Low light photography is not necessarily just night photography, as many people assume. There could be different amounts of light coming from various sources and whatever is less than daytime light outside, I consider low-light. Indoors photography without much ambient light (as in many of our homes) as well as the light that is barely visible to our eyes at night, is also considered to be low-light. In this article, I will provide tips on how to take pictures in various low-light environments, whether indoors or outdoors.
Three Levels of Low Light
Before we go any further, let’s first identify the varying levels of low-light and categorize them, so that we could refer to them in examples. Although it is very hard to categorize the amount of light, due to the fact that it is a large range of light between bright and pitch black, just for the sake of making it easier to explain and refer to, I still decided to divide it into three categories:
- Visible: in daylight, when you happen to be in shadow areas behind buildings, under large trees or bridges.
- Low Light: after sunset, when you can still clearly see everything around you, but you can tell that it is getting dark or when you are indoors.
- Dark: at night, when you can only see the brightest objects.
I’m sure you have come across all of the above situations at some point of time with your camera and perhaps even found it challenging and frustrating to take pictures in those conditions. Let’s go through the above one at a time and see what you can do to take good pictures in all low light conditions.
1) Low Light Photography: Visible Conditions
Have you had a situation where you were in a shadow during the day and tried to take a picture? This was one of my frustrations when I bought my first DSLR, because I couldn’t understand why my pictures were coming out blurry. At times, the images on the rear LCD of the camera would look OK, but when I eventually viewed them on the computer screen, they would all be a little blurry. I had no idea why it was happening and really needed to find out why.
Even though you might think that there is plenty of light when you are in a shadow area, in fact, there might be inadequate light for the camera to effectively capture the image. Depending on your camera settings, there might be two consequences: a) you will have a blurry image and b) you might have a lot of noise in your image.
ILCE-7RM2 + FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM @ 63mm, ISO 100, 0.8 sec, f/11.0
1.1) Shoot at Higher Shutter Speeds to Avoid Blurry Images
So, why do blurry images happen? The answer is in the camera shutter speed. If the shutter speed is too low, you will get camera shake and / or motion blur from moving subjects. To avoid camera shake, you should always try to shoot at faster shutter speeds. You might ask “what is a fast shutter speed?”. It depends on the focal length of your lens and the size of your camera sensor. For example, if you are photographing a subject with a wide-angle lens on a typical point and shoot or a small sensor camera, you might get away with shutter speeds under 1/50th of a second, depending on your camera hand-holding technique. Whereas if you are using a telephoto lens longer than 100mm, I recommend applying the reciprocal rule to calculate your optimal shutter speed. Keep in mind that image stabilization also plays an important role in calculating the right shutter speed (more on image stabilization below). If you have image stabilization turned on, you might be able to shoot at much longer shutter speeds without introducing camera shake. For most day-to-day photography though, a shutter speed of 1/200th-1/250th of a second should be fast enough to yield sharp results and avoid motion blur on most cameras.
NIKON D850 + 58mm f/1.4 @ 58mm, ISO 110, 1/125 sec, f/1.8
1.2) Set Aperture to the Lowest Number (f/stop)
Unfortunately, to shoot at fast shutter speeds such as 1/200th of a second, you will need to have plenty of light. In our situation, we don’t have enough light, so what do we do? The first thing you will need to try to do is set your lens aperture to the lowest f-number on the camera, which is called the “maximum aperture”. Opening up your lens aperture will allow more light to pass through the lens into the camera body, which will result in faster shutter speeds. In order to do that, you will have to either switch to “Aperture Priority” mode or manually override your aperture in whatever mode you are using. Then, start opening up your aperture until you get to the lowest f-number your camera will allow, its maximum aperture. For example, if you have a 35mm f/1.8 prime lens, your maximum aperture will be f/1.8, while the maximum aperture on a lens like 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 will change from f/3.5 to f/5.6 depending on the focal length.
1.3) Use a Faster Lens
The maximum aperture is a physical property of a lens, which means that the choice of the lens itself is important. Most consumer zoom lenses are limited to f/3.5-f/5.6 for maximum aperture, while professional zoom lenses often have a constant aperture of f/2.8. Many prime (fixed) lenses can open up to f/1.4, while some specialty and exotic prime lenses can go all the way to f/0.95! The larger the maximum aperture (the lower the f-number), the faster the lens is considered to be.
