Shooting sharper: Shooting in the dark
In June I wrote a photography blog called “Shooting sharper”, and promised to write more and soon. Three months later, I think I’ve procrastinated long enough for everyone to forget me and my previous entry. Nevertheless I decided to write another part for anyone who’s still listening.
This time I’m writing more about shooting with point-and-shoot cameras in low-light conditions. It’s a very tough problem and my tips on the topic are very basic – Still I thought that the problem is so common that it shouldn’t go ignored.
Shooting in low light conditions and fighting with shaky images:
A photographer often struggles with darkness. Low light conditions force your camera to shoot slower, and this results in shaky images with ‘motion blur’ because either your subject has moved or your hand shakes as you click.
Unfortunately, it seems the places where we take pictures most often seem to go out of their way to create a dim, moody ambience that is impossible to shoot in. Weddings, restaurants and parties all often take place in photography unfriendly light, making people look bad in pictures after they make all that effort to look their best at the event.
I know that this is a very common and challenging problem – and one that is hard to resolve, however, it can be tackled with a little knowledge and patience.
Here are some pointers for the frustrated:
1) In dark situations, it is important to know your options – you can always use the flash, but POS cameras often have low-tech flashes which create bleached and/or flat images. This throws an unforgiving glare onto your subjects and their make-up or the oil on their skin stands out till they all look like reincarnations of “Mumm-Ra” from Thundercats.
The camera flash also consumes a lot of battery and sometimes this results in you losing power when you need it the most. If possible try to shoot without your flash (you can turn it off with a button provided next to your screen).
2) When you are shooting without your flash in low light you must ensure that your camera does not shake during the shot. Use a tripod or look for a flat surface nearby – anything will do as long as it is stable: A table-top, a ledge, an armrest are all good tools to rest your camera on before pressing the trigger (or better yet use the self-timer to shoot rather than pressing the button yourself). If you cannot find a horizontal surface, you can even try to use a wall or a door to stabilise one side of the camera while you hold the other end. When these options are unavailable, use both your hands instead of one, and tuck your elbows into your torso to ensure maximum stability.
3) The more you zoom with your camera, the slower it becomes, in low-light, avoid zooming and instead, physically move in closer.
4) ISO speed: The ISO speed of your camera determines how fast your camera shoots relative to the graininess of picture it takes – ISO is usually on auto but you can choose from an ISO speed of 100, 200, 400, 800 and above depending on your camera. At ISO100 the camera will shoot slowly but the image will have no grain, while at ISO1600 the camera will shoot fast but the resultant image will be very grainy. In challenging light situations, the camera will push the ISO to higher speeds. If you take over manual control of the ISO you can keep it as low as possible and combine this with your stable-shooting techniques to sacrifice the minimal amount of smoothness in your pictures and see less grain on your result.
5) Wherever possible in dark conditions, shoot close to the available light sources, if you are taking somebody’s picture, ask them to move directly under a light, or next to a lamp so that the light is falling on their face from close proximity, this will ensure that your camera can shoot at the fastest shutter speed possible.
In order to illustrate this, I decided to take another image from the same night. And with some help from Taimur I managed to get this shot:
Everyone moved to a place where the lamp’s light was falling directly onto their faces, and instead of zooming into them, I just stood up and went close while they sat close together. This resulted in a better lit image, and a shot with less camera-shake.
One important element of making your pictures look better is the editing that you do once they have been transferred to your computer. Modern bulbs, with their varying temperatures and colours confuse our cameras and white-balance settings often fall short. To correct this and other problems we can follow a few simple editing steps on Photoshop that I will address in my next (hopefully less tardy) blog entry.
If these tips proved helpful and resulted in some nice pictures from your point-and-shoot cameras, then you can get your work published in my blog too! Send in your photo to shutterbug@dawn.com along with your name and your camera model, as well as a little background on your image and how you took it.
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.