Low light--lets make this an example/technique thread

[Holger Bargen]

Low light consistently presents challenges: longer exposures, higher ISOs, DoF management, high DR, etc. I love it, but always trying to figure out how to do it better and more consistently.

So--please post a low-light picture and say how you approach it. Example:


Milan Cathedral, 1/50 sec., f/2.0, ISO 400,Exposure bias -1.0

While I'm reasonably happy with this picture, having to to over again

• I'd probably reduce exposure a bit more and trust to bring it up more in post. I always intentionally adjust EV down in a shot like this
• I'd probably worry less about keeping the ISO so low and close the aperture more for a deeper effective DoF
• I was (and remain) fairly comfortable that the IBIS would let me shoot at 1/50 second. Might have gone longer (but I am limited to hand-held; I don't carry a tripod).

This shot is 'unfortunate' in not having much of a high-DR problem--but I'm interested in people's approaches to that as well.

What do you think? What would you do?

Pentax has a shaddow brightening as opion aside of HDR modes (ehre there would be three different sxposures to widen dynamic range). This shaddow correction is very useful. K5 had it already. You can select three strengthes. The lowest is almost not visible. The medium setting is fine to me and I hav it in all of my programms turned "ON". The highest setting is useful if you need to have a good resolution of darker parts e.g. for scientific analysis. However, for private photography it looks to artifical to me.

I try to avoid highlight clipping in my photos (except if the sun is part of the photos). Exposure to the right is the buzzword. For the dark parts I brighten them up in post-prcessing. ON1 has a nice procedure which not just brightens shaddows but also adds some sharpness.

If your photo is avaliable as RAW file, I think there are a lot of options in postprocessing to improve it a lot.

 

[Adam007]

Nice photo.

it’s hard to respond to questions like this because everyone’s camera is set up differently. And fully manual RAW shooters like myself would just think about those settings differently. Some things that come to mind:

id be amazed if you couldn’t INCREASE exposure with SR. I don’t know what FL you are using, but this is a shot I would easily handhold at 1/25 or even better.

I don’t understand your metering. For one thing, you’re not clear whether this is scene or spot metering. I would shoot for spot, and meter off the window. Of course in a lowlight scene I would do everything possible to increase exposure. So, I would meter off the window PLUS 2.67 stops, which is the “safe” limit of highlight recoverability on my k-1. Lots of very good photographers meter everything at -1 to protect highlights. That is rarely necessary on a k-1, and imho is not a good strategy when you are so light limited.

I would probably use some of that slower shutter speed to close down the aperture A bit. Everything looks in focus at 2.0 here (given the distance), but this isn’t a frescoe. Instead, I would want the eye to catch on the shapes and edges of the columns, and to do that, I’d like the most sharpness I can get away with.

Finally, I would try to shoot at 100 ISO to get the most DR to pull details out of those shadows. BUT…that might be too low, so I might wind up exactly where you are, too.

 

[Jon Donahue]

You friend may have discovered a magical liquid, Old Overholt Rye Whiskey, which tastes exactly the same today as in 1810 when it first began. Am serious here — one shot of whiskey steadied the hands of gunfighters back then, racing car drivers when I did that in the ‘60s, and photographers today. It is a curious effect. One shot is all you need; there is no anti-shake gain beyond that. It seems to somehow calm us slightly and free up peak performance.

Being fair, any alcohol will do. Had friends back then who drank one glass of wine, others who had a beer. But never two.

 

[Jon Donahue]

Priscilla — when I look at the stonework, the columns... they have color... and I wonder whether they would look like that to your eyes if inside that church. In my imagination, stone is just gray... but we don't have any old churches here to go take a second look. Curious!

 

[Jon Donahue]

Excellent picture, very good explanation. That subway company would be very lucky to have you make an underground record of their tunnels and stations! Someone should, and it should be done right... like this shot... to make a proper record for the future.

 

[bob5050]

These are very nice, and the second is a 'nightmare' scenario for me--freeze action in low light--that I can rarely pull off successfully.

The very first thing I do is go into the menu and change the metering to bias for the focus point.

I've thought about that, but the first question it brings to mind is shots like the following, which is a common case in European churches--main alter lit way more than surround:


St. Stephen's Basilica, Budapest

This is pattern metering with a -1 EV. I can't say it's particularly good: center blown a bit, focus questionable, and some purple fringing on the cowl and hair. Having it to do over again, I'd want the EV comp lower, the ISO higher, and the lens stopped down more. This was on the K-3 before I started using user modes, so I'm doing all the adjustments individually, and not always successfully. But I worry that if I set the camera to do metering based weighted on the focal point or highlight weighted, I'd lose the surrounding details entirely. Thoughts?

