you were hoping for some full moon photographs. Little things like this can end up saving you a ton of time and effort and you are usually able to quickly get this information from Google or the different smartphone apps that can be set up to quickly inform you of the conditions.
