Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Low Light without Flash

Hopefully as you can see in the light on our faces I don't know I don't know how much they're compensating for this but it is uh dark and miserable and I have definitely had situations like this where it's been really thick uh stained glass windows and then a cloudy day right now we have the lights down a little lower then they need to be but if it were a cloudy day so what you working black this is what you would be working with so real quick I'm going to run up and take a meter readings you guys can get an idea before I fiddle with my camera of what the light is on these two lovely ladies faces okay so let's take a look at that return my meter on okay so I can set my meter for ambient light instead of for flash and I haven't set so I can die elin my aperture my eyes so and it will give me the shutter speed so I know on the lens that I have with me it's a two point eight lens so I know in this situation I'm goingto have to shoot as wide open as possible you have to in a situation so i...

f I come over here and I measure gives me a half a second at two point eight a really long exposure so let's see the different ways that I can try toe handle and conquer this light um one thing that I would like you guys to watch is girls would you stand over there for a sec? Can you guys see how long the shadows on their noses are and the's shadows in their eyes right if you had control of the situation to see how the pool actually if someone would move back up seal the pool's light kind of just goes to here okay? The pool light doesn't extend much because the light's right there if you had control what I would do is that back upstate would you stand at the top of their and can think say they go off like the top step more so because I back them up the shadows get a little bit better because the light has a little bit longer to spread out and to fill in and they've raised them up a little bit so if I had control and improve the quality of light a little bit but assuming I can't use my flash and I can't move them I'm stuck with this right here so you guys come back down thank you again it was s o one hundred two point eight half of a second so let's take a look at my options so option number one that I have over here is I can shoot a tripod but a very important point that I wanted to make let's say you're shooting in this low light situation and it really is like this is as close as you can get, and you're trying to get a close up shot on your couple over there you are bound to have camera shake so there's two important things. If I'm zooming in trying to get close ups of them, I would want to use a long lens. Ah, common mistake that I see with many photographers is with a long lens. They put the tripod mount on the camera and how that works because of all this weight is when you depress the shudder just that sometimes in the weight on the front of the camera with this lens will make your image blurry. So if you are shooting ah, long lens with a tripod that's what this collar is for a lot of photographers think it's kind of annoying, awkward because it no, he messes up how it fits in your bag, but it's a lens collar, you put them out on there, and this is much more stable because you've put it kind of at the center wait point of the lens instead of having it dangling on the end of the camera um, another nice thing about these it's really easy for vertical. Horizontal I've seen a lot of people that don't realize that you can do that and so they're like trying to tilt their cameras and it slows them down to make sure you do that as well so if you could have a tripod this is what I would do if I had a tripe on it would be very nice if you could be nice and centered in the church and everything like that my camera on the tripod and I'd make sure that I'm shooting at two point eight okay perfect and I have my back button focus set um again that would make more of a difference if they're moving doesn't matter in this case because they're still so of two point eight and I am looking at what shutter speed I'm going to choose I wanted to let in as much light as possible eh? So if I shoot maybe at let's say a sixties for a second I think for a sixteenth of a second they'll probably not move and I can probably get a still image I'm on a tripod I can shoot as long as I want I could shoot a full second I could shoot two seconds the problem is not me in that case the prom would be them moving so I feel like you know I feel like with them maybe I could push it toe maybe I could push it to ah fortieth of a second maybe so that's kind of decision you have to make um probably sixtieth the second the rules for hand holding are totally different but we'll touch on that in a second and so I've got my aperture is wide open as it goes I have to pointing I have my shutter speed is why does I feel comfortable which might be a fortieth and let me see I don't know if I'm that come from I think I have to go sixtieth I'm afraid that they'll get a little movement and so now is here's where I pay play with my I s o I know because I've worked with this camera, I feel totally comfortable at thirty, two hundred eso it is completely fine it's much better than me having a blurry picture because of camera shake or because of them moving so thirty two hundred eyes so I know I can change however you know, not everybody's cameras do that well at that high s o so we're going to try to dio is grab a shot with the camera that falls apart a little bit at a high rise so we'll grab a shot of that and we'll see how much we can save it in day three when we look about kind of saving our crappy light situations so let's take a look at what I have here I'm gonna switch to vertical and let me because there's a little this looks like gum look like very intense white guys that look a little more relaxed her like like cute you're in church. Okay, thank you. All right, so take a look and see how that goes awful compositions are movement camera again so if you look you could totally get usable images from that for a couple but this is the lake my situation where they're not really moving and I have my tripod here and inserts its lens mounted in the center. Okay, what happens if I can't have a