Better Available Light Digital Photography : How to Make the Most of Your Night and Low-light Shots

White balance techniques 103

Nikon’s D-Lighting, which brightens dark pictures, and Red-eye

correction, which automatically detects and corrects red-eye—a

common occurrence in fl ash photography. Image Trim allows for

creative cropping of an image and creates smaller fi les for easy e-

mailing. Other creative features include Image Overlay, Small

Picture, Monochrome (Black-and-white, Sepia, and Cyanotype),

and Filter Effects (Skylight, Warm fi lter, Color balance).

You can even add digital fi lter effects to your monochrome

images. If you’re new to the world of traditional fi lters for black-

and-white photography, here’s a quick primer. A yellow fi lter

slightly darkens the sky, emphasizing clouds, and is used primar-

ily for landscape photography. When shooting in snow, however,

a yellow fi lter can produce brilliant, dynamic textures. An orange

fi lter produces effects similar to the yellow, but skies are darker

and clouds more defi ned. Although useful for landscapes, orange

can also be used for higher contrast in architectural photography.

An orange fi lter can be used in portraiture, especially under warm

household light sources to produce smooth skin tones. The red

fi lter produces dramatic landscapes. Skies turn almost black, and

contrast is maximized. In portraiture, freckles and blemishes can

be eliminated with this fi lter. A green fi lter is useful for landscape

photography because it lightens vegetation, but doesn’t darken

the sky as much as the red fi lter does. Skin tones may also be

more pleasing, but freckles and blemishes are more apparent.

This color portrait of aspiring
model Emily Blakely was made as
a reference to show the effect of
using digital fi lters in-camera for
direct monochrome. Exposure was
1/100 of a second at f/6.3 in
Shutter Priority mode at ISO 400.
© 2005 Joe Farace.