Iso for dark room

Take Great Pictures Without a Flash – Posterjack

It’s not always desirable to use a camera’s built-in flash, as doing so can create images that appear flat, unnatural, overexposed, and contain harsh and unwanted shadows. With that being said, photographing in low light situations without a flash can be a challenge if you don’t know what you’re doing and can result in photos that are too dark, blurry, or grainy. Lucky for you, there are several things you can do in order to get excellent shots in low light situations without the need for your camera’s flash.

1. Increase ISO Settings

Adjusting the ISO on your digital camera will determine how sensitive your camera’s image sensor is to light. For example, if you increase the ISO to 400 or 800, you will allow more light to reach the camera’s sensor than if the settings were at ISO 100 or 200. So then, why not have higher ISO settings all the time? A lower ISO will produce sharper images, and the higher the ISO, the more image noise (grain) will be present. For low light photography, try setting your ISO to 800 and adjust accordingly.

If you end up capturing a photo you love but it includes a lot of image noise, all is not lost! Try printing it on a product that has a unique and artistic feel to it, like a Wood Print or a Classic Silver Metal Print. Because your photo is printed directly onto the wood or brushed aluminum, the raw material your photo is printed on will show through in areas where the image includes white or low saturation, helping to soften the imperfections in the photo.

Related: How to Print Low Resolution Photos and Get Results You Love!

2. Use Slower Shutter Speeds

A longer exposure time will allow more light in. However, in order to get a crisp, clear photo in low light using a slow shutter speed and no flash, it is crucial you keep your camera as still as possible. Any sort of movement will result in blurry images, so be sure to follow tip #4 if you plan to use slower shutter speeds.

3. Adjust the Aperture

While ISO determines the speed of which light reaches your camera’s image sensor, the aperture determines how much light it allows in – because if this, a wide aperture (small f-stop number) can also help you capture decent low light photographs without the use of a flash.

4. Reduce Camera Shake

When dealing with slow shutter speeds, in order to get sharp photos in low light situations, it is imperative to eliminate camera shake entirely. You can do this by using a tripod and either setting your camera’s timer or using a shutter release cable. You can also eliminate camera shake by using your camera’s built-in stabilization features. Depending on your camera, this option may be found on the camera body or the camera lens. What brand of camera you use will also determine what the image stabilization features are called: Nikon is Vibration Reduction (VR), Canon is Image Stabilization (IS), Sony is SteadyShot INSIDE, and so on.

5. Use Other Light Sources

Low light photography doesn’t mean no light photography. To get as sharp of an image as possible without the use of a flash, try to incorporate as much light as you can. If your subject isn’t stationary, position it near the light source or, if possible, move the light towards your subject. Do not, however, position the light behind your subject if it’s the only source of light unless your goal is to create a silhouette.

6. Use a Faster Lens

If you’re shooting with a DSLR camera and are considering purchasing a new lens to help accommodate your low light photography, you’ll want to buy a fast lens. A fast lens is that which has a wide aperture—typically f/1.4, f/1.8, or f/2.8—and is great for low light photography because it enables the camera to take in more light. A wider aperture also allows for a faster shutter speed, resulting in minimal camera shake and sharper images.

7. Adjust the White Balance

Shooting in low light conditions can result in your photographs looking washed out, or lacking in detail and colour. By customizing your digital camera’s white balance, you’re essentially telling your camera what white should look like in your image, so the camera can adjust accordingly to try to capture colours as accurately as possible. To prevent your images from having a yellow, orange, or blue shade to them, adjust the white balance to coordinate with the type of light you’re using.

8. Shoot in B&W

If you want to get great low light images without a flash but you really don’t feel like messing around with your camera’s white balance, you can capture your photos in black and white, which will do away with poor colour issues all together.

9. Shoot in RAW

Of course, shooting in RAW will create higher quality, sharper images than shooting in JPEG format, so if you can shoot in RAW, do it. Also, you’ll have more post-processing options if you shoot in RAW.