tripod? Maybe it's because I'm not allowed to stand in the middle of the aisle and I can't get a tripod in these pews I mean, they're really narrow, so what would you do? So my next step would be this thing this is awesome and I use it use it, dude. That's why he have a tripod like tripping over in the dark? Um this is an amazing mono pod it's been photo mono pod it's got this this head so when you put on the ground, it swivels you have a lot of easy movement. This is what I do is because it has such a minimal footprint that I could easily stand in a pew and move I can lower this a little bit, but I could easily move with the mono pod and that would be pretty stable for me well I'm freaking things okay so this would be the next one if I'm not mistaken this is about two fifty with the tripod in the head so not crazy and it's it's definitely really, really useful and again I would still try to mount the lens instead of the camera if you could so let's say you can't use a tripod you already can't use a flash you can't use a tripod and you can't use a mono pod okay what next? All right so let me take this off of the tripe on and john would you grab this tripod for me it's going to move it out of the frame thank you and you could just you could just grab the tripod oh and I'll grab it and if you could put it right there to thank you so much all right so the next thing is with this lens if you know that you show a lot of low light situations in churches and events and whatnot when you purchase a lens you should spend the extra money to get the image stabilization or nikon vibration reduction uh sigma optical stabilization so this is something that you would want to invest in because what it does if I'm shooting at a slightly longer shutter speed for example the rule is the rule that we're probably taught is if you're shooting with a two hundred millimeter lens I should not hand hold any longer then or any for any uh sure speed any longer than one two hundredth of a second I met a sixtieth I like relatively stable you know I can kind of kind of lock in there but the image stabilization is going to help me in sure but it kind of fights against my blur so as I'm looking at these images I can actually feel as I was bracing myself the land's counter acting my wiggle um so I can feel that they're and on your different lenses depending on what lens you have they'll be different types of image stabilization usually it's like a one or two is what they call it and so it would be image stabilization for your wiggle whereas depending on the one depending on what lens you have if its image stabilization too it's watching out for your camera shake but you're telling it that you're panning so it knows this movement left to right is acceptable but not up and down so you would want to make sure you set that another thing that a lot of lenses have is they have a kind of ah uh focus reduction or what would you call it the distance range limiter there you call I call I just got a limiter I know that's cool ok range limiter okay so if you look on the side of violence weaver guys guys ever seen full or limit and not know what it meant. The only reason a lot of people figure out what this means is because they're trying to take a portrait and they can't figure out why they can't focus it. So what this means is when you're on full it means let you shoot and focused as close as this lens will like you, so I could be really, really close to you, and it will try to focus when I hit limit usually it's about I think about two and a half meters or something that says anything in front of my lens within two and a half meters or whatever the distances for each lens ignore it. Don't focus on that focus on everything past that the reason that's important is for sports let's say that you're shooting sports and somebody's elbow or camera jumps up in front of you. If you have it set on full, it will quickly try to refocus on that. Um, and so it'll kind of screw up the shot doesn't really matter so much here unless you're shooting a wedding you're shooting in the pew and then somebody leans into your frame and you might have leaned into the frame to jump out and get the shot of them kissing, which is exactly when you needed to have focus, so keep that in mind as well, so you would want it on limit for something like this because far enough back that you don't need full you'd want to make sure you have your image stabilization on one and see how you d'oh at a sixtieth of a second oh, I totally would go on that one will wonder if attila contract me enough it's pretty good we'll take a look at that um, next thing, if you do not have the ability to go to thirty two hundred eso you don't have much because these are the three things you have to try, so what we're going to dio is we're going to take a camera that one of the people in the audience says he doesn't think does so well at thirty, two hundred, so I'm going to pump it up we're going to grab this file and, you know, you guys won't be able to see ernie, I think I'm going to grab this file and so on friday, when we do post processing, we're going to see how much you can actually save it. All right? So let's see it's funny because I don't know this cameron it says subject is too dark you just give me a warning like yes, I know and so I'm looking at this and yet it's two and a half meters by the way for the limit on this one, I want my image stabilisation on I wanted normal. I wanted on limit in this case, and I want it on automatic focus. Everything's on it's a thirty, two hundred eyes. So, well, what lenses? This is intense once. Okay, so I'm going to step back a bit is matter. I don't know what this lenses. Uh okay, perfect. I got it. So I'm getting a low. This is grover shots. Oh, yeah. And you know what else I do when I have to hand hold? She, um one other thing is it's not that we like guess I shoot guns, but if anyone's shotguns out here, um, your breathing patterns would be very similar for when you're trying to pull a trigger. So you would want to do the same thing is maybe holding a rifle. You don't wanna have your leg side by side and you don't want to kind of lock out your knees need to have your knees bent a little bit, almost leaning into the image versus leaning back here. A lot