Beginner Recommendations for low light pictures, tripod, ISO, long exposure...

There’s a number of options available for shooting at night time, if we discuss them based on the parts of the exposure triangle 1) shutter speed - you can shoot at slower shutter speeds if you mount on a tripod as this avoids blur from camera shake. You can also shoot with lenses or cameras that have stabilisation, now often 4-5 stops, allowing you to hand hold at 1/2 second. 2) aperture - use prime lenses that have wide maximum apertures this will allow more light on. 3) ISO - increase your ISO it’s maximum acceptable level. This will depend on how if you want to view your image, how much you will crop and how much noise you personally are happy with. Larger sensor cameras allow higher ISO settings with less noise and even modern crop sensor cameras will be better than older cameras. Lastly, there is new software that provides drastically better noise reduction: Topaz labs sell a noise reduction software that’s much better than the noise reduction that comes with PS and the like. It’s a lot of money for essentially one function, but if you consider people pay thousands for bodies that have less noise at higher ISOs or very wide aperture lenses so they can avoid noise in low light conditions then it starts to make a bit more sense.

hope this helped a little.
 
Tom Pinchenzo said:
There’s a number of options available for shooting at night time, if we discuss them based on the parts of the exposure triangle 1) shutter speed - you can shoot at slower shutter speeds if you mount on a tripod as this avoids blur from camera shake. You can also shoot with lenses or cameras that have stabilisation, now often 4-5 stops, allowing you to hand hold at 1/2 second. 2) aperture - use prime lenses that have wide maximum apertures this will allow more light on. 3) ISO - increase your ISO it’s maximum acceptable level. This will depend on how if you want to view your image, how much you will crop and how much noise you personally are happy with. Larger sensor cameras allow higher ISO settings with less noise and even modern crop sensor cameras will be better than older cameras. Lastly, there is new software that provides drastically better noise reduction: Topaz labs sell a noise reduction software that’s much better than the noise reduction that comes with PS and the like. It’s a lot of money for essentially one function, but if you consider people pay thousands for bodies that have less noise at higher ISOs or very wide aperture lenses so they can avoid noise in low light conditions then it starts to make a bit more sense.

hope this helped a little.
Click to expand...
Cheers Tom! Really helped and I got some of this concepts really clear.. but sometimes is hard to find the proper balance on ISO number.. to be honest that is my big weakness, using your words, hard for me to find the "acceptable" level. Using right now a Nikon D90, probably that can improve when new equipment in, and that is why I am trying to invest on D7500 rather than D7200, because of the ISO levels... points 1) and 2) fine. THANKS Tom.
 
Mr Perceptive said:
Long Shutter Speeds are no good if your target object may move, you have no real choice in this situation other than to open aperture or raise ISO, unless you want to introduce another light source, ie flash.
Click to expand...
yeah, obvious that tip only works for night landscapes with no elements moving, or probably you would like to catch car lights on a motorway or similar...
 
you can also look at some noise reducing software like topaz denoise for your higher iso shots. and depending on where you plan on using the photos (for example if you're only posting web size images to fb) the noise may not matter much.
 
There is nothing much you can do except use a tripod and use most optimal setting you can to gather as much light as possible without pushing ISO so much that it ruins the image.
Old problem that has no magic trick, but clever editing and good equipment help out a great deal.
Improving ISO performance over the years has helped out a lot, i remember back 12 - 15 years ago when it was much worse problem
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top