NIKON D700 + 24mm f/1.4 @ 24mm, ISO 3200, 1/8 sec, f/2.0
So, how does opening up the lens aperture affect your shutter speed? Let’s say you are shooting at f/8.0 aperture and 1/125th shutter speed. Opening up the aperture to f/5.6 will double your shutter speed to 1/250th of a second, while lowering it to f/4.0 will quadruple the shutter speed to 1/500th of a second, which is plenty to freeze motion (see Exposure and Exposure Stops for more details). If you have a fast lens with a maximum aperture of f/1.8, just keep in mind that opening up the aperture to the lowest f-number will also decrease depth of field, which might put your subject out of focus if you are not careful.
If you shoot Nikon, I recommend getting something like the Nikon 35mm f/1.8G DX or the Nikon 50mm f/1.8G. Canon shooters have similar options in the form of the Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM and Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM. Most other camera systems have similar lens options.
1.4) Use Image Stabilization
Does your lens and / or camera have image stabilization (also known as “Vibration Reduction”, “Vibration Compensation” and “Optical Image Stabilization”)? If no, that’s too bad, because it truly does work! The latest image stabilization technologies from Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji and even third party manufacturers allow up to 4.5 stops of compensation, which can come really handy when shooting hand-held.
Let’s say that with a regular lens you need 1/250th of a second to get a sharp picture. With an image-stabilized system, you could lower the shutter speed to 1/15th of a second or even slower, and still get the same sharp image! Many consumer zoom lenses such as the Nikon AF-P DX 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR and Nikon AF-S DX 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G VR II come with image stabilization / vibration technology. While it is certainly nice to have stabilization in such versatile lenses, unfortunately, these lenses are also slower and not as sharp as the above-mentioned prime lenses. Because of this, the ideal choice would be a fast lens that also has built-in image stabilization, or a fast lens that can be stabilized by in-body image stabilization (that’s when a camera has an image-stabilized sensor). The good news is, manufacturers are now catching up in this regard and have been adding more stabilization options both in lenses and in cameras.
X-T2 + XF10-24mmF4 R OIS @ 18.2mm, ISO 200, 1/50 sec, f/11.0
1.5) Increase Your Camera ISO
What if you have already opened up your lens aperture to its maximum aperture and you are still getting slow shutter speeds? The answer then is to increase the camera ISO in order to make the image brighter. For example, if you are shooting at ISO 100 and your camera’s shutter speed is 1/25th of a second, resulting in blurry images, you will need to increase your ISO to 400 to get the shutter speed of 1/100th of a second. How did I calculate that? Basically, doubling your ISO doubles your shutter speed. So, increasing the camera ISO from 100 to 200, increases your shutter speed from 1/25th of a second to 1/50th of a second. Then, increasing it further more from ISO 200 to 400 increases the shutter speed from 1/50th of a second to 1/100th of a second.
NIKON D700 @ 24mm, ISO 1600, 1/25 sec, f/8.0
Be careful with increasing your ISO to a large value, as higher ISO translates to more grain / noise in your images. Most modern cameras can handle noise levels up to ISO 1600 pretty well, while top-of-the-line full frame professional cameras can produce very little noise even at ISO 6400 and higher.
2) Low Light Photography: Low Light Conditions
Let’s now move on to a more complex situation, where the amount of light is quickly diminishing after sunset or you are shooting indoors in a poorly lit environment. Obviously, the first thing to try is to open up your aperture and increase your ISO, as it says above. But then you get to the point where you are maxed out on the aperture and have already reached the highest ISO you are comfortable with and you are still not able to get sharp photos. What do you do then?
NIKON D810 + 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 38mm, ISO 64, 2 sec, f/8.0
2.1) Position Subject Closer to the Light Source
The closer your subject is to the light source, the more light there will be for your camera to use. Large windows are great sources of light, so open up those curtains and blinds and let the light get into the room. I forgot to bring the flashes when we were photographing the below group, so we quickly found a solution by opening up a large gate and letting lots of exterior light in:
2.2) Stabilize Yourself
That’s right – learn to stabilize yourself and hold your camera better. Use your left hand to support the camera by putting your palm in between the camera lens and the camera body (or wherever the center of the weight is). Pull your elbows towards your body. If you can, sit down and use your knee as support by resting your left arm on it. Gently squeeze the shutter button and see if you can get a sharp image. Practice this and other techniques and you will be able to shoot at very low shutter speeds without introducing camera shake.
