![]() ![]() ![]() The lower the f-number, the more light will pass through your lens. Selecting a bigger aperture is better than increasing ISO as high ISO can introduce noise into your photographs, disrupt color accuracy, and affect the overall quality of the image.Ĭhanging aperture is often a better choice than selecting a slower shutter speed as you might want to avoid motion blur, either from not being able to hold the camera steadily enough, or from subjects moving within your frame.Ĭhanging your aperture from f/5.6 to f/4 is an increase of one whole stop, and effectively doubles the amount of light that hits your sensor. For most, the first thing to change is the aperture. When shooting in low light, photographers tend to have a preference over which settings to change first. This setting is often buried in the menu so you might need to do some Googling specific to your camera to find out how to do this.Īs discussed below, you can sometimes avoid camera shake by using a tripod or stabilization, but any subjects moving within your scene - traffic, water, people, animals - might become blurred.įor more information on shutter speed, you can also check out this article. To make sure that your shutter speed doesn’t drop too low, you can choose to use your camera’s Shutter Priority mode.Īlternatively, see if you can tell your camera to use a minimum shutter speed. As a result, if you’re shooting on a 35mm lens, you can typically handhold successfully with a slow shutter of 1/30th of a second - but no slower. ![]() The shorter the lens, the less movement there is relative to the scene. This is where your shutter speed should at least match the focal length of your lens (or thereabouts).įor example, to get images free of motion blur when shooting on a 200mm lens, you should not let your shutter speed go any slower than 1/200th of a second. When shooting handheld, it can be useful to remember what’s called the reciprocal rule. This presents a number of problems when shooting in low light, the foremost being camera shake.Īt certain shutter speeds, it becomes impossible to hold your camera still enough while the shutter is open, and this can cause your entire image to become blurry - not because the image is out of focus, but because the camera itself is moving too much and causing motion blur. Longer/slower shutter speeds mean that movement in your scene starts to become blurred. Learn how your shutter speed can affect your photographsĬhanging the shutter speed on your camera will set the amount of time that your camera’s sensor is gathering light. ![]() If you’re not sure how to understand your histogram, check out this excellent article. One of the advantages of shooting with a mirrorless model is that you can set your camera to show a live histogram, allowing you to dial in your exposure even before you’ve taken a shot. Now let’s have a closer look at how to improve your low light photography.Įvery DSLR and mirrorless camera - and lots of others too - will allow you to view a histogram for any photograph that you have taken, and this graphical interpretation of the blacks, shadows, midtones, highlights, and whites will allow you to understand very accurately if your shot is correctly exposed.īasing your judgement on what you see on the LCD on the back of your camera can be deceptive, as the screen can make a photograph seem much brighter than it actually is, and this becomes exaggerated during low light photography.Ī shot that clearly looks underexposed when you view your LCD in bright light might look like a good exposure when you’re in a dark environment. Indoors – You may have switched on all of your lights and opened the blinds, but interior spaces can remain very dark.Standing in shadow – It might seem a bright day but stepping into an area with a lot of shade - perhaps under the canopy of a forest - can make for dark shooting conditions.After sunset – Even before night arrives, once the sun dips over the horizon, the amount of light plummets.As our eyes are smarter than our cameras, what you see is not always an accurate indication of light levels and it might be much darker than you realise. Low light situations are varied and probably more common than you might think. There’s no strict definition of what is considered low light photography, but as a general idea, any situation where you’re starting to drop to a slower shutter - or perhaps your ISO is starting to creep up - probably falls into this category.Ĭameras work well in bright daylight and dealing with interiors, dark shadows, or shooting after the sun has dropped will require you to make intelligent compromises to get the best results. ![]()
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