Low light photography

[derelict]

(I posted this reply on another thread but it's a bit tangential to that thread and deserves to be a thread of its own.)

Originally Posted by pressld2

No problem using my 80-400 lens in twilight or even at night. The big prime lenses usually have larger apertures so would be even more useable in dimness/darkness.

Dave P.

Now that is interesting - they don't have an emoticon for ears poking up -
I have a vague memory of reading a posting about having a special low light option on their DSLR but never followed it up and now I can't find it...

How dark can it get before you get a meaningless blur? And are there any examples of low-light photography in the Gallery? (I'm not looking to photograph black beetles in total darkness)

[pressld2]

Hi derelict, and thanks for taking this off the other thread - top man!

Just a bit of background for anyone who hasn't followed the other thread, my comment about using my 80-400 in twilight or at night was part of a discussion about using a camera with a long lens instead of binoculars, i.e. for wildlife watching rather than taking photos. While there is no doubt (in my mind at least) that binoculars are better it is possible to use a camera with a long lens in low light conditions.

The biggest drawback is that you would have to switch to manual focus. DSLRs focus by using scene contrast but in low-light conditions there isn't enough contrast and the auto-focus starts to hunt. Most have a "focus-assist" lamp which lights up just long enough to allow the camera to focus but a) this is less effective over the large distances implied by the use of a 400mm or longer lens and b) it's likely to scare off the wildlife you're trying to watch. However, unless I'm way behind the times with binocular technology, you have to manually focus those too.

When it comes to actually taking pictures under these conditions then we're looking at having to use either very high ISO levels in which case we've got digital noise to deal with or we have to start using long exposures which is rarely practical for wildlife. For this reason my night and low light photography is predominately cityscapes, but I have a few wildlife shots that would definitely count as twilight.

Here's one of roosting starlings silhouetted by the moon...



This wide angle view shows the kind of light levels that the above was taken under, i.e. it was after sunset...



And this shot was taken before sunrise...



Dave P.

[zan]

that's a difficult question really, because it depends what you are shooting and how. If you have a lens with a wide aperture (e.g. F2.8 and wider) you can get a faster shutter speed, than someone using an F4+ lens for example. Alternatively, you could keep shooting in lower light after someone with an F4+ lens has had to give up and go home (all other things, e.g. IS \ focal length etc. being equal).

If you use a tripod and long shutter speeds though, you can pretty much shoot through the night. You can't expect to get fast-moving animals sharp and frozen without the use of a flash or two (which isn't really low-light photography any more), but you can get some cool shots with creative motion blur with a slower shutter speed. Or, just pick a really slow subject

Hope this makes sense!
Zan

[derelict]

I was hoping that there had been some advance in digital photography that had helped to make dusk photography possible.

I have noticed that judicious tinkering with tones and brightness/contrast can some times pull out remarkable details from a dark picture on the digicam and wonder how that comes across on a serious camera?

[K9photo]

How it comes across really seems to depend on how you are using the camera. I recently shot some images in a shaded wood on a glorious summer day. The alternating strength of light confused the hell out of the camera sensor so it had to be done manually. I was getting reasonable results this way but no amount of processing after the shoot was getting the standard of image I was used to. It seems in this instance, size is everything. I can only get a max of f4.5 on my longer lens but the people with the big cash behind me and the f2 lenses just kept snapping away. If anyone has any great advice on this, please please pass it on. I have a D200 and can push the ISO pretty high but I don't want grainy pictures.

Educate us please, photography gurus.

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by K9photo

I recently shot some images in a shaded wood on a glorious summer day.

The dynamic range between the deep shadows and sunlit patches is usually _far_ too great for satisfactory images - and a faster lens won't make any difference. Those with faster lenses may have kept on shooting, but the results would probably have been poor.

Jim

[Mike Jackson]

Depends what you are shooting but if it's flora rather than fauna I have heard good reviews of a program called photomatix which allows you to merge several bracketed images into one.

Mike

[derelict]

Originally Posted by Mike Jackson

Depends what you are shooting but if it's flora rather than fauna I have heard good reviews of a program called photomatix which allows you to merge several bracketed images into one.

Mike

There's a post in the Astronomy forum which talks about something called "Registax" which sounds very similar. Can anyone compare the two?

http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/fo...031-post9.html

[K9photo]

You can also achieve the same in photoshop using the "merge to HDR" option, HDR being high dynamic range. You can achieve some amazing results with HDR photography and there are lots of tutorials and examples of HDR photography on youtube.

[RoseStones]

I wouldn't rule out the careful use of flash if things are getting too dark for available light photography. I've seen some absolute belters taken in pitch dark, in fact my favourite wildlife photo ever was the one at the World Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007; a photo of a bat fishing over a river that'd been taken using a strobe flash. Every time the flash strobed it created an image of the bat on the picture so the final pic was a composite that looked like several bats in various stages of catching the fish. Awesome, just awesome. Didn't win much to my displeasure