Low lighting with 50mm f/1.8

[madisonofriel]

When I bought my Nikon 50mm f1.8 lens I was under the impression that it would help me out in low lighting situations..
My thinking was: Its a bit too dark, I don't want to use 1600 ISO, and I'm certainly not going to go below 1/100 sec, so I'll just go down to f/1.8 right? No. Then I discovered DOF.
So basically my problem is this...
Lets say I'm out taking portraits and its really overcast.. I pull out my 50mm 1.8 and now everything is bright but i can't get the right depth of field, and the subject's face is not in focus. Am I just misunderstanding this or is there ANY other way to naturally brighten without off camera flash? Here is a example.

I hope this makes any sense to you lol it was hard putting into words.

 

[ronlane]

IMHO, this photo just needs a little fill in the face. You might try to use an adjustment brush in lightroom (if you have it) to paint in some light into the face. It doesn't look like his face is tack sharp but if you were at f/1.8, then that isn't hard to know why.

 

[astroNikon]

Yes, you are correct.
the larger aperture f/1.8 lets in more light, but also reduces your depth of field. Distance helps a bit though, check out this calculator ==> A Flexible Depth of Field Calculator

ISO becomes an important factor
along with Shutter speed and aperture.

but if there isn't enough light to get the shutter, aperture and ISO that you want the only other way to add light is a flash / extra light, etc

"naturally brighten" .. find another natural light source to add to the scene .. maybe a 2nd sun ?
otherwise, you have to artificially lighten by a flash, light or software.
.

 

[tirediron]

Yep... Hand-held reflectors and/or ON camera flash! I'm not a huge fan of it, but in a case like this, even your pop-up flash, set to manual and dialed down, or with a couple of stops under FEC dialed on would do just fine, especially if you added a diffuser of some sort. Ron's comments are spot-on, but only more light will give you the catchlight in the eye that gives a portrait 'life'.

 

[ronlane]

but only more light will give you the catchlight in the eye that gives a portrait 'life'.

Well, you CAN, photoshop them in but it's WAY easier to do it up front than to spend time with layers and painting and all the fun stuff you have to do to get it to look right.

OP, if you allow others to edit photos, it can sometimes help to see what your photo would look like.

 

[D-B-J]

Yeah you could use a reflector, but I'd suggest some sort of off-camera flash.

 

[Derrel]

ELEVATE the ISO value, as astroNikon mentioned in Post #3: ISO boosting is an absolutely invaluable technique when the light level is marginal to poor. As you mentioned, you want to have adequate depth of field when doing portraiture, and on many poses, wider apertures like f/1.8 to even as small as f/2.8 are just NOT going to get enough of the subject into good focus to make the kind of pictures you'd like to make. In a photo like this one, where there are two people, seated, with their feet projecting right toward the camera, you run the risk of a shallow depth of field shot looking kind of irritating, or "gimmicky", if the soles of the shoes are rendered too much out of focus...

The best procedure is to stop the lens down a ways, to say f/6.3 to f/8, to get the needed depth of field to prevent an overly-gimmicky look. Of course, at a small f/stop in the f/6.3 to f/8 range, there's not a lot of light-gathering power, soooooo...it's often advantageous to boost the light level in one or two ways: reflector fill, supplementary light from flash, or both, AND to maybe elevate the ISO in use a bit.

Reflector fill and or flash can give some eye catchights, which adds what I call "eye-sparkle", which can really look nice.

 

[madisonofriel]

ELEVATE the ISO value, as astroNikon mentioned in Post #3: ISO boosting is an absolutely invaluable technique when the light level is marginal to poor. As you mentioned, you want to have adequate depth of field when doing portraiture, and on many poses, wider apertures like f/1.8 to even as small as f/2.8 are just NOT going to get enough of the subject into good focus to make the kind of pictures you'd like to make. In a photo like this one, where there are two people, seated, with their feet projecting right toward the camera, you run the risk of a shallow depth of field shot looking kind of irritating, or "gimmicky", if the soles of the shoes are rendered too much out of focus...

The best procedure is to stop the lens down a ways, to say f/6.3 to f/8, to get the needed depth of field to prevent an overly-gimmicky look. Of course, at a small f/stop in the f/6.3 to f/8 range, there's not a lot of light-gathering power, soooooo...it's often advantageous to boost the light level in one or two ways: reflector fill, supplementary light from flash, or both, AND to maybe elevate the ISO in use a bit.

Reflector fill and or flash can give some eye catchights, which adds what I call "eye-sparkle", which can really look nice.

So what is the point of using f/1.8 for portraits, it seems impossible...

 

[astroNikon]

From what I've learned and experimented with
normal "studio" portraiture is f/5.6 - 7.1+
you can get really artsy using f/1.4 to f/4 such as with boudoir type "portraiture" where you get facial items in focus and fade out areas further away.

