The day before Thanksgiving seems like a good time to post this completely apolitical diary. There are several photographers who post here who's work I admire tremendously and, judging by a lot of the comments there are many who would like to understand it a little more but who possibly feel a little intimidated by the spend zillions of dollars and we may let you become part of the club characters who dominate the industry.
You don't need to spend a fortune to take a good photograph or have a degree in optics. I would give two bits of advice to anyone starting out or looking to get beyond the Point, Shoot and Pray stage of their photographic development:
- Use a light source that is at least 6 inches away from the front of the lens i.e. no flash that cannot be physically separated from the camera (unless of course you are aiming for a very hard light with the corresponding sharp edged and dark shadows.
- Learn how to take a picture with the minimum amount of light that your camera will allow
This longish piece addresses the second one of these. There are some numbers and technical words within it but those passages can be safely ignored or not depending upon preference.
Quick note about my style (or lack thereof). I came to photography via a combination of a fine arts background. I think this is the reason that my approach is a little more abstract and has its roots in the Minimalism artistic movement. I do traditional photography, e.g. landscapes, portraiture, etc. but get my kicks out of the experimental and new rather than recreating what has gone before. To me a camera is more sketch book than top quality primed and stretched canvas.
Cross posted at my blog Minimalist Photography 101
Being able to take a sharp photograph in low light really expands the range of possibilities open to the photographer. Of course a tripod is the ideal solution to low light photography situations but how many of just happen to have a tripod with us 24/7 ? The other technically correct way to address the low light issue is to possess a dSLR and a fast lens but with a f1.4 (very big) maximum aperture 50mm prime lens costing in the region of $300 this is an expensive solution. Granted an f1.8 50mm lens can be purchased for around $100 but that is still a fair chunk of change, especially for someone not making money from their photography.
I want to look at some solutions that do revolve around throwing large amounts of cash at the photography industry monster. Today's post will deal with Image stabilization and photographer stabilization (purely in the physical sense) while tomorrow I'll address ISO settings, cropping to reduce required shutter speed and will describe a couple of techniques that enable the camera to be held much more solidly than is possible conventionally.
Image Stabilization
Most cameras, whether dSLR or compacts now have some form of this wonderful technology - use it, I know that with my one camera that has it, it makes a huge difference. I can basically shoot macro hand held under normal lighting conditions. This makes a huge difference as it means that, even if I want a top quality iso 100 tripod shot later I can take a perfectly usable image quickly to get a very good idea of how the set up one will work. The big difference with the shot taken on the tripod is that a much larger depth of field is possible due to being able to use a much smaller aperture.
(Related note: throughout this post i'll be giving examples with shutter speeds - those numbers will be with image stabilization off unless otherwise stated)
Breathing and Posture
This can make a huge difference yet it is an area that never seems to get enough attention. A gun owner at any level will learn about these aspects yet photography treats them as optional. Maybe it is because there is no profit to be made - much more lucrative to have someone dump $300 on a new lens spend a few minutes learning how to stand and how to breath.
Regarding stance, best advice is get comfortable and don't strain. If you are off balance or your center of gravity feels wrong the result will be a blurred image unless you are shooting at 1/500 or 1/1000 shutter speed which you will never ever be doing hand held and in low light. If the position doesn't feel right -readjust and after awhile you will automatically adopt the best position.
The following is proven to work:
Standing - legs about two feet apart, feet at ten to two position
Crouching - front foot planted, back foot on ball, front shin perpendicular to ground.
Elbows always in tight
Lean against something, ideally a wall, if possible
As for breathing, I find that pressing the shutter towards at the end of the exhale gives the best results and anywhere on the inhale the absolute worse. I think that this is pretty general especially the not pressing the shutter on the inhale part. Of course, breathing and relaxation cannot be separated and any technique that utilizes one or both will improve the steadiness of your body.
To digress slightly, think of a biathlon competitor. These athletes have to go from fully stressed physically to the complete level of relaxation required to hit a very small target with a bullet from a rifle. To function at this extreme requires years of specialized training including breathing, relaxation and loads of visualization work. I am not for a moment suggesting that the photographer put him or herself through this level of punishment but I do think that there are lessons to be learned here. I suspect that any of these athletes wouldn't have much trouble holding a camera with a 100mm efl lens absolutely still at 1/10th of a second for example. The textbook minimum for such a lens would be around the 1/125th of a second mark. That represents a lot of extra stops! I am going to brag here and state that, by really getting to know my cameras and lots of practice I can generally hand hold between a stop and two stops below the recommended so I would expect to be able to hand hold and get a sharp image at around 1/30 for the same efl 100mm lens.
Bonus Trick - the second shutter press
Here is a little something that I discovered myself that seems to produce very consistent results and that is to press the shutter twice, the second time immediately after the first and with as little thought as possible. I find that at very low shutter speeds there is always a little movement but fire off a second shot and it is as if the nervous system is working with information gained from the first shot and correcting any errors. This process is purely subconscious and the only thing that I focus on is pressing the shutter smoothly The shot must be taken before the inhale part of the breathing cycle starts - this shouldn't be a problem. This always works - no exceptions and the difference is noticeable. I have had reasonable success at 1/12th second (again with efl 100mm lens) using this method and at 1/30th the shot is always nailed so I can recommend this with confidence.
ISO Setting
This one does something slightly different than the other techniques as it allows for raising the shutter speed whereas the suggestions up until now have revolved around the idea of working with lower shutter speeds.
