Exposure

Hello. Being a beginner, I have taken a course in Photography this semester to grasp a better understanding. I would appreciate the more knowledgeable photographers to give their inside as to taking pictures in dark lighting such as during the night. Should one be overexposing, possible using the flash on the camera, or even trying to provide a light source? Thank you for your time.

It depends on what you want to achieve. Expose for what you want to see on the final photograph. If that requires a flash, use a flash.

That opens up quite a can of worms ! As with so much in photography, the answer is dependent on the result or effect you are attempting to achieve, and the conditions under which you are shooting. I once saw a lady on an evening ferry to Portsmouth UK step up to the rail with a point-and-shoot, and confidently expect the attached flash to illuminate the Isle of Wight !

 

If you can give us an idea of subject matter, conditions, equipment being used etc. it will provide a better chance for us to offer helpful advice. If you want to capture the effects of street lights, for instance, a flash will not help at all - likewise if you are shooting a stained glass window from within the building.

The exposure triangle still applies. There are finite limits on ISO and aperture, but shutter speed is more flexible. Most camera bodies have a maximum shutter duration of 30 seconds, but using an add-on shutter release can allow for much longer duration exposures. Don’t over-expect from high ISO. Electronic noise quickly becomes a problem. Obtain and use a good tripod for any exposure over 1/30 second. Be patient, experiment, and have fun.

I fully agree with [uSER=10934754]@Tony Parsons[/uSER] reply that 'it depends'. In other words there's not a standard answer that covers every situation. Understanding the 'exposure triangle' (aperture, shutter speed, ISO) is important in all light situations but perhaps nowhere more important than in 'low-light' situations.

 

As in all situations, exposure settings aim to strike the most appropriate balance between the 3 parameters in the exposure triangle. Aperture determines, for any focal range on the lens, how 'deep'' the field is that will be in focus around the selected 'focal point'. ISO determines the sensitivity of your sensor or film to light.

 

Using natural (or ambient) light

So, if you're photographing a low-light landscape or city-scape that has little movement in the frame, you could choose a long shutter speed to allow the available (low) light to accumulate on the sensor/frame. This technique is often deliberately used to show traffic as 'continuous streams of light' rather than as individual cars. Or to smooth out the ripples in moving water (streams, sea). If a narrow 'depth of field' is OK (for example sharp portrait, with a less sharp background) you could set your aperture wide open to allow as much light as possible onto your sensor/film during the time that your shutter is open. In both cases, you often need to increase your sensor/film sensitivity to make the best use of he available light comin in through the aperture in the time that the shutter is open. The downside of this is that a higher ISO film (up to 32000) will have more 'grain' and a higher digital ISO sensor (commonly up to 256,000) will result in more 'noise' in the image. To some extent, the most extreme effects of 'high grain/high noise' can be reduced in digital post-processing. But high grain/high noise photos - though useable (or sometimes even desirable) will have significantly less resolution than lower-ISO photos.

 

In practice, you may need to at least two of these things and sometimes all 3 to get a photo in natural light from low light situations.

 

Four complementary approaches are:

- relocate any 'subjects' to locations where the natural light is strongest

- use reflectors to redirect (and thereby add) light from other local natural light sources

- add light from additional light sources (lamps, flashes, etc.)

- increase (within limits)any under-exposure of RAW images in post-processing

 

So a low-light exposure strategy depends very much much - as [uSER=10934754]@Tony Parsons[/uSER] points out- on what the photographic situation is and your objective is. It additionally depends on what camera (ISO), lens (aperture) and and additional lighting equipment you have at your disposal.

 

Being a largely 'mobile' photographer', the only lighting equipment I possess is a reflector and a flash. I rarely have the time to set up artificial lighting. I do own a cheap 50mm lens with an aperture of 1.4, which is my final 'go-to' lens in natural low-light situations. If I cant get a decent 'natural lighting' exposure (with high ISO, widest aperture and with the lowest shutter speed I need to freeze movement ), then I use a flash when appropriate, which for me is often not the case.

 

I do use a flash for 'fill lighting'' of portrait subjects but usually not in extreme low-light situations,

 

FWIW, my mobile phone camera does a pretty good job in low-light situations! :)

 

Mike

Hello Salvadorfabiancru,

 

All the above advice is excellent.

But the best way to learn to shoot in low light is to experiment for yourself.

You probably have a digital camera , if so you can take hundreds of experimental photo's at very little cost , and learn from your mistakes.

You will have to use the Program mode on your camera to really learn , but the Auto setting can on occasion give very good results when the flash is turned off.

I enjoy shooting in ambient (natural) light and do not to use the flash at all , but I still make many mistakes LOL.

 

If you have a Film camera , this approach can be VERY expensive.

 

Just go for it , you will be surprised at how quickly you learn.

 

Best wishes.