2.3) Push Your ISO to a Higher Number
What is better, a blurry image or a sharp image with more noise? I prefer the latter. Push your ISO to a larger number and take a shot. See if the level of noise is acceptable to you. There are plenty of noise-removal programs out there that can help you clean up an image. Try them out and see if the final result after post-processing is good enough for your needs. Although I personally try to stay below ISO 1600, sometimes I push mine to ISO 3200 when needed. On my full-frame camera, I can push up ISO to 12800 every once in a while, with acceptable levels of noise.
NIKON D850 + 14mm f/1.8 @ 14mm, ISO 800, 1/1, f/8.0
2.4) Shoot in RAW
I always shoot in RAW, because I can recover plenty of detail from my pictures. With an 8-bit JPEG image, you have very limited options to recover information. In some cases when dealing with low-light conditions, you might end up slightly overexposing or underexposing your images. When shooting in RAW, you have much more flexibility to bring down highlights and bring up shadows in post-processing software, without adding too much noise to your images. See our RAW vs JPEG article to understand the differences between the two image formats.
2.5) Be Careful About Autofocus
In low-light environments, the camera might start to lose its autofocus capabilities. That’s what happens when there is not enough light – the camera cannot differentiate between objects anymore, just like if you were to point it at a plain white wall. Many modern digital cameras are equipped with an “AF assist” light in front of the camera that lights up just like a flashlight when there is not enough light to illuminate the subject. If you have such functionality, definitely turn it on in dim environments. On Nikon DSLRs, switch your camera from continuous mode (“C”) to single (“S”) mode to turn on this feature. When you focus on a subject, make sure that it looks sharp in the viewfinder. If it is blurry, try to re-acquire focus by half-pressing the shutter/autofocus button. In many cases you won’t be able to tell if the camera was able to focus correctly on the subject until you take the picture. In that case, make sure to zoom in and check for sharpness of the image on the rear LCD of the camera.
NIKON D850 + 14mm f/1.8 @ 14mm, ISO 800, 20/1, f/1.8
2.6) Use a Larger Sensor Camera
A large sensor camera is expensive, but very helpful in low-light situations. For example, if you shoot with a basic point and shoot camera, you will find that shooting with a Micro Four Thirds or an APS-C camera will make your images have substantially less noise in them, allowing you to use much higher ISOs, so moving up in sensor size truly does make a huge difference. Don’t worry about camera resolution – sensor size is what matters the most for low light photography.
DSC-RX100M4 + 24-70mm F1.8-2.8 @ 10.15mm, ISO 200, 1/13, f/11.0
2.7) Use a Monopod or a Tripod
And last, but not least, try using a monopod or a tripod that will really help with keeping your gear still. A monopod is helpful in some situations, but I personally prefer using a tripod for most of my low-light photography. With a tripod, you could set your ISO to the lowest number to decrease noise, increase dynamic range and shoot at very slow shutter speeds. Obviously, slow shutter speeds could translate to motion blur of your subjects in your images, but in some cases it is not a problem and sometimes it even looks cool! Make sure to use a sturdy tripod, not one of those cheap plastic ones. See our guide on how to choose a tripod for more information.
3) Low-Light Photography: Dark Conditions
In poorly lit environments and at night, many of the above tips are useless, because you have no light to work with.
3.1) Use a Tripod
Hand-held photography is simply impossible at night (unless you want to purposefully create a lot of blur). A good, sturdy tripod is a must for night photography, because you deal with very slow shutter speeds and every bit of vibration matters. It is best to use a remote control or a cable release system with your camera in those situations, but if you do not have one, try using your camera’s timer, or the exposure delay mode. If your camera is equipped with the electronic front curtain shutter feature, it can also help in eliminating other vibrations originating from your camera, such as shutter shock.
