Low light photography is possibly one of the hardest skills for a photographer to master, but incredibly satisfying when you do! Basically, it is what it says it is... taking photographs in low light, or even when completely dark. You can use flash or a torch to bring light into parts of the photograph, but how do you do it if you don't want horrible bright flash and heavy shadows across your image?

If you have an SLR camera (single lens reflex), DSLR (digital SLR) or bridge camera (one where you can change apertures and shutter speeds but not lenses), then it is a lot easier. Fully automatic point & shoot cameras and camera phones don't have the same capabilities and results will really be hit & miss.

This hub is therefore written for anyone who has either a bridge or DSLR type camera but isn't sure about how to use it in manual settings and in the dark. The photos are my own, some recent and some quite old, there is obviously more detail in the full size images but you should be able to see enough here to get the general idea of what they are about!

What Kit Will I Need?

Apart from your camera, obviously, you will also need:

• at least one spare fully charged battery
• extra film / memory card
• sturdy tripod, or at least a bean bag that will hold your camera completely still for long periods of time... but a good tripod is essential if you want to get serious about your photographs!
• cable shutter release if you have one, not a problem if you don't... I'll explain why in a moment!
• a torch with fully charged batteries

What else will I need?

• warm clothes... you'll be doing a lot of standing around and it can get VERY cold!
• flask of coffee and cheese & pickle sandwiches... ok, you can change the drink and sandwiches, but you get the idea!
• nerves of steel... it's dark, you're out on the moors (or wherever) and the last film you saw was a re-run of the Blair Witch Project or something!
• sense of humour... you will never believe how many cow pats, sheep droppings, thistles, puddles, stones and holes there are out there until you find them all in the dark!
• an understanding friend or partner... it's obviously safer for you if you can take someone with you, but if you are going alone ALWAYS make sure someone knows where you are going and let them know when you are back!
• mobile (cell) phone... be aware though that many locations out in the rural parts of the country may not have network coverage. Try and find out before you go out at night, so you know where the nearest point is to get a reliable signal.

Planning the Shoot

It's always a good idea to go out and look at the location in daylight and figure out where you want to set up your camera. You can check what focal lengths you need to use for the shot you want, and check out a safe route across any rough ground. Also check your phone network coverage and where you can get a reliable signal if you need it.

huh, focal length? what's that?

Focal length is determined by the lens you are using, whether it be wide angle, zoom, fixed length prime, whatever. If you want a scene that covers a wide area, like my image of the ruined cottage, then you will need a wide angle. I used a lens that covers 18-55mm and this shot used the lower end of the scale at 18mm.

Basically, the lower the number, the wider the angle of what you will be able to see in your shot. If I had stood in the same place and shot the same image with a 200mm lens, I would only have a narrow, close-up view of part of the cottage and not the whole scene as I have it here.

It's always best to get your composition (what you want in your shot and where you want it) while it is still light, but it's by no means impossible if it is already dark. More on that in a minute.

The best time of night is either the hour after sunset or before sunrise, where you will have a glow above the horizon and any edge details in buildings or trees, etc will still be visible. If you want to go out later when it is properly dark but you want something to be in your shot, perhaps a tree or a statue, you can use a torch to paint the subject with light. While the shutter is open, you will have time to move the torch light over the subject and expose the details that you want, also leaving shadows where you want them.

Using the pop-up flash on your camera is not usually the best idea as the light is extremely harsh and harder to direct than a well-aimed torch beam!

Taking the Shot

When you have the composition that you want and you're all set up ready to go, you need to decide on what settings you are going to use to get a good exposure.

• ISO

This describes how sensitive your digital sensor / film is to light.

Usually, if you want to take a photograph and be able to hold the camera in your hands, you will need a reasonably fast shutter speed to avoid camera shake and a blurred picture. If light levels are very low, you will need to make the digital sensor more sensitive to any light that is there by pushing up the iso. The higher the iso number, the more sensitive it is to light and so the faster the shutter speed you can use.

The trouble with high iso's is that you get a lot of 'noise' in your image. Digital noise is a horrible grainy colour speckling. A certain amount of film grain can sometimes be very effective at getting dramatic effects, but digital noise is not so good! This is why it is best to use a low iso number, preferably around 200, but possibly up to 400 if it is really dark and you are using a narrow aperture (don't panic, I'll explain in a minute!).

Because you are using a low iso number, the sensor is not so sensitive to the available light which means it takes longer to expose the image. This means your shutter will need to be open for longer than if you were using a high iso, and that is why you really need a sturdy tripod. Even with modern anti-vibration mechanisms in cameras and lenses, it would be virtually impossible to get a good sharp image at the shutter speeds you will be using if you don't use a tripod.