Put very simply, the higher the number the faster the sensor collects light therefore double the ISO and you only need to leave the shutter open for half as long to get the equivalent amount of light. The downside is that the higher the ISO setting the lower the image quality. This is one area where there is a big difference between compacts and dSLRs. A compact has a much smaller sensor area and this results in more noise (imperfections). The upshot of this is that you can shoot at a much higher ISO number on a dSLR and still get an acceptable result than you can on a compact.
The accepted rule is that you should always use as low an ISO setting as possible, ideally ISO 100 or less. I tend to work to the following parameters; Compacts, No problem going up to 200, 400 is usable and anything above 800 is last ditch desperation. With my dSLR I regard up to 200 as ideal, 400 and 800 are absolutely fine and 1600 is OK at a pinch. Almost all cameras nowadays have software built in that can be activated to clean up images that are shot using high ISO. Generally the standard seems acceptable though no doubt it depends on the make and model of camera. The Nikon d40x does a pretty good job.
The problem with in camera solutions is that they can result in a slightly plasticy artificial look so I prefer to do my cleaning up on the computer. Adobe Lightroom 3 does a superb job (Lightroom 2 doesn't - as far as I can tell it doesn't do any job at all with regard to cleaning up noise). I have always been a fan of Lightroom but this noise cleaning function now makes it an absolute must have for me. It does cost $300 so is not cheap but I would recommend it to anyone who is even slightly serious about photography as it can potentially save you a lot of money on hardware. The latest version can correct for the lens distortion that tends to happen with cheaper lenses, very fine control of exposure is possible, it has a great sharpening tool - a little of this goes a long way, especially with the slightly softer cheaper lenses. Not bad for roughly the same price as that 50mm f1.4 lens mentioned at the beginning of this piece. Using lightroom it is possible to get really good results with ISO 800 and ISO 1600 images on the dSLR and with ISO 400 images shot on the compact.
It needs to be said that I am not a clean freak and do not mind a bit of noise or slight imperfections on my final image. I feel that these imperfections often actually add something but I am probably in the minority. If you are thinking of, say, shooting stock then you might as well glue your ISO setting to a hundred, buy the fast lens and the good tripod.
Cropping
This one is pretty simple and has become possible due to the increases in image resolution over the past couple of years. The longer the lens the higher the shutter speed has to be to eliminate camera shake. To return to our efl 100mm lens for a moment, a shutter speed of 1/125 is the lowest usable according to convention. A very viable option is to reduce the lens to efl 50mm which would reduce the required shutter speed to 1/60th second and to crop the photograph to cover the required portion of the scene, either in camera or on the computer. Now, without a very fast lens you will be lucky to get a 1/60 option in a low light situation but you could raise the ISO from 100 to 200 (extremely minimal quality loss) and then you will probably be in the ballpark.
A Couple of Useful Tricks
Here are two tricks, one for a dSLR and one for a compact. that you may or may not already know about.
The compact one is dead easy, just twist your hands against each other when pressing the shutter. The way I do it is to gently twist my left hand forward and my right hand backwards while taking the shot. This probably sounds weird if you haven't come across it before but once you try it with a camera it will all make perfect sense! Hopefully this goes without saying but I'll say it anyway - use enough pressure to stabilize the camera but not so much that you actually damage the camera. In other words, if this goes wrong don't sue me!
The dSLR trick is a little more complicated but not much. It involves the use of that gaudy strap with the manufacturers name emblazoned across it in neon letters. The one that many wanabees won't use because they think it makes them look touristy (read hobbyist). Personally I'd rather look like a dork in the eyes of some and not be fishing $1,000 plus worth of newly useless gear out of the local duckpond but maybe that's just me.
All that you need to do is loop said gaudy strap, which is of course attached to the camera, just above your elbow. You may have to twist the strap a couple of times so that it has some tension. You will be amazed at how much difference this makes.
Underexpose Artificial Light Shots
I am not sure why, but for some reason digital cameras have a tendency to overexpose shots where all the illumination is provided artificially, e.g. a downtown area well after sunset. This means that a camera can be set to underexpose the shot by as much as a stop without ill effect. In fact the resulting photograph is often better because it doesn't have the overexposed, burnt out areas caused by the more powerful lightsources, streetlights for instance.
Even with shots where there is some natural light underexposing can provide a get out of jail free card as it is pretty straightforward to correct exposure using software if it is within 1.5 - 2.0 stops of the correct value. With natural light this is not an ideal solution as the resulting image will look a little flat but it is not unusable by any means.
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
So, other than buying a tripod or a faster lens, these are the ways that you can take reasonable photographs in lower light levels:
- Use any image stabilization technology built into your camera or lenses.
- Practice breathing and relaxation.
- Good stance (Posture)
- Lean against something
- Relaxation techniques
- Double shutter press
- Creative use of ISO settings
- Cropping
- Create stability using a camera strap (dSLR)
- Introduce tension between the hands (Compact Camera)
- Underexpose
Low light photography techniques break down into two groups, those that allow you to work with a lower shutter speed e.g. breathing, leaning against something and those that enable the raising of the shutter speed e.g. raising the ISO number. The trick with low light photography is to find a way to get a working window of a usable shutter speed you often won't have much choice as to say factors like depth of field as you will often just gain enough to get the picture without any margin for reducing the aperture but getting the picture is the important thing.
Happy Thanksgiving.