3.2) Use a Flashlight for Light Painting
If your subject is too dark, use a flash light to add some light to it. Light painting is pretty cool and you can get some really nice shots by painting with the light, especially if you use different colors.
3.3) Use Manual Focus
When it is too dark, autofocus will not function. If your subject is close, try to use your “AF Assist” light in the camera to get good focus. If your subject is further away, try using a flashlight to illuminate your subject and allow your camera to focus. If your subject is far away or you do not have a flashlight, you will need to manually focus on your subject. Setting your lens to “infinity” focus could work in some cases, but you might have better luck with manual focus adjustment by zooming in with live view. Once you acquire focus, make sure to turn off autofocus so that the camera does not attempt to focus again. Obviously, do not touch your zoom ring after focus is acquired, since focus has to be adjusted for each focal length.
3.4) Practice, Practice and Practice!
I don’t have to say much here – just practice as much as you can and you will get better in no time!
Low-light photography is a lot of fun and you should definitely play and experiment with your camera in different lighting conditions. If you learn how to take pictures in low light, you will have an opportunity to take some amazing pictures that have a different feel to them compared to everyday pictures in daylight.
Good luck and let me know if you have any questions!
All my photography is done in low light. I mostly shoot two types of photos. Group photos where everyone poses in extremely low light conditions in a night club or photos of groups of people dancing (crowd shots). There are no windows. I am using a Nikon D5200 camera with a Tamron Auto Focus 17-50mm F/2.8 SP XR Di II VC lens. I am unable to use a tripod but can use a monopod whenever possible. I use an external flash for every shot, otherwise, the photos will come out to dark. Even with the external flash, the photo can came out too dark. What is a good starting point to use? It was recommended to change my aperture from a 2.8 to 4.5 or 5.6 since I did not need the lower aperture setting since I have an external flash. Keep my ISO at around 400 and the shutter speed I use is usually 1/125. If I go below 1/80, there is too much shake and I can’t take the shot. I am trying to get clear crisp shots with no blur. Thanks!
Arlene, I apologize for a late reply. An external flash is definitely going to help out in a darker environment, but you have to be able to properly balance flash with ambient light, or your photos will look too “flashy”. I would recommend the following technique: shoot in manual mode and set your camera ISO to a larger number like ISO 1600, so that you are letting more ambient light in. Set your aperture to a desired value – something like f/4 should be sufficient for sharp images. From there, keep your shutter speed at your comfortable range, but keep in mind that flash actually helps freeze subjects, so it should be OK to lower it. Then add flash, set it to manual mode and start with low power – maybe 1/32th of power or so. Adjust it accordingly, depending on how far away your subject is. TTL also works, but it often results in inconsistent power, so I would keep it on manual as well. Set the camera to AF-S mode and use the red light that is built into your flash (if you have it) in order to acquire better focus.
Hope this helps!
Hi Arlene.
I have photographed crowd and dancers in a club some decade ago and I would say you need a really powerful external flash gun. I would recommend SB900 nothing less will help for your Nikon.
Setting ISO above 400 on D5200 I would not recommend because of the grain of its sensor. Maybe 800 is a maximum if you will not enlarge the photograph. Otherwise there is no much changes.
Other advises are
* to shoot landscape not portrait so that the flash is above and not on the side in terms of side shadows
* use flash exposure compensatoin if your shots look too flashy (meaning if flash ttl makes consistent mistakes).
* cover flash gun with diffuser, it will make the light acceptable.
* shoot RAW, you will be able to regain about 2 extra stops.
Thank you, Nasim for such excellent article. I learnt a lot from your blog. I’m not a professional photographer but yes, it’s helping me for my hobby.
You are most welcome Sun and thanks for being a reader!
Great article. Thank you. I am a bird photographer. So many photographers I meet in the field consider your site their top source for information. Your site and contributors are consistently excellent. Very frequently small birds are hiding in poorly lit environments (in bushes or on the ground under them) or in trees where they are often backlit. Since small birds are constantly moving, shutter speeds must be reasonably fast. We are forced to use slower telephoto lenses to get close to the birds. There is also the problem of glare if shooting into the trees with a mix of leaves and sky as background. Autofocus is difficult and manual focus unrealistic. I delete most every shot I try in these conditions. I shoot at 1/400, 400mm, f5.6, auto ISO with an A7R3 but no amount of corrections in post give a decent result. Slower shutter speeds are problematic because small birds seem to always be moving something. DOF is already tight at 5.6. I can’t imagine to go f2.8 even if my lens allowed it. I do not see how the problems with contrast and color in particular could be fixed by a faster lens anyway. Your thoughts? Thanks!
