How to shoot a double exposure in-camera on your Nikon DSLR

In the digital age, shooting an in-camera double exposure doesn’t have to be a cumbersome affair. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to set up a Nikon DSLR to shoot double exposures in-camera.

Back in the days of film, creating a double exposure was a hit-and-miss affair. You’d take two shots on one frame (depending on the camera, you might have to rewind the film to expose it a second time), and you wouldn’t know if it had worked until the film was developed.

These days, all you need is a DSLR that can blend multiple exposures in-camera (note that some entry- and mid-level Nikon D-SLRs, including the D3300 and D5500, don’t feature a Multiple exposure mode, but you can always shoot two frames and then merge them in Photoshop.

Simply copy (Ctrl+C) and paste (Ctrl+V) one shot onto another, and experiment with the blending mode drop-down menu at the top of the Layers panel).

To keep it simple we’re creating a double-exposure self-portrait here, but we wouldn’t recommend doing this alone. Get a helper to pose for  you, or position the lights while you pose.

Try to keep images clean, too – brush back flyaway hairs, and have the skin of your face broadly lit and  on show. This will help them blend together seamlessly.

SEE MORE: Double exposure portraits: a simple tutorial for making surrealist images

How to set up your in-camera double exposure

01 Deep background
Use dark fabric that will soak up the light. You don’t want any stray reflections – as the images are being merged in-camera you won’t have a chance to retouch them beforehand. You can pick up a suitable piece of material quite cheaply from a fabric or hobby shop.

SEE MORE: How to set up your Canon DSLR to shoot double exposures in-camera

02 Fast and wide
Your settings will vary depending on your set-up. We used a 50mm lens and two continuous lights. To keep the ISO at 100 for a noise-free image we opened up the lens to f/2, and we used a relatively fast shutter speed of 1/160 sec.

SEE MORE
Double Exposure Photography: when and why you should turn two images into one

03 Double take
To turn on this feature go into your camera menu, then head to the ‘shooting menu’ tab, and select Multiple exposure mode. Choose the number of shots – two in this case, but you can use this mode to capture several exposures if you want. See your manual for more details.

SEE MORE: Double Exposure: a seriously simple method of combining images in-camera

04 Remote control
Mount your DSLR on a tripod, and either use the self-timer setting to give yourself or your subject time to prepare for each shot, or, if you want to time the shots precisely, use a remote shutter release as we’re doing here.

SEE MORE: 3 photos made easier by a tripod and remote release

05 Light and shade
Use a lighting style that creates distinctive light and shade. Strong side-lighting is effective, with or without a reflector to bounce some light into the shaded side; just be sure to use a rimlight to separate your model from the background.

06 Shadow play
When we used both the key light (on the face) and the rimlight (behind the head), the face was too bright and the two photos didn’t merge well. So we activated just one light for each shot, which worked well – the faces merged in the shadows.

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