Related: The Ultimate Guide to Photo Enlargements

10. Post-Processing

Using photo editing software can help enhance your low light photography, but don’t expect miracles. You can post-process your images to reduce image noise caused from shooting with a high ISO, to convert to B&W, to adjust the contrast, brightness, shadows, highlights, sharpness, etc. Just keep in mind that if it’s a bad photo to begin with, you’re not going to be able to edit it to be something amazing.

11. Experiment and Practise

Unless you’re some sort of prodigy, you’re not likely to master low light photography immediately. Like anything, to become great at something, you need to experiment and practise. Start by shooting non-moving subjects (to reduce your chances of getting blurry images) and take all of the photography tips listed above into consideration. If something doesn’t work for you, try again with different camera settings. With a lot of practise and experimenting, you should become fairly comfortable shooting low light photos and will have crisp, clear shots—without the use of a flash—in no time.

Let’s See Your Low-Light Photos!

We would love to see how you’re working your low-light photography skills. Feel free to share your photos with us on Facebook or Instagram! If you’ve already turned your photos into Posterjack art, sharing your photos can win you $150 in free prints every month!

Still trying to decide how you’d like to print your photo? You can see a summary of all our photo art product here, or check out some of the following blog post to help make your decision.

Matte vs. Glossy: Deciding Which is Best for Your Pictures
HD Metal Prints vs. Canvas Prints
Metal Prints vs. Acrylic Prints
What is An Acrylic Print
7 Creative Ways to Include Canvas Prints in Your Decor
Better Than Vinyl: Personalized Your Space With Peel & Stick Prints

As always, we’re more than happy to answer any questions you have. Please feel free to get in touch with our amazing support team!

The Best Camera Settings For Low Light Photography

The amazing thing about your camera is that it can literally see in the dark. Your camera can capture things in low light situations that you wouldn’t think were possible. When you find yourself shooting in a dimly lit situation, that doesn’t mean it’s time to pack up the camera. It means that it’s time to take a new approach to your camera settings! With the right settings for low light photography, you’ll be able to capture beautiful photos no matter how dark your scene is.

The Best Camera Settings For Low Light Photography Are:

Mode: Manual
Shutter: 1″ – 1/60
ISO: 1200 – 1800
Aperture: F/2.8 or wider
Focus: Manual Focus (MF)
White Balance: AWB
Drive Mode: Single Shot
Image Type: RAW
Tripod: Yes

Now let’s break down the reasoning behind these camera settings to help you get better exposed photos in low light conditions.

What Is Considered As “Low Light” Photography?

Low light photography is considered as any type of situation that has a lack of available light. This could be while outside right after sunset or in a room with only one light source. Low light environments are where you can see a small amount of detail with your eyes, but aren’t yet completely dark.

Whatever the situation, low light photography offers a unique set of challenges with camera settings. This style of photography often requires a wider aperture, a slower shutter speed, and a higher ISO setting.

Since you need to let exponentially more light into the camera compared to mid-day, it can be tricky to get the settings you want. Especially when taking pictures of movement, getting a fast enough shutter speed is difficult. To help your camera out, you need to alter your settings to let as much light in as possible. For example, if you needed a faster shutter speed, you could compensate by increasing your ISO and opening the aperture.

Although more challenging, the types of photos you can capture in low light are always worth the effort. There’s a totally different feel to low light photos that you can’t capture in any other lighting conditions. With a solid understanding of the right camera settings to use, you’ll never be limited by the times of day you can shoot!

Breaking Down The Best Camera Settings For Low Light Photography

If you’re a beginner photographer, your first reaction when shooting in low light might be to use a flash. Whether that be the one built into your camera or an external flash, it seems like a reasonable option to brighten your scene. The problem with a flash is that it can wash out and completely change the look of your photos. To make things look as natural as possible, you can use the right camera settings and never need to rely on a flash again! Let’s break down each of your three exposure settings and how they play a role in low light photos.

Best Aperture (F-stop)

The aperture is one of the most important exposure settings for low light photography. Since it only changes the depth of field, it’s ideal to use your aperture as your main attack against low light conditions. Unlike ISO, which increases noise and shutter speed, which can produce motion blur, your apertures effects aren’t as detrimental. That’s why it’s the first exposure setting to adjust when shooting in low light.

