Getting metering down at night time, and shooting poorly lit situations

[PaulWog]

I brought my DSLR out to a Christmas light walk the other night, and I encountered a variety of problems. I consider myself to be inept when it comes to night photography. One thing that I'm taking away from this for my day-time photography is that I need to improve on my metering knowledge and skills across the board: if I can't control it properly at night, I probably could make some improvements for day-time metering as well.

First, I wanted to take a photo of my girlfriend and another girl that was with us. I wasn't looking for a tack-sharp photo, just something that would be a step up from the camera on my phone. However, the lighting was pitch-black. I tried doing a 1/10 of a second shot with VR on at 16mm on my crop body camera, and I just couldn't get things right. They looked pitch black, and the lights were bright. I suppose if I chose spot metering they might've come out better, but I'm guessing to correctly expose them that would have been a 2 or 3 second shot instead?

Second, I wanted to take photos of the Christmas lights that were everywhere (it was the attraction). I didn't have a tripod, chose to shoot at 16mm with VR on (of course). Nothing really worked out well. I chose matrix metering since I didn't have any particular light I was focusing on, but most of everything was either pitch dark, or bright lights that didn't illuminate any of their surroundings much. It was raining pretty heavily, and my camera isn't weather sealed, so I didn't have time to really sit down and figure things out too much (I figure I could've gotten a couple nice shots) -- oh well.

Anyway, the outting wasn't ideal for photography. I didn't have any flash equipment (my built-in flash wasn't suitable for what I wanted), and I didn't have a tripod with me. However, I'd like some input on how to get the best out of night photography when it comes to metering and any other tricks -- especially when there's bright lights involved (Christmas lights, fireworks, etc).

 

[EIngerson]

For the girls, a flash is the answer. For the lights, tripod (mandatory) , manual mode, ISO 100, F8 or 11, (I'd use hyper focus) expose for the center (you'll see the meter in the view finder, centering the pointer in that meter line is "proper exposure") to get an idea of where you're at, then I'd play around with under exposing 2/3 to a full stop just to separate light colors and not have a bunch of white blobs in your shots. Shoot just after sunset also, that way you can get a nice dark electric blue sky, vice flat black and blah.

 

[hirejn]

There's no escaping the laws of light. You need light to get a decent shutter speed, and the only ways to do that are to increase the available light, increase ISO or open the aperture. You can't increase the brightness of the Christmas lights, so you have to use ISO and aperture. If you still can't get the shutter speed, it's time for a tripod. It's tough even with VR to hand hold longer than 1/30.

If you add a subject in front of the lights, the flash will illuminate them. Then it's a matter of balancing the background light with the subject. It sounds like you had lights in the background making the girls dark, and flash would help. Flash used in rear curtain sync also helps freeze movement of the camera and subject. Some blurring is possible, but the flash will freeze the motion at the end of exposure, putting the sharp image over any blur.

If you're on auto, the camera may not give you the shutter speed you want. You would have to go to A and set ISO and then crank aperture open until you see the speed you want. If you then added plus exposure compensation, the camera would open up the shutter more. If you were in M, you could bump the ISO at your given S and A until the meter read say + 2/3 stop. The camera may be underexposing if the lights are bright.

The other solution, as mentioned, is to set up a tripod and do a little bracketing and watching the histogram. I have an article on fireworks here.

 

[shaylou]

Back to the basic is my recommendation. You first need to understand how exposure works completely. Shooting at night is a good way to rap your head around it. What I did when starting out was to set my camera up on a tripod in my living room and turn off the lights. I took shots adding light via a longer shutter speed until I got the exposure I wanted. Then I added a little light to the room and started over. What I realized by doing this was that my eyes are pretty amazing compared to light the camera sees. The camera sees so little that just dim light can be a challenge at times. Point is, your expectations were way too high. You really never had a chance of pulling off those shot without the aid of a flash or tripod. So understanding exposure completely will help you see that this situation is not going to work without some help. Don't be frustrated we all have been there. Just keep shooting and asking questions.

 

[bratkinson]

As anyone with a cellphone camera that has taken pictures at night or in low light will attest, those shots have a lot of noise (colored dots) and the image isn't very clear as a result. The image may look OK on the small cellphone screen, but at computer screen size, it's trash.

The reason for all the noise is the need for high ISO speeds to get a reasonably adequate exposure and the small sensor size itself.

Entry level cameras, while they can do far better than a cellphone at taking pictures in low light, to do so hand-held and be able to 'freeze motion' will require very noisy ISO speeds to get a shutter speed of about 1/125 for relatively motionless people. For pictures of decorated trees, a tripod is an absolute requirement. For people shots, some added camera steadying is needed such as a tripod or monopod.

As mentioned above, it's knowing the basics...shutter speed, aperture, and ISO speed...the exposure triangle. It's also knowing the tradeoffs of adjusting any of the three settings. With the exception of shots of inanimate objects where the camera is on a tripod, an external flash unit is usually necessary to add enough light to get the proper exposure with a shutter speed fast enough to stop motion.

As far as metering at night, using a center-weighted (typical subject location) metering is best if shooting in Av or Tv modes. In manual mode and Av & Tv as well, checking the histogram is also important...so is looking at the resultant image to determine if it has an adequate exposure. But with all low-light photography, getting the camera to record details in darker areas of the picture and get the proper exposure of the subject(s) face(s) gets very difficult to do in a single exposure.

