Photography Tips | Dealing With Low Light People Photography

© 2014 Wazari Wazir | Buddhist Monk Light a Candles at Boudhanath Stupa | Kathmandu Nepal

There are different type of situation when it comes to low light photography conditions. It can be landscape, architecture or simple people photography. The point is that, you are dealing with low light, very minimal light. Depending on the situation, our approach will differ, if you are shooting landscape or indoor architecture using only available light, using a tripod is a great help, so you can use Low ISO like ISO 100 or 200 and get all the details without increasing the ISO.

But in this post I’m going to talk about photographing people in low light conditions. The first option when dealing with low light condition is to use flash but depending on certain situation, using flash will only kills the mood. Will take away the atmosphere, for an example if you take a photograph of a group of people enjoying a campfire at night, using flash will definitely kills the mood. Another example is the photograph above, if I choose to use flash to light the women face, definitely I will kill the mood.

So what are you going to do about it? If you still wanted to use flash, yes you can but maybe try using off-camera flash, put the flash somewhere else other than at the camera hot-shoe and try using some kind of gel or filter, so that your flash output will complement the colours of the available light there, some flash did comes with a set of plastic filter or gels in variable colours. Do not put the gel in front of your lens but put it or stick it to your flash gun.

Sometimes using flash, even though you put a gel on it or try using off-camera flash is not a good option, the reason is that, in some situation, it will only attract unwanted attention from the people around and might be put your subject at uncomfortable situation. SO the next option is to use High ISO, yes I know, that by using High ISO you will gain some “noise”, your picture will not be as smooth as silk but have some grainy look, don’t worry though, most of advance digital camera todays produce great picture at High ISO with minimal noise. The photograph above were taken using ISO 2000. The reason for High ISO is that, we can use fast shutter speed to stop the motion.

It is unpractical to use a tripod for people  photography in certain situation, the reason photographer  using a tripod is for them to use long exposure at small aperture and Low ISO, for some situation using a tripod photographing people on the move, or doing some kind of ritual movement with long exposure will only result in blurry photograph, and if we talk about travel photography, in some place, especially sacred place, using a tripod is forbidden.

Another way is t use fast lens, this is a pricey option, fast lens, a lens with big aperture like f/1.2 or f/2.8 is not cheap. Why fast lens? Because they come with a big aperture, big aperture means a lot of light will get through and once that happen, you can use fast shutter speed to freeze the action. The other advantage using fast lens is that, your lens will focus much faster in low light condition. For most of us who can’t afford using fast lens and have a kit lens with an aperture start from f/3.5 or f/4.

Our only option then is to use High ISO, and if your camera have IS or (Image-Stabilisation) or VR (Vibration-Reduction) capability, switch them on to reduce camera shake but this capability have no use if you wanted to use faster shutter speed. Normally people use VR or IS option when they wanted to use slow shutter speed like 1/30 or 1/60 while hand-holding a camera.

The next option, that I use for the picture above is to get some cooperation with from your subject. What I do is I  ask the lady to get closer to the candles, so that her face is much more brighter than previously, before that,  she stand a little bit farther away from the candles. In some sacred  or worship place like in the church, mosque or temples, usually there will have some spot that have much brighter light than the rest of the area, try find one and if possible ask your potential subject to move closer to the light source, so that you can photograph them in better light. I think most people, depending on the situation and depending on how you explain to them, will cooperate. Who doesn’t want to be photograph in a better light, don’t they?

Sometimes we need to manipulate certain situation to make things work, If I didn’t told you that I’ve asks the lady to get closer to the light, you would know about it right? One thing for sure, I didn’t ask the lady to light all of the candles in front of her to make things brighter, it is already lit when I came to her place, I just ask her to get closer to the candles and I take the shot.