How to Photograph a Glowing Tent under a Starlit Sky

It’s one of those iconic images that makes your camping trip look like an epic experience of a lifetime. In this segment of AdoramaTV’s “Getting the Shot,” Corey Rich takes the mystery out of how to capture your own glowing tent photo. From gear to technique, this video goes over all the basics to have you prepared for your next adventure.

As explained by Corey, there are three key steps to creating a strong nighttime image with a lit up tent:

1. Scout a good location for your composition in the day time. Find a spot early and set up your tent in a location that will allow enough night sky to be seen in your frame for a strong impact.
2. Set up your light source inside the tent. Either strobes or continuous lighting will work. Corey is using a Litepanels 1x1 Bicolor Astra set at a low output with a diffusion panel to dampen the light even further. Remember that your exposure is balancing the dim light from the stars along with your tent in the same shot. Very little strobe power is needed to make your tent glow in relation to the stars.
3. Use a tripod to anchor your camera in a fixed position. If you do not have a shutter release cable, try using the self-timer setting on your camera to avoid camera shake from pressing the shutter button. Corey recommends a 2 second timer, but I would extend that delay if you are using a larger sensor camera such as a Nikon D810, Sony a7R, or medium format.

For his shot, Corey is using a Nikon D4s with a Nikon 24mm f/1.4G lens. In order for the stars to show up in his image, he is setting his exposure for 30 seconds at ISO 800 with the lens wide open. While the frame is being exposed, you can also do a little foreground light painting such as how Corey does with his headlamp to lighten the rocks around his tent.

If you have your own glowing tent photo, share it in the comments along with your own technique.