less stable. You kind of have you are. You are center of balance slightly forward, kind of leaning into it. Lock everything in and usually click at the bottom of a breath. So it's the same thing if you shotgun to do the same thing in a really low light situation. So I'm gonna need a couple more of those just to make sure I have something to demo and this is at thirty two hundred. I'm also gonna shoot one more with mine pumped up as high as it goes let's see how high it goes there? Let's, just do this. Oh, and that the lands, by the way, moved it just jumped all over the place. It was really interesting. Okay, let's, grab one more with mine before, say before I was at thirty two hundred. I'm going to take one at sixty four hundred. Wanna pump up my shirt speed a little bit? Okay, perfect, girls. Thank you. Good. And we do? It was sixty four let's do one hundred twenty eight thousand. Okay, let's, take a look at this and we will actually be able to take a close look at these images and see how they work. Ok? Perfect. So that's what I would do? And so just to kinda give you a summary of that, only a darkened down just a little bit more give myself a one one hundredth of a second one more girl all right, so just to break that down, I'd start off on a tripod shooting the widest aperture that I have possible from on a long lens mounted on the lens and pump up my eyes so to wherever I feel comfortable making sure that I'm not shooting a shutter speed longer than I think they can hold still for but then it's totally different if I have to come off of the tripod or off of the mono pod because I'm not worried about if they're moving I'm worried about a fine moving so then I want to switch over and turn on my image stabilization and again same thing trying to pump up my soda whatever I'm comfortable one more note if you were on a tripod, turn off your image stabilization because it will actually make your image blurry and some situations older cameras and lenses pairing because it's thinking that there should be movement and it will actually jumped and I used to have that in old lens would see it balance so just keep that in mind as well any questions guys people are wondering if you could go over your camera set up one more time they're interested in the lens and your exact camera setting okay yes look recap yeah okay the camera that have is a five d mark three like I said if you have a mark if you have just a five d it is a massive difference and you go here we stay overnight again I'm not saying to buy expensive dear the only thing that make a difference is yeah technology did get better with shooting in low light with new camera so if you do shoot low light this is one of the few situations where it would make your life easier and be worth investing in a more expensive camera most most other situations it's not a big deal like you don't need tons of megapixel so we had a can of five mark three I had a sigma seventy two hundred two point eight lens and I shot everything that I shot at two point eight and when I was shooting um I was shooting at like between a fortieth and, uh sixteenth of a second when I was on a trifon but when I took it off of the tripod I had to bump that up. Um I could only bump it up to about one hundred of the second one hundredth of a second really, um because of my exposure, but to try to counteract that, I made sure I put on my image stabilization try to give me a little bit more stable of an image. I think we had one question from grown in seventeen sixty can she quickly go over the one and the two of the vibration compensation again was one option better than the other? Yeah, so one would be what you'd want because usually you're wiggling like this, okay, you're unstable like this. What? Two things you're saying? Okay, um, sports, I am purposely panning as this person is moving or walking by me don't counteract that instead, just contract, if I'm wiggling up and down it smart enough to know what a pan is, and sometimes have used that if even in reception, just like where people are walking by me, or if I'm trying to do panning for like, a reception where people are dancing and I want the blur in the background, it knows I want this blur, but not this and that's. What, uh, image stabilization to would do? It's also called a normal and active on nikon cannon, so it's one into on sigma so they might look at the lens and not see that perfect thank you. So adrian, far in england is wondering when shooting in low light, how can we ensure the right part of the image is sharpest when we might not be able to see this in the viewfinder and time to get the shot might be limited, especially when we can't use the tripod. Um, I'm what I use is I used close focus clusters, and so I'll instead of using a spot, a spot, meter or spot focus, because I don't know if I got it and I don't have time to zoom in um what I'll do or what I specifically having my camera is actually I could make a grouping um in my sixty one focus point that can make a grouping and say anything in that grouping is acceptable to focus on which would be perfect in this situation because if I have a single spot and I miss her shoulder it might search to the back ground I might miss the kiss, but if I have a grouping it knows in that rough area knows what I'm talking about and it can tell and that's why some, uh eric was talking about there's some three dimensionality ones that know what they're called but it says it's in our new cameras that actually comptel distance and nose okay, you're clearly trying to focus on the people in the foreground. Unfortunately, if you do have fewer focus points, then you do have to be a little bit more careful you would select select a point and try to place it carefully if there is not um if the if the subjects are kind of close to the background there on a similar plane, you have less worry then if there's a big distance between them because if you miss, you actually see the difference in the depth of field versus off there might not be too bad if I'm shooting at a seventy, whereas it will become a little bit more noticeable if they were close to me. And, uh, the background was a far in the distance. So yet another example. We're like k. The gear makes a little bit of difference in this situation.