Although I’ve talked about this setting extensively in my guide to aperture settings, let’s go over a bit of a review. The aperture is a small donut-shaped hole inside your lens that becomes wider or smaller, depending on your f-stop (aperture) setting. As the aperture changes diameter, it also affects how much of your photo can be in focus at once. This is known as depth of field. With a wide-open aperture, you will get a shallow depth of field that will limit how much is in focus. When you want to blur your photo’s background, this is the easiest way to do it.

For low light photography, the wider the aperture, the better. After all, it’s creating more space for light to pass through your lens. Although every lens will have a different aperture range, an optimal aperture to use in low light is F/2.8. With this wide of an aperture, you can let in twice the amount of light compared to F/5.6. Whether you’re shooting a dimly lit scene or in complete darkness, F/2.8 will get the job done for you.

Now it’s important to note that F/2.8 is a very wide aperture, which, in turn, means there’s a shallow depth of field. When you’re shooting in low light conditions, you don’t always have the luxury of having the perfect depth of field for your photo. Since you need to brighten your exposure by any means necessary, this is your best option to do it. Luckily, if you’re shooting a wide-angle shot, you likely won’t notice much of a difference in the focus.

– Is F/2.8 Fast Enough For Low Light Photography?

Although there are many lenses much faster than F/2.8, it’s still perfectly suitable for low light photography. With the help of a higher ISO and a slightly slower shutter speed, you can still capture plenty of fantastic low light images at F/2. 8.

To give you some examples, my main lens is the Canon 24-70mm F/2.8. I’ve used this lens in countless low light scenarios and never had a problem with aperture. Below are a couple images I’ve taken at F/2.8 in a variety of situations.

Although having the extra few stops of light with F/1.8 or F/1.4 is nice, it’s not totally necessary. You can still capture fantastic low light photos with F/2.8.

Best ISO Setting

The next setting you have to combat low light is your ISO setting. In a nutshell, this setting increases your sensor’s sensitivity to incoming light. With more sensitivity comes a bright photo.

At first glance, ISO seems like the best camera setting ever created. Unfortunately, there is a crucial drawback that should make you think twice before cranking your ISO. This drawback comes in the form of grain.

Looking closely at this image, you can see the heavy amounts of grain from a high ISO.

Grain looks like static that’s built into your photo. It can look distracting and make small details harder to differentiate. As you increase your ISO setting, the grain will become more and more noticeable. That’s why you don’t want to just max out your ISO setting and call it a day while shooting in low light. There’s a little more thought required than that.

For most situations, I find using an ISO between 1200 and 1800 is suitable for many low light situations. On most cameras, the grain levels at this range are still acceptable and don’t distract from your image too much. However, depending on your camera, you may be able to use much higher ISO ranges than this without worry. My suggestion is to be used as more of a broad suggestion for any level of a photographer with any camera.

If you’re ever curious about how much grain your particular camera captures at varying ISO ranges, take a series of photos with your lens cap on. As you increase the ISO, you’ll start to see more and more grain until it eventually discolors the black of your photo.

– How To Shoot In Low Light Without Grain

If grain is a big worry of yours, you can use a wider aperture and a slow shutter speed to compensate for a lower ISO. Although you may have a harder time freezing motion, it’s a worthwhile option if your subject stays still.

Especially in extremely low-light situations or even night time, it’s not uncommon to encounter a bit of grain at the very least. It’s not the end of the world, and it won’t ruin your photo in small amounts. If you feel concerned about the amount of grain in a certain photo, you can always use noise reduction in Lightroom or Photoshop!

Best Shutter Speed For Low Light

Finally comes the shutter speed. As I talked about in my shutter speed for beginners post, shutter speed controls how motion is captured. Since it is in charge of how long your sensor is exposed to light, it also will determine whether an object is blurred or frozen in motion.

For example, if you were to photograph a speeding car with a slow shutter speed of 1″ (second), it would appear blurry. Since the car moved positions during the time your shutter was open, the car creates a streak in the photo.