As I said, the situation itself is common enough that I'm considering dedicating a user mode on the K-3iii specifically for an HDR set-up for this kind of high DR situation.

Other than that, it just comes from experience and knowing your camera.

And an openness to C&C advice and learning from others here <g>. I'm nearing 70, and have no illusion about having time to make all the mistakes myself.

--
bob5050
All pictures I post here are SOOC, downsized 50% unless specifically identified otherwise.

 

[bob5050]

D'you mind my asking, how did you set the WB? In my experience the interior lighting in such settings can be wildly different from what is coming in at the windows, and to complicate the decision there isn't always just one kind of interior lighting. Did you use a balancing filter? The hue of the stonework looks natural. Is that what your eye-brain combo thought it saw?

Not at all--I do want this to be a technique thread (though WB probably deserves its own attention).

Basically yes--this is how things looked to me, but the story is a bit complicated. I'd come into the cathedral from a trip around the roof (you can get up there), so bright daylight to cathedral interior. Consider these--both are Auto WB:


way too yellow


much better

The difference is something I discovered: that my K-3 determines its Auto WB setting, not for every shot, but essentially when you turn it on (or first shot thereafter). So the first shot was taken without turning the camera off and on again after I left the roof and went inside; the second was taken after being inside and having the camera off/on.

So my learning point was that I could generally trust Auto WB to get it right, but to remember to turn the camera off/on when changing the light environment to let it re-sync to the current conditions. The interior shot in the OP was also Auto WB after the reset.

Another comparison:


inheriting WB from outside


after turning camera off/on inside

Big difference

--
bob5050
All pictures I post here are SOOC, downsized 50% unless specifically identified otherwise.

 

[bob5050]

Priscilla — when I look at the stonework, the columns... they have color... and I wonder whether they would look like that to your eyes if inside that church. In my imagination, stone is just gray... but we don't have any old churches here to go take a second look. Curious!

They probably subjectively look slightly warmer than pictured while you're there, but our eyes adjust WB so quickly that it's hard to tell. Since we view the pictures under 'normal' light, reproducing the spectrum that's actually there doesn't generally work to my eye.

I should probably try a greyscale card a couple of time to check my assumptions, but haven't so far.

 

[RBIV]

D'you mind my asking, how did you set the WB? In my experience the interior lighting in such settings can be wildly different from what is coming in at the windows, and to complicate the decision there isn't always just one kind of interior lighting. Did you use a balancing filter? The hue of the stonework looks natural. Is that what your eye-brain combo thought it saw?

Not at all--I do want this to be a technique thread (though WB probably deserves its own attention).

Basically yes--this is how things looked to me, but the story is a bit complicated. I'd come into the cathedral from a trip around the roof (you can get up there), so bright daylight to cathedral interior.
The difference is something I discovered: that my K-3 determines its Auto WB setting, not for every shot, but essentially when you turn it on (or first shot thereafter). So the first shot was taken without turning the camera off and on again after I left the roof and went inside; the second was taken after being inside and having the camera off/on.

So my learning point was that I could generally trust Auto WB to get it right, but to remember to turn the camera off/on when changing the light environment to let it re-sync to the current conditions. The interior shot in the OP was also Auto WB after the reset.

Interesting thread. I have a couple of thoughts.

First, fascinating that your camera only sets white balance once at start up. If that is normal for all Pentax bodies, well, I never knew that.

Second, when shooting interiors of cathedrals, or any subject actually, I debate with myself as to how I want to image it. As I remember seeing it? Or do I want to render the image so that it looks really nice on my monitor. As I shoot RAW, the white balance can be selective, and rather easily changed by most editors. This is helpful for as Priscilla points out, their is often a mix of lighting inside large structures -- like cathedrals.

Lastly, from my lab days, I can confirm that in order to really evaluate white balance, or any color really, the density of the compared images must be the same.

 

[Jon Donahue]

Great tip! I've noticed my K-70 AWB acting strange now and then... so this is what it is doing! Will remember to turn camera OFf-ON when going into different lighting.

