Low Light Photography
How to Get the Perfect Shot
Low light photography can be challenging for inexperienced photographers to master, as it involves taking pictures with limited lighting resources. This usually involves taking pictures indoors or outside at night, but if you are able to make the most out of the light that you do have, you can end up with a great looking shot.
Low Light Digital Photography

© Mia Rose
The use of light can be a great way to add impact to your images. Night light images can be particularly striking.
Many people tend to automatically go with flash in low light situations, but it's often better to use natural lighting. You can use natural low light to your advantage to get a truly unique shot as in the image of the Townsville Jetty above.
Equipment
Before getting started with low light photography, you will want to make sure that you have the proper equipment. Apart from a high quality lens, the first thing you need is a tripod to allow for longer exposures.
In low light you can get spectacular images using slow shutter speeds to allow a lot of light in.
White Balance
One of the important things to consider in low light photography is white balance. I would recommend you play around with white balance settings rather than simply going with auto white balance. The auto setting tends to make low light scenes a little cold in tone.
If you're shooting indoors, different types of artificial light create different effects. If you're at all unsure, my best advice remains to shoot in RAW; that way you can change your white balance in the digital darkroom.
Exposure
Calculating the
exposure
has become a lot easier with low light digital photography as opposed to using film as you're able to see your results right away. Low light photography has some very stark contrasts, which means that you will see bright lights and dark shadows in the same picture, which is where your histogram will come in handy.
It's a good idea to bracket your exposures too.
Good Subjects for Low Light Photography
Some of the more popular things that people photograph at night include buildings, Christmas lights, signs, vehicles, houses, and of course people, so your options are endless with low light digital photography.
When you photograph something that is moving, you may want to experiment with slow shutter speeds for interesting effects. This will create a trail behind the object, so it works great on vehicles. You have probably seen photos of cars leaving white or red light trails and this is exactly the type of effect that you can create with low light photography.
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