Buy a Nikon and wait for the birds to move to better positions!
But seriously, no amount of camera ‘technology’ will make a poorly lit subject look good. Despite the dynamic range improvements in sensors, if, when looked at with the naked eye, your subject is in the shade or in other difficult light, you will never realise a deep colour depth and range of contrasts. The colour information just isn’t there, and you don’t want to artificially simulate it with HDR etc on natural subjects. This is one of the things they don’t mention on most internet sites, where they shoot test cards with studio lighting. Every one of Nasim’s great bird shots, I am fairly confident, resulted not just from good technique but also from waiting until the lighting was ideal for the subject.
Those are excellent points Burghclerebilly, thank you!
Wendell, to be honest, after testing a number of Sony mirrorless cameras, I do not find any of them particularly usable for bird photography. Sony cameras are great for portraiture and they do track subjects nicely, but bird photography, especially with busy backgrounds, is a whole different ballgame. That’s where DSLRs continue to reign and probably will for a while, until Sony and other mirrorless manufacturers introduce super telephoto lenses and start optimizing their AF systems for fast, erratic subjects like birds.
Another thing to keep in mind, is that photographing birds in trees, with busy backgrounds and bushes is often a difficult task on its own. Instead of focusing on camera gear, I would recommend to find or create better opportunities. For example, you could set up a blind next to a bird feeder or a small pool where birds like to come and drink. You could scout for areas that have lots of birds and visit bird sanctuaries, where you will find them in abundance with all kinds of nice backgrounds. That might be worth looking into… Check out our in-depth article on wildlife photography – you will find a lot of answers to many questions you might have…
Hope this helps and good luck!
I think a smaller sensors do have an advantage in low light as well. They give you more depth of field. In other words taking pictures at 1.4 or 1.8 don’t look like a “special effect” (depending of the focal length DOF can be just one or two centimeters and very precise focus is extremely critical). This makes photo’s taken with a wide opening with a cropped sensor more usefull for general photography.
Cees, smaller sensors also look significantly worse at higher ISOs when compared to large-sensor cameras, so you might gain more DoF, but at the cost of high ISO performance…
I didn’t see any advice about “underexposing a little bit.” The whole point was to not underexpose by using fast lenses, tripods, and so on. An underexposed image will create noise when you post process.
Tamron has a years longer warranty compared to Tokina, and several testers report the Tamron slightly sharper.
Phil, there were some references to that in the older version of the article, but I updated it with new info that is more accurate. There is no advantage to underexposing, unless you have an ISO invariant camera and you know what you are doing…
Great article. Thank you. I been practicing. You are right low-light photography is a lot of fun and you trip are great.
Thanks!
You are most welcome Ziggy!
Nasim, some photographers weep & wail & gnash their teeth, about “noise” in digital photography – especially when they need to crank up the ISO speed rating. But IMHO (oops – I’m a Leo, I don’t have one of those – start again!). IMO (there, that’s much better!) the noise is no worse than grain was, in the analogue era. And also we now have much better ways of dealing with it, anyway. Personally, I often leave some there, because I spent half a century with analogue photography, and a bit of noise or grain “looks right”.
There are numerous advantages with digital, over analogue, that apply in the area covered in your article. Here are just a few:
One – nobody talks about “reciprocity failure” any more.
Two – we have exposure meters with sensitivity that was unheard of half a century ago.
Three – the fastest film speed I ever found was 1000 ASA (AKA 1000 ISO, I believe). There are cameras out there right now which shoot acceptable images way beyond 4000 ISO.
Four – the fastest lens I had in those days was f 2.0. I now have several f 1.4, and you can get faster lenses.