If you took the same situation and used a faster shutter speed such as 1/2000, the car would be frozen in time with all its details perfectly sharp. This is because your sensor was exposed to light for a shorter period of time, giving less time for the object to move across the frame.

Now when you’re shooting in low light, you’re never going to be able to use a shutter speed of 1/2000. Since the shutter would open and close within 1/2000 of a second, there needs to be a lot of light to properly expose the photo. In low light, there’s an insufficient amount of light, which means your camera needs more time for light to hit the sensor.

That’s why a good shutter speed setting to start with should be between 1″ and 1/60. Although a relatively broad range, this gives you the option to get a good exposure even in low light environments. The shutter speed you choose will all depend on what you’re trying to photograph.

If your subject is moving, you’ll need to use a faster shutter speed. If your subject is still, like a mountain, for example, then it doesn’t matter how long your shutter is open for. Since the subject never moves, you could use a shutter as slow as 30″ without a problem.

Why Shoot In Raw?

Without question, RAW is the best image file type to use in low light photography. Since you’ll have extremely dark shadows, shooting in RAW gives you the flexibility to adjust things later in post.

A RAW file has far more dynamic range than a JPEG file, which helps it hold more color and exposure information. While working in your editing software of choice, you can push a RAW file much further without losing quality. From exposure adjustments, contrast, or color, you can completely transform a RAW file, and it will still look as crisp as it did in-camera.

Since you can push these files so much further with photo editing, it’s the best choice in low light. Odds are that your exposure will look a little bit dark while shooting in low light environments. However, after using a few basic image adjustments, you can correct your exposure with ease. Although it shouldn’t be relied on to “fix” your photo, it can definitely help solve any problem areas that appear too dark.

If you’re using a JPEG file for low light photography, you can still capture reasonable images, but you won’t have the ability to edit them as much. Since a JPEG file is more compressed with less information, a photo editing software won’t be able to nicely lift your shadows.

If you’re new to using RAW files, it’s important to note that this file type will need to be converted to JPEG before you can share it anywhere. Most websites and social media platforms don’t recognize RAW files as a valid format, which is why everything needs to get converted. Even though that sounds complicated, this is just a part of the photo editing process. Luckily it can be done in seconds no matter what kind of editing software you use.

Check out my guides on how to edit photos in Lightroom or Photoshop to get started!

Do You Need A Tripod For Low Light Photography?

Whenever you’re taking pictures in low light, having a tripod is going to be very helpful. Even though it’s not always necessary, it’s worth having with you just in case. Since you’ll be using slower shutter speeds, it’s possible that you start to use a shutter speed that too slow to use while shooting handheld. Believe it or not, no matter how still you think you’re being, the small micro-movements of your hands can translate into blurry photos. To prevent this, a tripod will keep your camera perfectly still.

As a general rule of thumb, any shutter speed slower than 1/60 will require a tripod. That means if you use a shutter speed like 1/5, you’ll need a tripod to capture a sharp photo. With the ability to keep your camera perfectly still, using a tripod makes shooting in low light incredibly easy. Rather than fussing around with your camera settings so that you can shoot handheld, just using a tripod and set any shutter speed you want. Whether it be 1/5 or 4 minutes, you’ll still get a crisp, well-exposed photo!

If you have yet to get a tripod, I share a list of my top picks on my recommended gear page!

How To Take Low Light Photos Without A Flash

Especially when you’re taking pictures of people, it can be hard to illuminate them well in a low light setting. That’s why many photographers will opt for a flash, but it’s not always necessary. By using a few simple techniques, you can better light your subjects with totally natural lighting!

– Place Your Subject Near A Light Source

One of the biggest challenges of low light photography is portraits. Since there’s already a severe lack of light, it makes it that much harder to illuminate your subject’s face. Luckily you can work around this in most situations by placing them near a light source. The light source could be anything from a street light, car headlights, a phone screen, or whatever else you can think of. By better orienting your subject towards a light, you can work with the small amount of light available to make them easier to see.