 

[James O'Neill]

Excellent picture, very good explanation. That subway company would be very lucky to have you make an underground record of their tunnels and stations! Someone should, and it should be done right... like this shot... to make a proper record for the future.

Nice of you to say so - so here is one taken from round the corner when I swapped places with the other photographer. Transport for London has a huge archive of photos drawing and they have a TV program on at the moment showing some of the places the tours go (and some where they can't take visitors for all sorts of practical reasons). It's amazing the places you can go and visit if you know about it (for example Tower Bridge - the best known one in London - has an engineering tour where you can see how it lifts from the inside!)

 

[bob5050]

First, fascinating that your camera only sets white balance once at start up. If that is normal for all Pentax bodies, well, I never knew that.

I don't think the actual 'determine WB' operation (or what triggers it) is documented anywhere, so I'm just guessing based on what I can see. It's an experiment I've yet to do with the K-3iii.

Second, when shooting interiors of cathedrals, or any subject actually, I debate with myself as to how I want to image it. As I remember seeing it? Or do I want to render the image so that it looks really nice on my monitor.

That's a final solution question that's perhaps best answered in post. All I'm trying to do on-site is get a reasonably close start point. I do shoot RAW+jpeg, but when doing quick work, or sending back pictures while traveling, I know I'd rather start with the 2nd version than the 1st.

As I shoot RAW, the white balance can be selective, and rather easily changed by most editors.

Granted. But I just travel with my laptop--it doesn't have my raw editors installed. Those are on the desktop machine.

 

[bob5050]

Great tip! I've noticed my K-70 AWB acting strange now and then... so this is what it is doing! Will remember to turn camera OFf-ON when going into different lighting.

Just note the caveats: this is a hypothesis on my part for what's going on--experience based, but still basically a guess. I don't know that all Pentax bodies do this, or whether it's just a defect in my K3. Or something in between.

 

[MrB1]

Bob, you could try experimenting with the in-camera HDR-Mode.

Alternatively, expose for the brightest area (the statue), so that it is just on the point of blowing out, and brighten the shadows. I doubt that the shadow adjustments available in the camera would be strong enough, but it is an easy adjustment with computer software. Many will say this should be done using a raw image file to get the best quality, which is indeed the case. However, there is still a reasonable amount of info retained in the shadows of a JPEG file which might be revealed by brightening, e.g. in your file:



Philip

 

[bob5050]

Bob, you could try experimenting with the in-camera HDR-Mode.

Alternatively, expose for the brightest area (the statue), so that it is just on the point of blowing out, and brighten the shadows.

Yes. Probable approach would be to clone my low-light usermode to another, and then experiment with that against the original, setting highlight focus, HDR mode, or both. My tendency is to think HDR with a slightly stronger negative EV bias.

 

[RBIV]

Bob, you could try experimenting with the in-camera HDR-Mode.

Alternatively, expose for the brightest area (the statue), so that it is just on the point of blowing out, and brighten the shadows.

Yes. Probable approach would be to clone my low-light usermode to another, and then experiment with that against the original, setting highlight focus, HDR mode, or both. My tendency is to think HDR with a slightly stronger negative EV bias.

Have to ask... what are you going to do with these images that you shoot whilst traveling? How are they to be viewed? I suspect you know where I'm going with this.... :-| as in, how much of a difference actually makes a difference?...

My thinking is a RAW image shot at relatively accurate exposure combined with post processing is going to work for the vast majority of viewers, and not exhaust you. The time you save in the cathedral can be used documenting the area around the cathedral, which is most likely interesting as well.

Pixel shift. HDR. Tri-pods. I dunno. Buy a Hasselblad.

Just random thoughts here. Absolutely NO criticism is intended. I took a look at your website, some great travel photos, and so organized in albums. Well done.

 

[Jon Donahue]

Rainy day in Tombstone, night falling, lights coming on. Found that I very quickly run up against the limits of taking pictures in the dark. Lightroom helps some. But if a picture is just too dark... there are limits to how much you can pump it up. Partly my fault, sticking at ISO 3200 instead of trying 6400. But it was fun dodging raindrops... they were heavy in the afternoon but light in the evening. Psychologically, with the 18-135 WR, I never thought once about the camera getting wet. Faith!

 

[bob5050]

Have to ask... what are you going to do with these images that you shoot whilst traveling? How are they to be viewed? I suspect you know where I'm going with this....