• Aperture

The aperture describes the size of the opening in the lens that allows light through to hit the sensor (or film).

A small aperture will only let light through in a small stream, so it will take a lot longer to correctly expose an image than if you use a wide aperture (big hole). But, the other thing that the aperture controls is the depth of field.

Depth of field basically describes how much of your image is in focus. If you use a very small aperture, and your main point of focus is say one-third into the shot, you will see that the foreground (in front of your subject) and background (behind your subject) will also be in focus.

If you stand in the same place and focus on the same subject using the same focal length, but open the aperture to its widest setting, you will see that the foreground and background are now out of focus, but the main subject should still be nice and sharp in focus.

So, what about in low light then? Well, if it is very dark, like in the star shots here, the main point of focus is the tree and the stars. I don't need to worry about anything else in the frame being in focus, so a wide aperture was perfectly ok. This had the happy result of using a shorter exposure time, as plenty more light would be coming in through the lens than if I'd used a smaller aperture.

Hopefully that all makes sense, but to summarise...

• wide aperture = big hole = lots of light = faster exposure time, but less of the image in focus
• small aperture = small hole = less light = slower exposure time, but all of the image in focus

But how do you select the right aperture?

This is where the f numbers come in. I won't go into the science of it all, but basically all you really need to know is that a low f number is a wide aperture, and a high f number is a small aperture.

The scale depends on the lens you are using, but f numbers are usually considered low (wide aperture) around f/5.8 and below, and high (small aperture) above f/11 or so. It's only a rough guide, and the best thing to do is to test your own camera and lens set up by photographing the same object at different apertures and seeing how it affects the image.

I used f/5.8 for the cottage shot to get more of the foreground in focus, and f/4 for the tree and stars shot. Both were at iso 200 and 18mm focal length.

• Shutter Speed

The shutter speed basically describes how long the shutter is open for, i.e. how long you are allowing light to enter the lens and hit your sensor (or film).

Obviously the less light there is, the longer the shutter will need to be open, otherwise your image will be too dark and underexposed.

The smaller the aperture, the less light will be coming through, so it will take a slower shutter speed to get the same result as with a wider aperture.

Low iso means the sensor is less sensitive to light so again, your shutter speed needs to be slower.

Very slow shutter speeds can also introduce noise into your images, so you may need to take the iso up to 400 or more if it is really dark.

It's quite a lot to get your head round when you first start out, but it does get easier as you practise and see the different images you get. Honest!!

Look again at the cottage and the stars images. In the cottage shot, there is still a lot of light in the sky and the aperture is slightly wider than with the darker stars shot. These two factors meant that I needed a shutter speed of 0.5 seconds to get the exposure I wanted. The star shot has a much darker sky however, and even with the wider aperture (it's not a huge difference though between f/5.8 and f/4) the shutter needed to be open for a lot longer, hence the much slower shutter speed of 30 seconds and the definite need for a tripod!

• Focusing

(you can read it with a double ss if you prefer, apparently both spellings are correct!)

So, you've set your tripod up to get the composition you want, you've chosen your camera settings, but now it's so dark you can't see anything to focus on! What do you do now? Well, there's a few things you can try but all will work best if you can use manual focus.

• You can try manually pre-focusing when it is still light and then leaving everything set up while you wait for it to get dark... which is where your flask of coffee could come in very handy!
• You can use a torch to light your main focal point, if there is one, and manually focus on it... which is where an understanding friend or partner can also come in handy to hold the torch for you!!
• You can manually focus roughly one third into the shot if there is no main point of focus. Or, if you just want the stars, focus so that the brightest stars are no longer blurred.

There are a couple of other things you can do to help get a sharp image when you are using slow shutter speeds.

• If you are using shutter speeds of more than 30 secs, you will probably be using your camera 'bulb' setting. This means you need to use a cable release so that you don't shake the camera as you press the shutter on and off.
• If you are using shutter speeds of 30 seconds or less, you can use the self-timer in your camera so that any camera shake has steadied before the shutter is opened.
• You can sometimes get movement and slight blurring from the camera internal mechanisms. This can be avoided by using the mirror lock-up position if the facility exists for your camera. You will need to look at the manual to work out how to do it as the procedures will differ according to camera type.

So there we have it, how to be a low light photographer! The main thing is to practise, have fun, stay safe and stay warm!!

Thanks for reading my hub, I hope it has helped you and I hope you visit again to see some more tips in future hubs. Please feel free to ask any questions or make any comments and I shall do my best to answer as quickly as I can.

Aunty.