The advantage of using a natural light source is that you can use faster shutter speeds while shooting. Rather than struggling to see enough detail in your subject, the extra light helps to brighten things up. No fancy camera setting adjustments necessary!

With that said, you might be in a situation where there isn’t any available light nearby. For example, if you were on a hike and the sun had just finished setting. Even during blue hour (the time after sunset), there’s a fair amount of light left on the horizon. By making your subject face towards the brighter part of the sky, it will help to cast a little more light on their face. This is a simple trick you can use to help your exposure without the need for a flash.

– Adjust Your Camera Settings To Brighten The Exposure

If you’re not photographing people, then the shutter speed you use isn’t as important of a consideration. For this example, let’s say you want to take a picture of a mountain at dusk or the interior of a poorly lit room. In both these scenarios, the subject isn’t moving. Nothing in your frame will suddenly get up and leave. So there’s no reason why you can’t just use a slower shutter speed to allow more light into your camera! Rather than using a flash to try to illuminate parts of your scene, brightening your exposure will work equally well.

The same thing goes with any type of photos you’re shooting in low light. Rather than using a flash, there are often ways you can adjust your camera settings to brighten the photo. Whether it be slowing your shutter, opening the aperture, or increasing the ISO, you have plenty of options.

Unless you’re in complete darkness, consider how you can alter your camera settings rather than breaking out the flash.

– Use A Headlamp

The final option is to use a headlamp. Although this method only really applies to outdoor photos, it’s still worth considering. Let’s first talk about how you can use a headlamp to illuminate your scene.

When you’re using a slow shutter speed, very shadowed areas can remain completely dark. No matter what camera settings you change, these parts of your photo will still look dark. Using a headlamp, you can briefly shine a light on these dark areas to illuminate more of your frame. This works great to help improve how much detail you can see in darker areas, without the harsh hard-light of a flash.

Alternatively, when you’re photographing people, they can wear a headlamp to help shine a light on their bodies. This will only really make sense when shooting hiking photography, but it’s an easy trick that I love using. By wearing the headlamp, it helps to illuminate their face while reflecting light that will illuminate their whole bodies. In the above example, the climber would be pretty hard to see without the light reflecting on the rock. By creating some extra ambient light, you no longer require a flash!

How To Take Sharp Photos In Low Light Conditions

With all your camera settings sorted out, we can’t forget about one of the most important parts of any photo: focus. Without a sharp photo, it’s not going to matter how perfect your camera settings are. Since autofocus doesn’t work very well in low light, it’s best to switch over to manual focus (MF). Now that you’re in charge of making the photo sharp, what’s the best way to do this? Just use this easy 3 step formula for setting focus in low light!

Step 1: Go Into Live View And Digitally Zoom In

The best way to set focus is by using Live View and zooming into the image on your LCD. If you’re unfamiliar, Live View is the mode that lets you see a real-time display of what your camera sees via the LCD screen. In this mode, you can magnify the image to better see certain parts of your frame.

Step 2: Find A Bright Light Source In Your Frame

While in Live View, find and zoom into any light source in your frame. This should be anything that you can see clearly enough to get focus on. Ideally, this will be some kind of light that sits nearby your subject. That way, your focus will be set properly for your photo.

If there aren’t any light sources to zoom into, try using the flashlight on your phone to light up parts of your scene. This will help to show more details that you can use for focus points.

Step 3: Manually Set Your Focus To The Bright Area

With a light source or from the help of a flashlight, adjust your focus ring until the area looks sharp on your camera screen. Once this is done, zoom out of Live View and begin taking photos! After taking a few shots, it’s a good idea to double-check the photos to see if they are actually sharp. Sometimes your focus can be just slightly off the first time. Luckily it’s an easy fix if you catch it early in your shoot!

Low Light Photography Ideas

Your camera settings are set, your photos are in focus, and now it’s time to start taking amazing low light pictures!

But wait, there’s a problem… what is there to take pictures of? Here are a few easy (and fun) ideas to practice your low light photography with.