Bottom line...mastering the exposure triangle, a good tripod, and learning to use a flash effectively are key to nighttime photography.

 

[Derrel]

Back when "super-speed" B&W film was 200 ASA, and "fast" color was ISO 12...Wegee made a career out of photographing people at night...he used...flash on the camera...

weegee photo gallery - Google Search

 

[robbins.photo]

There's no escaping the laws of light.

Yup. Dang Einstien. He pretty much mucked it up for all of us there.

You need light to get a decent shutter speed, and the only ways to do that are to increase the available light, increase ISO or open the aperture. You can't increase the brightness of the Christmas lights

So I take it you don't live in a town chock full of rednecks.. lol

so you have to use ISO and aperture. If you still can't get the shutter speed, it's time for a tripod. It's tough even with VR to hand hold longer than 1/30.

Yup.. tripod would be a very good option here - remote shutter would probably be a good investment as well.

 

[TheLost]

I suggest practicing..

Have somebody stand in front of your xmas tree at home (assuming you have one), turn the tree lights ON and the room lights OFF... and snap away using different settings and your flash (pop-up or dedicated.. either should work).

15 minutes of goofing around will teach you more then reading internet forums

 

[vintagesnaps]

A camera is recording light so if there isn't any (or much) there just isn't much for the camera to record if you're using existing light. Evening is nice before it gets too dark so you can get the lights and some light still in the sky that can help you get the surroundings lit too; in general when I've take pictures in the evening/sunset it just gets to the point that it's too dark to get anything because it's pushing the limits of what a camera can do.

I took pictures last year of lights and decorations uptown but don't remember how I had the camera set; I think it takes experience to figure out what can work even when it's too dark to get a meter reading. As the Lost said you might need to go practice on some Christmas lights somewhere and see what you can get.

Derrel, I love Weegee. That's the thing, it probably depends, do you want pictures of the people and the surroundings, or of the lights? or some of each? I wouldn't think there's enough light from the Christmas lights to light the surroundings much so that's where you might want to experiment and use a flash for some shots and existing lights for others.

And Eric I like your suggestions except - for the girls, a flash is the answer? hmm what kind of flash?!! LOL sorry my mind went there, I couldn't help it!

 

[TCampbell]

1) Use a flash

2) "drag" the shutter.

Whenever you take photos in dark, you need a flash to "nail" the exposure on the subject of interest. BUT... flash suffers from the light fall-off problem. Each time the distance from the flash source increases by 1.4 (the square root of two -- liberally rounded down) the amount of light will decrease by half. If a subject at 7' from the light gets a good exposure, at 10' you'll get half the light... at 14' half again (1/4), at 20' half again (1/8) etc.

This means your subject looks good, but the background is tragically under-exposed.

HOWEVER... your flash is only illuminated for an incredibly brief instant of time (perhaps 1/1000th of a second or less). This might make you wonder why you have a max flash "sync" speed in the neighborhood of 1/200 to 1/250th sec on most modern cameras. That speed is based on the delay that it takes a mechanical focal plane shutter to slide totally open before the flash can trigger and NOT based on the amount of time the flash is actually illuminated.

If you increase the exposure time considerably (which is what is meant by "drag" the shutter) then the camera will continue to collect light... but ONLY from ambient/continuous light sources (remember... your flash was only illuminated for probably less than 1/1000th sec -- so you've already "frozen" your primary subject who was properly exposed and there's no risk of over-exposing them.)

This gives you a nice tack-sharp foreground subject AND... a gorgeously glowing background of holiday lighting.

You should be able to use a low f-stop, a moderate ISO (as high as you can sneak it before you consider "noise" is a problem -- that will vary by camera model) and then a shutter speed of perhaps 1/60th (sneak it slower if you can.)

You may need a bit of practice but will likely find that you can get some very pleasant results.

 

[bratkinson]

Tims' comment above reminded me of a similar lighting problem, but using the 'lights of downtown' from across the Connecticut River, and one of the crazy photographers with me that near-zero night wanted to get a picture of herself 'in front of' downtown Springfield. The more photographically knowledgeable photographer than I suggested a do-it-yourself version of 'drag the shutter'. Instead of using the camera to trigger the shutter either first or second curtain, the plan was to take a suitably long exposure with the 'high speed' ASA 100 film, and then about 1/2 way through the exposure, had her quickly move into the frame, he manually triggered the flash (not on the camera), and then she immediately moved out of the frame. As the shutter was open for about 30 seconds or so, and she was only in the frame for 3-4 seconds other than the flash burst, her moving in and out didn't 'register' on the film, but the flash lit her up perfectly!

 

[manaheim]

Most of it actually does not apply to the situation you describe, but read my night photography thread in my sig. It'll help generally in that area.

 

[FrankRoberts]

I'll agree with most everyone here but the best teacher is experience. As opposed to those of us who learned on film and had to write down the settings of each exposure, then wait for our slides or negatives to determine what worked and what didn't, those learning with digital need only try different exposures and check the results on the LCD and the histogram. Read what you can, pay attention to the advice above, and then get out there (with your tripod) and take photos, trying different settings, and comparing the results. Your analysis of your situation in the dark and the rain with the girls and the Christmas lights tells me you are already on the right track.