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The bane of most photographers’ existence is the dreaded 'low-light photography'. This simple-sounding little thing turns out to be one of the biggest headaches! However, nighttime and indoor photography with low light sources can yield some beautiful imagery, so low light shouldn't stop you from taking those images.

What you see with your eyes often has a difficult time translating into the camera’s sensor. Which means that you will need to help your camera out in every way possible - with clever ISO/shutter speed combinations, low f-stops (apertures), stabilization, and a little bit of Photoshop magic! Of course, you can always use a flash or an external light source, but this article is meant for situations in which these lighting mechanisms are unavailable.

 

Essentially, the key to effective low-light photography is owning equipment that can support it. What I mean by this is, cameras and lenses that are sensitive enough to be able to capture operative images in these situations. Your average, run-of-the-mill camera will probably spend a good chunk of time going in and out of focus because the machine simply cannot find the subject. You can, of course, switch to manual focus… but even then it may be difficult to tell if you truly caught the subject in perfect focus. The best solution to this is to buy a lens that has low f-stop capabilities. Remember, the smaller the aperture, the more light the camera lets in. F-stops of 2.8 and lower are ideal! F-stops of 4 are passable, anything higher may cause issue. Also, when purchasing lenses make sure they have IS, or ‘image stabilization’. This allows the lens to reduce camera shake (as we are human and cannot always keep our arms perfectly steady).

 

In addition to the lens you are using, your camera body can affect the quality of nighttime photography as well. Some cameras are ‘better’ at higher ISO levels than others. What is meant by ‘better’ is that, high-end cameras can go to a higher ISO level than a mid-level camera, and their noise is significantly lower. Thanks to advancements in technology, you can actually get pretty good ISO quality from some fairly inexpensive cameras! However, this is something you need to research before investing. Take a look at sample images from each camera at different settings, and compare them to one another to determine which one fits your own personal style and preference.

 

Now that you have your equipment sorted, you will need to focus on your ISO and shutter speed relations. Remember, the higher the ISO the lighter your image, but the noisier it gets. The higher the shutter speed, the more the action is frozen, but the darker the image becomes. Through my experience of concert photography, the easiest solution is setting the camera to burst mode, raising your ISO to as high as you can with average noise, and setting your shutter speed as fast as possible without the frame being too dark. Then- just keep shooting away! If you have a tripod or monopod available to hold your camera steady, you can afford to go to a lower shutter speed and lower ISO level. Just remember to make sure the camera is perfectly steady.

 

Next is minimizing noise. Fundamentally, the noise you see in low-light photography is the camera trying to fill in gaps of information that are missing. A lot of the specks are odd colors and distracting. If an image has too much noise for your taste, run the image through a photo editing program, such as Adobe Photoshop, and tweak it with the noise reduction filters and tools. There is no correct way of doing this- it just depends on your personal tastes. I often reduce noise severely and then bring details back into the image by manually sharpening parts using a high-pass filter! If you want to tweak your exposure and make it lighter, by using the curves tool, for example, it is recommended that you do this before reducing the noise.

Once you get the hang of shooting low-light photography, upload them to an online photography storefront provider, such as Instaproofs, so that your clients can view and order these beautiful indoor and nighttime memories!