Photography Tips | How To Handle Low Light Conditions Without Using Flash

© 2014 Wazari Wazir | My Family During Langkawi Island Trip | ISO 1600 – ISO 2000 | Shutter 1/80 – 1/200

Photographers always facing this kind of things, sometimes they just don’t have any other options like, not having a flash, like me. Sometimes using flash is prohibited in certain places and sometimes, yes you can flash but in doing so, will spoil the mood in certain places.

In my case I don’t want to use flash and prefer to use whatever light available there. The easiest way to handle low light condition without using flash is to bump up the ISO in your camera. For the photographs above I bump up the ISO from ISO 1600 and also up to ISO 2000.

The downside about increasing the ISO is you get a little bit “noise” but it is not too prominent, so I think it is ok. I would rather have a little “noise” so that I can keep the atmosphere as they are. So that I can show the viewers what’s actually the lighting conditions there. Using flash for sure will brighten up everything, but then you loose the mood there. If you don’t care about the mood, then go ahead and fire up your flash full power. In my case, I want to maintain the mood, the atmosphere, side lighting is my favourite.

The other things that you can do, if you are in control environment, if you can control your subject, like shooting for a family picture inside a building or house is to position them closer to the light source. In my case I try to position my family close to the window, so that I can get more light to brighten up their face. Don’t worry about the shadows, it’s the shadows that sometimes add a little bit of a character to a photographs.

Even if you do have flash, whether it is build in flash in your camera or standard flash system, it is worth to experiment with the available light. You can shoot first with flash and then try to shoot with available light and see for yourself, which one looks and feel better.