Photography Minded

Taking great pictures in low light sounds harder than it really is. In this tutorial we will cover the basics of low light photography. You will find that many of the same rules as those for taking great HDR portraits apply here as well! So, grab your camera, pop in a memory card, and get ready to learn exactly how to deal with low light situations.

Matthew Martin, originally uploaded by Daniel Hellerman.

There are many great ways to get low light photographs, below are some of the he basic rules for great low light photography:

USE A TRIPOD, or GET CLOSE TO YOUR SUBJECT. These are extremely important rules to follow if you want your picture to come out clearly. For the photo above I was perhaps a foot or two away from his face. Don’t be afraid to get close, or you will end up with blurry photos.

Use a higher ISO. Sure ISO 80 looks great on the shot above, but it was a bad idea to use it. By using a higher ISO (some cameras can hit ISO 1600 quite easily) your camera is much more sensitive to light allowing for shorter exposure times to avoid a blurry capture. I am not saying to crank your camera all the way to ISO 1600, but using an ISO above 400 would definitely have helped in this situation.

Use a remote shutter release. They are usually not to expensive, I would recommend the wired one especially for low light situations. The reason for this is twofold, one is that you don’t screw up your perfectly framed shot by moving the tripod, and the second is to keep the camera from shaking. If you are in low lighting, the vibrations from your finger hitting the shutter can cause blur in your photographs.

If you are shooting relatively closely get a good low light lens. Any lens like a 50mm f1.8 will do. You really want to get a lens with a low F/Stop. The lower the number the wider the aperture letting in more light. 50mm prime lenses with a low F/Stop are excellent for portrait and low light situations. If you plan on being further back, do some research into a 24-70mm 2.8 style lenses. There are many great low light lenses out there to choose from, so do the research for your particular camera and model.

Hope these tips help, as usual you can post any questions in the comment box and I will address them here. Keep shooting!