Post #270486 by MobileTikiBar on Mon, Dec 4, 2006 8:07 PM

Low light photography is difficult, film or digital. Your eyes have such a dynamic range, and adjust so quickly, that normal scenes appear... well, normal.

To the film, a single light in a dark room will either end up making the room look dark with the light exposed properly, or the room exposed properly, with that single light over exposed. You can play with this during printing or editing, but you can only do so much with what you have captured.

Here's an older shot of our home bar
Note that the bar itself appears ok to under exposed, but the neon lights and lcd tv are over exposed. This was taken on a tripod, and I could have followed this with a second shot but at a faster shutter speed, so that the lights would be exposed properly. Then, edit both photos together to get all of the image to look nicer.

Here's a shot I took of the las vegas strip from the roof of an off-strip hotel... a 15 second exposure at f/13.

Here's one with a 2 second exposure at f/8.

For me, when photographing in low light, I really take the time to look at the scene, see what's going to "pop" and possibly make it difficult to capture what I want. If you can adjust the scene by moving a light, or masking it with something in front, or even shooting multiple pictures and editing together afterwards, you'll probably end up with a better picture.

You'll want to use a camera that does well in lower light. Some digitals are good at it, some are not as good and cause more noise (similar to a grainy older picture). You'll want something still to shoot from, either a tripod, table, railing, something. You'll also want to take the picture without touching the camera, such as using the self-timer or a cable. Even the motion of pressing the button can cause an image to look blurry.

Hope this helps! I'm sure others will chime in with other ideas too.

-adrian