I’ve found available light photography absorbing and fascinating since my late teens, nearly 60 years ago. Yes, I always took reciprocity failure tables with me, whenever I went out at night, for all the different films I used to shoot with (I had 3 magazine backs on my cams, in those days – it’s quite different, now, being able to switch back & forth between colour and B&W, or to change the ISO rating at the click of a button). Sometimes, I didn’t like the “milky” look for some elements in a time exposure, and at times even a time exposure couldn’t hit the target, so I also used to use a monstrous great Graflex press photographer’s flash gun, which fired single use bulbs that were larger than a 100W household electric bulb – and heaven help you, if you were fool enough to cop the blast from one of those, in the face – you wouldn’t be able to see properly for well over half an hour afterwards.
While I was busily admiring the first of the photos you used to illustrate the article, the starry sky gave me a slight start. I hope the trolls out there don’t attack you over it. I’m afraid I will have to let you down. I can’t pick a “my favourite” from all these photos.
The only things I can add are “thank you” and “I would have wanted a tripod for practically all of them”.
I think one of the biggest problems is not even noise and not even grain (both can be used creatively unless you shoot with a cam that has those really tiny sensors in it). The largest problem is the ruined image because of the lens/camera shake. You want know it almost until the final stage unless you go 100% zoom right after the shot and look really carefully.
And using 1/400 is not enough for 400mm lense to eliminate the shake, and mirror stresses the camera making it shaking much as well. Maybe, Wendell, for a bird photography you better go with Sony or similar mirrorless camera, capable to stream pictures at high speed, otherwise it is really difficult to make a decent picture.
Pete, thank you for your feedback, I really appreciate it!
I agree, noise is not as bad as many people think it is. However, I warned against it in the article, because many beginners get confused on why they even encounter it in the first place and what they can do to minimize it. For me, it is OK to have a noisier image that is in focus, than a cleaner image that is blurry due to camera shake. One exception to this is landscape photography – in challenging light, pushing ISO higher than base ISO can result in significantly reduced dynamic range, which can make highlight and shadow recovery very painful in post.
Hi Nasim,
I’m going on a holiday from Australia at the end of the year to Finland/Norway. Partly wanting a white Christmas (we don’t get them where I live) partly Northern Lights experience and partly to spend time in an environment that is completely different to what I am used to.
Due to the time of the year, there will be a lot of low light photography so I’ve been researching camera equipment and low light photography.
Thanks for your article, very informative.
I am not a professional and am looking at getting something a bit better than my “point and shoot” which I can use on my kayak etc, but can’t afford the other end of the scale of the latest and greatest DSLR.
I’ve been looking at some of the mirrorless micro four thirds cameras, as their light weight and the available lenses seem to cover a lot of bases and make it affordable to get quite reasonable photographs in low light situations.
One of the lenses I have been shown is a 14-150mm f4-5.6. I was told it would be a good all round lens because it could cover landscapes, portraits and wildlife. The advantage is that I wouldn’t have to be trying to change lenses while “out in the field” and could enjoy the whole experience more. The other lens I could consider is the 17mm f1.8 or the 25mm f1.8 specifically for their wide angle capabilities.
It is understood that a tripod is an essential part of the kit.
Interested in your thoughts.
Thanks
Malcolm, to be honest, I am not a big fan of the “do-it-all” superzoom lenses like the 14-150mm. It is a pretty slow lens on Micro Four Thirds and although it is plenty sharp for most situations, it is not a particularly great lens for low-light photography. Personally, I would recommend to take two lenses – one that is going to be suitable for low-light situations and portraiture (such as the 17mm f/1.8 or the 25mm f/1.8), and one zoom lens that you can use for those brighter days. If you cannot afford two high quality lenses, I would start out with a prime and a cheap kit zoom.
Thanks Nasim,
I appreciate your comments.
Sales people in camera stores are sales people after all, and if they sense a sale, they will sell you anything to make another $1.
There’s always the “Would you like fries with that?” and yes, I do understand I will need a memory card and maybe even another battery, but that’s a given.
You’ve convinced me to look at getting the 17 or 25mm f1.8 and a zoom.
The cheap kit zoom they offer here is a 40-150 f4.5-5.6 (generally coupled with a 14-42 f3.5-5.6 EZ) as a package.
I’ll do some more looking around and see what I come up with and what sort of deal they can do.
Thanks