Edited October 25, 2020 by za33photo

It depends on what you are photographing, but as a general suggestion, if you are photographing things that don't move and using only ambient light, then your best bet is often a tripod and a slow shutter speed. Set the aperture to allow some depth of field, as it is hard to focus accurately at night, set the ISO very low, and leave the shutter open. If you try to use a high ISO, you will increase noise. In addition, expose to the right and darken the image in postprocessing, rather than exposing to have the image dark to start. The reason is that if you expose to the right, you will have much more signal relative to the amount of noise. If you do this, you can get very smooth, low-noise images even in the dark.

 

In urban settings, there is usually enough light that exposures between 2 and 30 seconds are fine. In the countryside, it can be much longer.

Should one be overexposing, possible using the flash on the camera, or even trying to provide a light source? Thank you for your time.

Overexposing? If by that you mean giving more exposure than indicated by a light meter? No. Well not with digital. If film (bad choice for low light anyway) then you need to follow the 'reciprocity-failure' advice in the datasheet.

 

Aesthetically, overexposing a night scene will lose the night-time atmosphere.

 

Likewise, adding additional light to the scene will completely change its look.

 

On-camera flash is probably the worst option - unless you like the look of white-faced ghouls looming out of total blackness!

 

You could do worse than Google 'low light photography', since the range of techniques is wide, and dependant on the subject you're shooting and the effect you're after.

Aesthetically, overexposing a night scene will lose the night-time atmosphere.

 

No, it won't. A very common technique in night photography is to expose to the right, exposing as bright as one can without clipping, and then lowering the lightness in post to get it as dark as one wants to get the night-time atmosphere. That produces an image with more signal and less noise than exposing to the left. I do this frequently.

No, it won't. A very common technique in night photography is to expose to the right, exposing as bright as one can without clipping, and then lowering the lightness in post to get it as dark as one wants to get the night-time atmosphere. That produces an image with more signal and less noise than exposing to the left. I do this frequently.

I agree. Good art often knows the strength of subtle exaggeration and how such exaggeration in a medium such as photography can help convey nighttime or rain or fog, etc.

 

I like to use the example of a stage whisper. If you whispered on stage without raising your voice, no one in the audience would hear the whisper. Doing it well but louder than normal will both create the sense of a whisper and communicate what the whisper is saying.

 

Exposure can be used in very much the same way. You don’t necessarily utilize exposure to match exactly what you think you’re seeing. You use it to translate what you’re seeing into an effective photograph.

I agree. Good art often knows the strength of subtle exaggeration and how such exaggeration in a medium such as photography can help convey nighttime or rain or fog, etc.

 

I wasn't referring to anything that subtle.

 

First, imagine that you have a night-time scene, and you expose it so that most of the mass is in the left half of the histogram. Now say that it looks right in terms of brightness/darkness.

 

Now, take the same photo again, leaving everything the same except that you expose two stops longer, that is, four times the amount of light. This will give you a histogram shifted to the right. The image will look brighter than you want. So drop the "exposure" (really, brightness) by two stops in post.

 

This will give you essentially the same histogram and the same image appearance as the first shot, but with much better quality because there is a much higher signal to noise ratio.

 

You can only do this, of course, if the image has limited dynamic range. In urban night photography, the dynamic range is often much larger than the camera's.

That produces an image with more signal and less noise than exposing to the left. I do this frequently.

Noise is more dependant on the absolute light level, rather than the length of exposure.

 

Opening the aperture will result in less noise, agreed, but often the aperture is dictated by depth-of-field requirements, or the lens is already at its maximum aperture.

 

In any case, overexposure is not the same as exposing to the right. Exposing to the right is simply a commonly used method for getting the maximum dynamic range from a digital camera. In any level of light. While overexposure blows out highlights irrevocably and raises the entire tonal range to an abnormal level.

...than exposing to the left.

Nobody mentioned 'exposing to the left' (whatever that means) until you did.

 

What I suggested was to follow a meter reading - and neither to over or under-expose.

Edited October 27, 2020 by rodeo_joe|1

DAY FOR NIGHT SHOOTING AND EXPOSURE

DAY FOR NIGHT SHOOTING AND EXPOSURE

Day-for-night is more relevant to cinematography, where daylight is filtered (usually bluish) and the exposure adjusted to give the impression of being shot at night.

 

That's the very opposite of what the OP was asking about.

Noise is more dependant on the absolute light level, rather than the length of exposure.

 

Entirely dependent on light level, not more dependent, and I didn't suggest otherwise.

 

What I was trying to explain was not picking a fight with you. If I misunderstood your post, I apologize. What I explained is a fairly standard piece of advice in night photography. That is, if you have a narrower dynamic range in the image than the camera can handle, don't expose so that it looks dark, even though it DOES look dark at night. Use the highest exposure you can and then darken in post. That will provide a superior image for the reasons I mentioned.

 

In urban night photography, the situation is more complex because the dynamic range in the scene often exceeds what the sensor can handle.

What I was trying to explain was not picking a fight with you.

You didn’t pick a fight, except in Rodeo Man’s mind, where changing or adding to a word he says, because he must be precisely and unquestioningly right in everything he says, is picking a fight. The only way not to pick a fight with The Man is simply to LIKE what he says or remain silent.

Can we be somewhat less confrontational, please - I suspect this back-biting may put the OP off asking for any more assistance.

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