Useful tips for better low light photography + Beautiful examples of low light photography from Mert Docdor

Low light photography is just like any other photography discipline. The process is all about registering light onto photographic film or digital sensor.

The main quality of low light photography however, is the ability to capture whatever light available to you to create a good satisfying exposure.

Due to the fact that the lighting conditions might not be working in your favor, you might wanna use flash, crank up your ISO settings, or go with the widest lens opening possible. All of these choices will have their significant impact on your end result.

Using flash would add the element of artificial light to your frame. Cranking the ISO to higher setting would introduce noise and grain to your photo. And going with a small aperture setting would limit your depth of field to shallower results.

These results might be your only choice at times, or even your desired ones. But if you wanna capture scenic photos at low light, a shallow depth of field, a noisy grainy image, or an artificially lit landscape are probably not going to be what you have in mind.

When you’re shooting landscapes, cityscapes, seascapes, and the like you’re most probably going to want a naturally lit, noise free, great depth of field image. To achieve such results, one main tool to help you capture an all-around sharp and clean image is a tripod. You’re mostly going to need a tripod to secure your camera and lens throughout your exposures. This would also enable you to use narrower lens openings for greater depths of field, as well as lower ISO setting for noise free images.

Noise tends to become more problematic and apparent during longer exposures, and this is why you will need to set your ISO settings as low as they can go to avoid noisy images. And so long you have a tripod, there should be no problem.

You’re most probably going to need a shutter release cable or a remote control, to minimize any chance of camera shake caused by hand releasing the shutter. If you don’t own any of these, you can just simply use the timer on your camera to make sure you won’t be touching your gear at the moment of exposure.

You might also wanna shoot in raw for better control in post processing, as well as using a lens with some sort of image stabilization to minimize blur.

Another challenge in lower light conditions is the ability to focus on your subject. Due to the poorly lit environment, your camera might have a hard time focusing on your subject so you might need to switch to manual focus.

Some cameras are equipped with an AF assist, which is a light beam that fires in low light conditions before the camera makes an exposure for you to utilize to properly focus your scene before taking the shot. On Nikon DSLRs the AF assist would be turned off in continuous shooting, so make sure you switch to single shooting mode to turn it back on.

Beautiful examples of low light photography from Mert Docdor

Mert Docdor is a 31 year-old photographer from the Philipines. He’s a banker by profession, but has had a great passion for photography ever since he was a little kid. Mert is into landscape and macro photography. He uses it to convey his own personal feelings and emotions, and illustrate his deep inner thoughts and ideas.

For more beautiful photography from Mert Docdor, please check out his flickr photostream right here