1. Light Painting

Light painting is created by using a slow shutter speed while moving a light through your frame. With a glow stick or a flashlight, you can move around your frame to create different shapes or even text with the light. Since this effect requires a slow shutter speed, a low light environment is perfect for this. Just make sure to use a longer shutter speed to give yourself more time to paint!

2. Fireside Portraits

One of my favorite low light photography ideas is fireside portraits. There’s nothing that beats the warm glow of a fire in portraits. It creates a feeling to your photo that’s hard to replicate in any other way. Next time you have a fire with friends, break out your camera and start snapping some great low light portraits!

3. Lantern Photos

Lantern photos are another fun idea that work well as portrait styled images or just of the lanterns themselves! Since they create such a widespread glow, they work as the perfect light source to include in your low light photos. You can find a lot of these kinds of lanterns at a local antique shop or used online. They’re definitely a fun prop to experiment within your photos.

4. Traffic Trails

If you live near a city, traffic trails are another fun, low light photography activity to try your hand at. With the help of a slow shutter speed, you can blur the headlights of passing cars into continuous streaks of light. This looks great with landscape or cityscape photos!

Learn More: Best Camera Settings For Traffic Trail Photography

5.

Capture Bokeh

Since you’re already using a wide aperture, try to capture some bokeh! Bokeh is the light orbs created by out of focus lights sources. This looks exceptionally nice in portrait photos and adds a unique look to any background.

With a solid understanding of the best camera settings for low light photography, all that’s left is to get out there and shoot! With more practice shooting in low light, it will become easier to nail your exposure in every shot. Above all else, always try new things and see what happens. That’s the fastest way to learn and is a surefire way to improve your low light photography.

Happy Shooting!

Brendan 🙂

How to take pictures in a dark room?

Ilya Saunkin June 09, 2011 613

Ilya Saunkin / 09 June 2011

I am new to photography. I have a Nikon D90 and am currently trying to learn how to use it.

I have noticed that whenever I shoot in a dark room with the camera's pop-up flash, the picture looks somewhat unrealistic; I don't know how to accurately describe it, but that slight movement that makes the images look alive is not captured (perhaps due to the high shutter speed). If I turn off the flash, the pictures are only dark and blurry.

Is there a way to shoot (not necessarily still) subjects, with or without flash, it doesn't really matter, but be able to capture a live image? It would also be nice to see something in these images.

lighting
exposure
darkness

14 votes

itai / 09 June 2011

When you shoot with flash, it looks unrealistic because your room is usually not lit by a flash or only by a light source attached to your forehead.

Now, assuming your room is dark but not black, you need to take the photo without flash. To get the best results, you need:

Raise your ISO as much as is acceptable to you. You can go to 1600 or 3200 if you don't intend to make a large font with an image.
Open aperture as wide as possible. You do this in A mode and turn the dial until you get a bright aperture (smaller numbers). You will see an increase in shutter speed at the same time if you do everything right.
Buy yourself a bright lens. Something with a wide maximum aperture. A number of not so expensive ones have F/1.8 or F/1.4 (even better). This allows you to receive 2-4 times more light than the lens, depending on the focal length.

Please note that there is always a limit. At some point, it becomes too dark for any camera and lens. If there are people in your room, then your shutter speed should be at least 1/60 if they are still, and probably 1/250 if they are moving. Otherwise, they will look blurry.

Once it gets too low, you can add artificial lighting, but you're looking at a heavy and expensive setup to make it look almost natural.

9 votes

ElendilThe Tall / 09 June 2011

The flash on the camera is unfortunately rather useless for illuminating the subject. The worst possible place for a light source is right in front of the subject, and if you combine this with the fact that the pop-up flash is a small harsh light source, you will get poor results.

Pop-up flash is only really useful for "fill light". Imagine that you are photographing someone against a bright background - the sky, for example. You want to keep the detail in the sky, so you have to be prepared for that, but since the sky is brighter than the person, you will end up with a silhouette. But if you use a pop-up flash to light them up, you'll get a correctly exposed sky (the flash won't light it!) and a lit object.

