Today’s post comes from extraordinary surf and landscape photographer Chris Burkard, who was recently featured by Smugmag’s short film, Arctic Swell. Chris has made it his life’s work to find wild, remote destinations and then capture the juxtaposition of humans in these environments. The world is an oftentimes harsh, humbling, and magical place, and Chris wants to photograph it all.

He shares his essential night landscape tips below. You can browse his portfolio and print store on his site.

It’s hard to beat the enchanting feeling of star gazing at a clear night sky. You soon become lost in its beauty like a giant kaleidoscope full of shooting stars, planets, and glow from the setting sun or nearby cities. I’ve traveled to countless countries over the past ten years and some of my fondest memories occur long after the sun has set. Whether it’s camping near my home in Big Sur or witnessing a rare northern lights show in the Arctic, I’ve had the privilege and challenge of documenting these night landscapes.

Shooting landscapes during the night can make for a stunning photo. Our eyes can see the night sky in great sensitivity – we can look at the stars and even see the Milky Way if the conditions are right. DSLR cameras, however, have even greater abilities than our eyes and can produce night photos with fantastic details of the night sky. These photos can be achieved by using the advantages of DSLR cameras like high ISO capabilities, fast aperture lenses and long exposures. But shooting night landscapes does not come without its challenges – noise and shallow depth of field (DOF) issues.

Shooting landscapes in during the day has an huge advantage when it comes to exposure settings. Low ISO means high quality, low noise and high dynamic range photos. Small aperture settings gain us large DOF, and the shutter can be set to almost any speed we want creating short or long exposures. When shooting at night, we have less control over the settings and some are almost pre-determined to allow enough light to reach the sensor.