I reached out to an expert and heres what I learned.
Renan Ozturk, a professional photographer and filmmaker, says you need a lens thatsreally fast.
What does he mean by that?
Well, hes referring to a lenss f-number or how wide its aperture is.
Light travels through a lenss aperture to get to the image sensor in your camera.
Something in the f/1.4 to f/1.8 range is perfect.
The higher the number the more sensitive to light your cameras image sensor will be.
Adjust it manually and be sure to lock it indont let your camera do it with auto features.
Dont crank it up all the way, though.
Ozturk suggests youre better off not going above 1600 or 3200 unless you have a specialized camera.
Otherwise all your low-light or night stuff will come out really grainy.
Youll see the image turn all pixelated and noisy, or hamburger as he calls it.
Now, about those specialized cameras… Like theSony a7S II.
Ozturk calls it a low-light phenomenon of a camera.
Now you should probably give your camera time to capture that light as best it can.
You do that by decreasing the shutter speed and taking long exposure shots.
Head into your cameras parameters an adjust the exposure time manually.
Again, dont let your cameras auto features make this decision for you.
Ozturk says if its super, super dark, he might go with a five-second exposure.
Any kind of motion, be it your subject or your camera, is bad.
If there is any environment light around, use it to your advantage.
Even small lighting adjustments can make a huge difference when you go to edit it later.
A plastic shopping bagis a great option.
Its especially bad if you, the photographer, are moving at all.
So, Ozturk says you gotta use a tripod to keep the camera perfectly still.
Not only that, he recommends you go one more step and use an external shutter button.
Even the smallest of bumps can ruin a shot.
Youll be able to hold the camera still for longer.
But the trade-off is you cant zoom in on your subject at all.
So, do what the pros call zooming with your feet.
Get closer to your subject and dont rely on zooms, especially if its any kind of digital zoom.
Its always better to have more data to work with just in case youd rather keep it in color.
Hopefully these low-light photography tips help you, because I cant wait to try them out myself!