Now back to the dark rooms. You have two solutions. The first is flash or flash. These are the big flashes you see on the cameras used by the paparazzi. This has the advantage that you can turn and point them at the ceiling or wall, which spreads the light and diffuses it, so you get more natural, even light. You can use the flash for other things as well, such as off-camera lighting.

Another option is to buy a "fast" lens. If you have a standard lens mounted on your D90 lens, your maximum aperture might be around 4-5.6. This means that you can only get a certain amount of light in your camera. In dark rooms, to get enough light, this means you need a relatively slow shutter speed, such as 1/20. This usually results in blurry images.

However, a fast lens has a much larger maximum aperture - say f/1.8. This means that you can get a lot more light into the camera, so you can use a faster shutter speed and therefore get a better shot. A good example of this is the Nikkor 35mm 1.8 which is quite fast, good quality and relatively cheap. The advantage of a fast lens is that you use available light, which usually produces more natural results. However, their use in the evening/night is limited.

6 votes

MattiaG / June 10, 2011

it's strange that no one has suggested reflecting/diffusing the built-in flash. So you can get good results even in very low light, avoiding very noisy high ISOs, or if you don't have a fast lens, or you have one but don't need a focal length. ..

diffuse - diffuser is a piece plastic on your flash up to diffused softer light effect than just a "naked" flash. the result is not yet natural, but better. Diffusers are (usually) made for flashes other than the one comes with a camera so you probably won't find one that fits your needs. You can make one using anything transparent enough so that the light from the flash through (very thin paper, Translucent tin for film rolls, sometimes made of transparent styrofoam in packages with photo filters ...)
bounce is what you usually do with any decent flash that lets you turn your head up so that the light is on reflected off the ceiling and walls, giving a natural performance scene (someone else explained this). I wanted to say that you can reflect the flash of your D90 (or other non-professional DSLRs) if you put something that reflects enough light (white cardboard/paper, aluminium, small plastic mirror) in front of it tilted forward 45 degrees so the light will be reflected on the ceiling, then back on your subject. The disadvantages of this are
- this cannot be done outdoors or if the ceiling is very high
- the color is discarded if the ceiling (or anything else above you) is not white
- maybe the problem is that you are holding a "bouncer" in your hand. But you can install it on the camera in many ways

When using both of these "techniques", you may need to adjust flash exposure compensation to account for extra distance and light absorption.

2 votes

D. Lambert / 09 June 2011

You're trying to balance lighting and exposure in a really challenging environment. In order to take a picture, you must have light, and you must set up your camera to capture that light. One of the issues you'll see here is that you can make a lot of changes, some of which may involve new hardware, and those changes will affect other aspects of your photos, but I'll try to give you some things to think about.

As I mentioned, your photo will depend on the exposure of your camera and the lighting available at the time of shooting. The lighting will be some combination of ambient light (the light that is in the room before you start monkeying around) and artificial light that you add for your purposes. The "while you take the picture" part is the shutter speed on your camera.

If you keep the lighting constant, then the camera setting is all exposure settings - aperture, shutter speed and ISO. I'm not going to go into detail on all of this because we already have some great discussions here, but if there isn't a lot of light in the room, it's likely that you'll want to use a large aperture (low number of apertures) and a high aperture for these shots. ISO sensitivity, and you'll want to understand the impact you'll see on depth of field and noise in your photos.

If, on the other hand, you want to start adding light to a room, things can get complicated quickly. If you imagine walking into a dark room and pressing a light switch, it will change the light level in the room (obviously). The good news is that more light is now available for photography, but the bad news is that you have completely changed the nature, direction and white balance of the room, and everything looks different now .

If you haven't already, I would visit the Strobist website to begin to understand the flexibility and control available in artificial light. You may find that it takes some work to achieve the look you want, but you may also find that it helps you think more consciously about lighting (where it comes from, how it spreads or spreads, etc.). We don't usually worry too much about this when shooting in ambient light only, but once you start practicing thinking in these terms, I think your ambient light shots will improve too.

