Low light photography – when the ambient light decreased, probably your action is using the photo flash. Unfortunately, using flash in certain condition frequently ruins the mood of the photo, and probably also ruins the emotional power of the photograph.

For example, when you capture your kid’s birthday in a dusky light mood when she is wishing something and blowing the candles, using the flash will just ruin the mood. You can do some experiments using the natural light to capture the original and natural mood of certain conditions. In some museum the use of flash is prohibited, and you must use the ambient light to capture the objects. See also night photography – another low light tip. The following will discuss the low light photography technique.

In the above low light photography work, it is a photograph of a cave (which has been managed commercially as a tourism place in east Java) and the chamber is illuminated by low artificial warmth color lights to present the light as if it were an old torch light. A tripod was used to capture this condition with the aperture f/14, ISO 400, -1/3 EV compensation with aperture priority and get 6 seconds shutter speed, long enough for the risk of the camera shake.

In low light photography, be aware of seeing the LCD display which seems brighter in dark conditions; review the result by reading the histogram display from the camera LCD to see how the distribution of the tone is spread.

Silhouette in Low Light Photography

Low light photography can produce a Silhouette. Silhouette is the dark shape and outline of someone or something visible against a lighter background, especially in a dim light. Silhouette photo is fascinating for mostly photographers by positioning the subjects in sunset or sunrise atmosphere.

There are two main points you need to pay attention to in low light photography to produce silhouette photo. Firstly, set the camera to manual mode; aperture priority or shutter priority. And set the metering mode to spot metering. If you set the metering to multi segment mode, this will increase the exposure that will show the detail of your subject which you would like to present it in silhouette photo. You can do a metering at the brighter tone such as the sky at the horizon and compensate up to +1EV from the mid-tone to increase the brightness. Secondly, you need to position the subject in an artistic look. You can apply the rule of thirds for example or whatever your style is as long as it can show the subject in a firm silhouette photo. See also photography exposure techniques.

In the above example of low light photography, the camera was set to spot metering with ISO speed of 160 and aperture f/13 which still could provide me 1/80 seconds shutter speed. To yield a deep blue saturation I used ‘clear’ user defined picture style for Canon which is commonly used in clear day when the sun is shining clearly. Beside saturation addition to the blue sky, the ‘Clear’ picture style can make the subject darker in a firm silhouette. ‘Clear’ is not the default picture style in Canon, you can upgrade the ‘firmware’ by downloading the files from this link to add 5 more picture styles.

Click this link to download the picture styles upgrade. See also digital white balance.

Slow Sync

A common situation in using flash in low light photography is underexposure for the background and only the subject shown with the flat lighting. The result is sometimes unsatisfactory in certain situations. However, if you select ‘slow sync’ mode, the result would be different. In slow sync mode, the camera sensor keeps recording the ambient light exposure including the blur movement, and capture the moment when the flash fires. Some flash can have a slower speed than its ‘sync’ speed (approximately 1/60 seconds), while the other flash needs a manual setting to get ‘slow sync’. Refer to your flash manual book to recognize its characteristic. See also photography flash – the guide number.

Some modern digital cameras include the ability to fire the flash just before the closing of the shutter, so that moving objects will show a streak where they came from and a sharp image where they were at the end of the exposure, useful for moving objects to convey a sense of speed. This mode is called either rear-curtain sync or 2nd-curtain sync. You need to combine this rear curtain sync with slow sync; the blurred image resulted from the slow shutter speed will show series of movement behind the sharp image frozen by the flash. If you don’t combine it, the subject will seem to move backward.

Candle Light

Low light photography in a candle light is also impressive. The light from the candle will produce a soft and warmth color which is harmonious color suitable for the portrait. When you photograph someone with the candle light; make sure you include the candle light within the photo frame. If not, the image impression will be different. The viewers will probably think that you made mistake with the white balance and picture style selection. To photograph with the candle light, increase the ISO up to 800 0r 1600; and open the aperture as wide as possible to get a fast shutter speed. The other thing you should use is a tripod which will support the camera to avoid the camera shake due to long exposure. See also how to trick the camera exposure. What about the metering?

Candle light in low light photography – the rule is that the camera will tend to increase the exposure for the large dark area, therefore you need to compensate the exposure lower than the mid-tone. The best way is to use spot metering which weighted around 4 % at the center of the frame if your main object is at the center of the frame. Get closer to the subject and do the metering on the close-up face. Arrange the candle in such away to avoid the shadow distraction. Make appropriate exposure adjustment depends on the subject skin tone. If the skin-tone is bright white increase the exposure and decrease it if the skin tone is dark. You know why? For the bright skin-tone the camera will automatically increase the exposure and you need to compensate the exposure by decreasing it. As a contrary for the dark skin tone, the camera will automatically increase the exposure. See also photography background issue to learn more about exposure.

On the above photo, spot metering was used on the face, no compensation needed. Because the face skin tone is not white bright tone or dark tone, so I decided to use mid-tone. Beside the skin tone, the candle light is in the marble bowl which also reflects the lights and creates a tone balance with the dark area. ISO setting is 1600 and aperture is f/22 using aperture priority to get 2 seconds shutter speed. I did not use open lens (wide aperture) to expect a soft candle light with longer exposure. You can do some experiment using different aperture especially small aperture to find different lighting effects to the candle light.

Suggested readings:

• Composition photography techniques
• Photography lighting techniques
• Photography coloring techniques
• Photo light – how to increase the quality