“Golden Gate Bridge lamp”
© Copyright Ed Krimen
Whether you’re shooting photos indoors at a birthday party or outside roasting marshmallows by the campfire, you’ll often find you’re working in conditions where you simply don’t have enough natural light.
Ryan Brenizer offers some excellent suggestions to help photographers compensate for low-light shooting conditions. The most important thing to remember is to use a tripod so you can photograph with a longer shutter speed.
If you left the tripod at home:
- Keep the camera close to your center of gravity.
- Hold your breath before shooting.
- Use the “fast burst mode” on the camera, if available, so that you’ll take more than one photo each time you press down the shutter.
It’s not mentioned in the article, but you may also consider resting your camera on a stationary object such as a fence, pillar, or bench, if one is available. This is what I did when I shot the sunset photo shown above of the street lamp and Golden Gate Bridge for my review of the 5-megapixel Canon PowerShot SD450.
Photographing fireworks uses similar techniques, and definitely requires a tripod. See the article Top 5 Tips for Shooting Fireworks in the Photobird Learning Center for more details.
Ryan also advises readers to understand how other factors such as the lens aperture, shutter speed, and even the quality of the light itself will ultimately affect your photographs.
With these low-light photography tips, good photographs are more than a “shot in the dark” when the lighting conditions aren’t bright.
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Tags: Dark, Golden Gate Bridge, Light, Photo, Photography, Photos, Tripod