1 vote

Genius / 09 June 2011

Let me give you some simple tips that may help you find the solution:

The image is highly dependent on the lens used. If you have some kind of "kit" like 18-135 f/4. 5 then it will be very difficult to get a good picture, especially handheld. If you have the opportunity to try a lens with the widest aperture of 1.4, 1.8 or 2.8 - give it a try.
Flash in most modes usually only fills the front but loses the back. Try the slow mode in the flash settings (hold the flash button next to the lens on the left and dial the nearest dialer. Make sure you select one of the "MASP" modes)
In any case and in any camera + lens (even at low cost) you can try a tripod. If this is the case, then switch the camera to aperture priority mode ("A" mode), close the aperture slightly (to 6.0-7.0), increase the ISO to 400-800, switch the "White Balance" to Auto, set the camera to tripod and try to take a picture - I'm sure you will get a good result.

0 votes

lucy / May 30, 2014

Increase 1SO. Reduce shutter speed (1/60 is the slowest shooting of moving objects). Your aperture should be wide (smaller). If that doesn't help much, you can always improve it with computer editing (exposure, selection, and fill).

Difference between long exposure in darkroom vs. fast exposure in a well-lit room (using a tripod, ISO 100)

jlanisdev October 13, 2014 293

jlanisdev / October 13, 2014

I'm trying to photograph a painting without using any lighting equipment, with only natural light in the room on an overcast day (that is, little or no direct sunlight). I shoot straight from a tripod and DSLR using Av mode with ISO set to 100. (By the way, I also shoot in RAW).

The aim is to reduce glare as much as possible, so it is important that the painting is illuminated as evenly as possible without the use of lighting equipment.

My question is: what is the difference between shooting at a slow shutter speed in a dark room and shooting in a well-lit room, when the only difference in the two photos is the shutter speed and all other settings that remain the same? Theoretically, I would venture to suggest that it should produce the same image, but in practice I don't think this is true. In my testing, the long exposure is definitely not as sharp when viewed at 100%, while the normal exposure has more pronounced highlights and shadows (because the light source is stronger?). Hopefully someone can shed some light (no pun intended) on the difference here.

Just to clarify: in the "dark room" scenario, the curtains close over the window, but there is still some light in the room. In the "well-lit room" scenerio, the curtains are open, but no direct light enters the room.

Probably a strange question, but thanks in advance.

Edit: I just realized I forgot to turn off image stabilization on my lens, which could explain the lack of long exposure sharpness.

DSLR
raw material
low light
long exposure

3 votes

user2324712 / October 13, 2014

This is a complex answer, so feel free to ask more questions.

Essentially, one significant difference between images is that your sources of noise in the image are very different. Since the noise is different and its contribution is different depending on the exposure, the resulting images are completely different.

Think of your camera as a detector that measures electrons. This captures well either light (photons), which is converted into "good" electrons, or "bad" parasitic electrons caused by system noise (camera).

When shooting long exposures in low light conditions, the dominant source of noise is usually the “dark current” of the detector. You can read more about this on Wikipedia, but it is mostly noise that is caused by the activity of the detector itself. dark current increases linearly with exposure. hence the total measured current in exposure: I_dark_current * t_exposure.
When the room is lit, the light signal greatly exceeds the dark current, the main noise of your system is another source of noise called shot noise. This is very interesting and its root is related to quantum mechanics and if you have the time and curiosity you can also read about it on wikipedia.

The main difference regarding your question is that the gunshot noise is proportional to the square root of the input signal. so, for example, if you increase the exposure by 2 and capture twice as many "good" electrons, your noise will increase by the square root of 2. In a dark room, increasing the signal by 2 will also increase the noise by 2! This means that in low light, after you shoot with noise, increasing the exposure will increase the signal more than the noise, which is desirable if you want to capture real detail in a scene.

This is a very important distinction, and for this reason a camera designer would always like his system to limit shooting noise as much as possible in order to get the best signal-to-noise ratio.

Hope this sheds some light on things :)

0 votes

Caleb / October 13, 2014

Slow shutter speeds increase the chance of blur due to camera movement (even slight vibrations). You are also more likely to get image noise from the sensor if the exposure is very high (seconds rather than fractions of a second).