The website is the main consumer--in addition to that we (well, mostly my wife) create a DVD slide show for each trip, so any time we like we can pop in a trip and see it again. Unlike the photo albums of film days, we actually do do that. And we do travel talks. Other than that most of the pictures reside dormant on our network, so it's relatively easy for me to pull examples here when I want to talk about a particular technique or issue.

:-| as in, how much of a difference actually makes a difference?...

Go too far down that line of thought, and we all end up selling our gear and going to phones or compacts. :-(

My thinking is a RAW image shot at relatively accurate exposure combined with post processing is going to work for the vast majority of viewers, and not exhaust you.

Absolutely, but that term 'relatively accurate' can be a devil. And the consequence of failure is very high: As a personal travel photographer, a lot of what I shoot is at locales to which I'll likely never return. If I can't get a shot surely and quickly, it's just gone. No second chances.

The time you save in the cathedral can be used documenting the area around the cathedral, which is most likely interesting as well.

Indeed; I do a lot of street shots. But I suppose I could explain the intent of the exercise more explicitly. Which is that this--

Pixel shift. HDR. Tri-pods. I dunno. Buy a Hasselblad.

is actually half of what I'm trying to avoid. Fundamentally, I don't want to fiddle with the camera at all while I'm shooting. I want to worry about subject selection, framing, and point of focus, and just trust that the camera is set up properly to take it from there. On-the-road is not the time to worry about camera settings (call it a modern sense of "f/8 and be there"). If a week at home worrying a user mode setup enables me to do that and always get 'relatively accurate' exposures without giving much thought to setting up the individual shot at the time, then it's well worth it. I get to be there, rather than being with the camera.

And the other half is, of course, avoiding an exhausting time in post. Realistically, our gear is so good these days that it's almost impossible to completely mis-take a correctly focused shot. Just about anything else can be fixed with some time and effort at the computer. But I don't want to spend hours and hours rescuing shots in LR or On1 either. They should simply have been better-shot to start with. Ideally, I'd like snap-to-web to just be a matter of selection and ordering, not bit fiddling. So 'relatively accurate' for me means potentially web-publishable as taken. I'll never get there completely, but that's the goal. Spend as little time as possible thinking about the camera when shooting--just shoot. Spend as much time at home as needed to enable that.

Just random thoughts here. Absolutely NO criticism is intended. I took a look at your website, some great travel photos, and so organized in albums. Well done.

None taken, and thanks, I'm not totally happy with the site, but 4.5 million picture hits and counting. I figure that when we're no longer healthy enough to travel like we do now, we can devote more time to indexing and other tweaks.

 

[Ian Stuart Forsyth]

Low light consistently presents challenges: longer exposures, higher ISOs, DoF management, high DR, etc. I love it, but always trying to figure out how to do it better and more consistently.

So--please post a low-light picture and say how you approach it. Example:


Milan Cathedral, 1/50 sec., f/2.0, ISO 400,Exposure bias -1.0

While I'm reasonably happy with this picture, having to to over again

• I'd probably reduce exposure a bit more and trust to bring it up more in post. I always intentionally adjust EV down in a shot like this
• I'd probably worry less about keeping the ISO so low and close the aperture more for a deeper effective DoF
• I was (and remain) fairly comfortable that the IBIS would let me shoot at 1/50 second. Might have gone longer (but I am limited to hand-held; I don't carry a tripod).

This shot is 'unfortunate' in not having much of a high-DR problem--but I'm interested in people's approaches to that as well.

What do you think? What would you do?

I would not reduce the exposure anymore as you are limited by the amount of light and for this type of image you want all the exposure you can get. I would ignore using a EC of -1 and raising the iso as you are now prematurely putting a cap on how much DR you can capture when increasing the iso. For this scene you are at the lower limit as to how much more you can reduce the shutter speed.

If you are going to push the image in post I would be using a much lower iso as to reduce the clipping in the stain glass areas and let the DR that the camera has lift the shadows to your liking.

Just remember it is not the camera that captures DR its the size of the exposure and as you apply a - EC or increase the iso you are placing a cap on that DR



--
The Camera is only a tool, photography is deciding how to use it.
The hardest part about capturing wildlife is not the photographing portion; it’s getting them to sign a model release

 

[bob5050]

Jon Donahue shot:

I like the picture, and plenty of depth of field at f/7.1. Not sure what going to 6400 would have bought you for this one.

--
bob5050
All pictures I post here are SOOC, downsized 50% unless specifically identified otherwise.