Guide · Free

Shoot pandals at night with your phone

Pandals are made for night: thousands of lights, glowing idols, smoke from the dhunuchi. They're also hard to photograph, with bright spots, dark corners and people pushing behind you. These tips work on any recent Android or iPhone.

Before you leave home

• Wipe the lens. A fingerprint turns every light into a smeared star. Use your T-shirt or a spectacle cloth.
• Charge fully and carry a power bank. Night mode and video drain the battery fast.
• Clear space. Delete old videos so the phone doesn't stop you mid-shot.
• Turn on gridlines in camera settings. They help keep pandal pillars straight.

The idol (the photo everyone wants)

1. Tap on Maa's face, then slide the brightness down until the face isn't white and you can see the eyes and the jewellery. Phones overexpose bright idols; lowering exposure fixes it.
2. Turn off the flash. It flattens the idol and the decoration, and many pandals don't allow it.
3. Use the 2× lens (or step back and zoom a little). Faces look more natural than with the wide lens, which stretches the edges.
4. Hold your breath and press gently. Brace your elbows against your chest or rest the phone on a barricade.

The whole pandal

• Go wide, go low. Crouch a little and use the 0.5× lens to make the gate look grand.
• Wait for a gap. Crowds move in waves. Count to ten and there's usually a clean moment.
• Keep verticals straight. Line up a pillar with a gridline; tilted pandals look odd.

Lights and night mode

• Let Night mode do its work on still scenes like lighting tunnels, empty lanes and the pandal from across the road. Keep the phone dead still for the 1–3 seconds it asks for.
• For moving people, turn night mode off; it blurs them. Use the normal photo mode and lower the exposure a little.
• Point at the lights and let the background go dark. A slightly darker photo with rich colour looks far better than a bright, grey one.

Dhunuchi smoke and arati

• Shoot video at 60 fps or use slow motion; arati is about movement.
• For a photo, use burst mode (hold the shutter) and pick the frame where the smoke curls nicely.
• Stand with the lights behind the dancer so the smoke glows.

Portraits in front of the pandal

• Use Portrait mode and stand your friend 2–3 metres in front of the pandal; the lights turn into soft bokeh.
• Use a street lamp or a stall light on their face, from the side, not from behind.
• Take three: one smiling, one candid, one looking at the idol. The candid one usually wins.

Etiquette

Don't block the queue, don't stand on barricades, and lower your phone during anjali and arati if the committee asks. And always ask before photographing someone's face up close.