 

[D-B-J]

From what I've learned and experimented with
normal "studio" portraiture is f/5.6 - 7.1+
you can get really artsy using f/1.4 to f/4 such as with boudoir type "portraiture" where you get facial items in focus and fade out areas further away.

I use 1.8-2.8 for portrait work all the time... So it must be a stylistic/artistic choice then.

 

[MichaelHenson]

So what is the point of using f/1.8 for portraits, it seems impossible...

I completely understand your confusion as I was where you are not all that long ago. You always hear that the 50mm 1.8 is great for portraits/low light even when you want more DOF than that gives. The reason that people say that is because most lenses aren't "at their best" when their aperture is wide open. So, a faster lens will "raise the bar" where you are getting sharpness at wider apertures than you would with other lenses. So, for example, your 1.8's quality @ 50mm will be higher than a kit lens @ 50mm with an aperture of 5.6ish...correct me if I'm wrong fellas.

All of these choices mentioned above are great for getting you to the desired level of sharpness, DOF, etc. with the available light. One other suggestions I would provide is to shoot in RAW in instances like this so you have as much "wiggle room" as possible in post. If you do this it's CRAZY how much you can save an underexposed photo. I was playing around with a horrible "test shot in manual mode with the shutter speed still way too high" shot that was nearly COMPLETELY dark and with a quick flick of the exposure slider in LR it went from DARK to brightly exposed...and I don't even have a good low light camera.

All that aside, if you were to make the leap into off-camera flash, you'd be amazed at the level of detail the higher quality light brings to your photos...If you aren't quite ready for that, get the reflector for shots like this...cheap fix! (Most likely...)

 

[vintagesnaps]

I think whatever you've read about an f1.8 might have meant to get a nice sharp f1.8 lens but not necessarily to shoot at that aperture setting.

With this it looks like the boots are in focus (although barely in the frame so keep that in mind too), but to get the boots and the faces sharp you'd need enough depth of field to do that. Then of course adjust your other settings according to what the meter indicates so you get the amount of light into your camera necessary for a proper exposure.

 

[Derrel]

So what is the point of using f/1.8 for portraits, it seems impossible...

Well, no, it's not "impossible". For example on a single person who is standing or sitting straight up, facing the camera fairly square-shouldered, at f/1.8 with a 50mm lens from six feet or so, you can make a nice shallow depth of field photo, with the eyes in focus, and the tip of the nose maybe a bit out of focus, and the back of the ears also out of focus. On a woman of average body build, her bust will be OUT of focus if her eyes are in-focus, because the depth of field zone at f/1.8 is VERY small, at close distances!

As the distance from the camera increases, the depth of field zone gets deeper and deeper, so it **is possible** to shoot at f/1.8, and to get shallow depth of field. Of course, at f/1.8, the optical quality of many lenses is a slight bit weird: there mat be a very slight thing called veiling glare over the whole image, which will often disappear at f/2.5 to f/2.8. It is possible to get nice, shallow depth of field shots using a 50mm lens set to f/2.2 or f/2.5 or f/2.8.

Again-at CLOSE distances, the depth of field band at f/1.8 is VERY narrow....if a person is at an angle to the camera, the close eye can be in-focus, and the back eye can be out of focus; if that's what you want, then that's good. Now, with TWO people in the shot, they must be pretty close to the same exact distance from the lens, or one person will be "softer" than the other, even if they are say three inches off in distance from one another from the lens! On a shot where the person is lying down, say on a bed or the ground, and their feet extend behind them, then the front-most part of them will be in-focus, but by their shoulder blades focus will be dropping off; by their buttocks region, focus will be "out", and the feet will be "gone", focus-wise. Again...that might or might not be acceptable.

 

[dannylightning]

one thing I notice is if you get farther away from a subject it seems easier to work with a f/1.8 lens, I have not used my 50mm 1.8 for much of anything so I am not sure if that lens will have the same results but with my 35mm 1.8 I don't really have any issues with depth of field as I am not close to what I am shooting. if I get close to what I am shooting than it is much harder to work with the dept of field.

this was 1/40 f/1.8 and iso 800 with the 35mm 1.8, the sun was setting and it was semi dark out. try getting farther away and than cropping the image to where you want it and see how that works out for you. that might make f/1.8 easier for you to work with.

I actually think that pic you took and posted looks pretty descent.

 

[Village Idiot]

There looks to be enough available light in your photo, it’s just coming from the wrong direction. As state by people earlier, a reflector may help correct for this one. A flash going to be a big asset too, even an on camera TTL flash for fill here would have worked.

If you look at the male subject’s shoulders though, you see that any more exposure would cause the white shirt to be blown.