Learn low light photography

Low light photography - not as challenging as you might think

How to expose in low light photography?

When photographing in low light situations you should generally forget about the cameras exposure metering systems. The best way is to take control over the camera yourself and set the metering and focus to manual.

What is correct exposure in low light photography

Tyrifjorden Norway a winter night

Exposing for night photos is much about what effect you are after. You might want to keep the dark look of the night by under exposing your images slightly. You can also expose as you will do in day light and make sure the histogram is evenly distributed over the tonal range. By doing the last you make sure the image sensor has collected more light.

In this case any adjustments later are less vulnerable for digital noise and you can decrease the exposure for a more night looking image in the image editor.

Don’t trust the camera meter
Because we are not dealing with daylight the camera meter reading can only be used as a guide. Exposure meters work on the premise that the area being read contains equal amounts of light and dark areas. The meter is designed to measure 18% gray.

In low light photography images often have large amounts of dark unlit areas with small bright points of street lighting etc., the meter is tricked. Only relying on the camera meter reading in these situations you will most likely get over exposed (to light) images. How much over exposed is of course depending on the motive and how much light there is.

In most situations you can expect the image is over exposed with -1EV and -2EV. You can use the meter reading as a guide and then switch to manual exposure for maximal control.

Manual exposure - is your best option

Singapore river festival in Boat Quay

If your image is to bright, and your camera have manual settings you can correct this by increasing the shutter speed with one or two steps (e.g. from 2s to 1s or 1/2s) and keep the aperture the same.

Alternatively you can keep the shutter the same and stop down (letting in less light) the aperture one or two steps (e.g. from f4 to f5,6 or f8).

Exposure compensation
If your camera don’t have manual exposure controls, select Aperture priority mode and adjust the exposure compensation to -1.5EV. Take a test photo and check the result on the LCD. If the image is still too bright then apply -2EV or if it is too dark then apply -1EV.

Aperture priority is preferred as you can control the depth of field you want. With a larger number you will have more in focus. But with larger aperture number the longer the exposure time will be. With a tripod this is not a problem.

How to focus in low light photography?

Autofocus in low light is unreliable
In low light situation where the contrast is low you might find the camera is struggling with the focus. This also is the case even with the more expensive DSLR cameras. Due to this it is always the best switching to Manual focus.

If you are going to shoot multiple exposures (which are most likely in low light photography) you will keep the same focus for all exposures when the camera is set to manual. It will save you time as you can focus on the exposure settings.

Even manual focus can be difficult if the subject is very dark. You can try switching to spot-focus mode and focus on a bright point in the scene. When the camera has focused, you switch back to manual.

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