What is available light? 19Not enough light. The meter in the camera shouts, “Whoa, don’t
shoot here!” Perhaps your camera has red lights or annoying
little beepers that warn of impending bad exposures. This is
where you enter the realm of high ISO settings and fast lenses.
By combining either or both of these items along with a solid
platform to brace the camera, low-light photography becomes a
bit more of a reality. Later chapters will deal with the specifi cs
of using fast lenses and camera supports.Painting with light
The technique called “Painting with Light” is an old one and is
especially useful when light is low and you want to create dra-
matic lighting effects. The photographer starts with a long-
duration exposure and directly adds some kind of artifi cial light
using fl ash or a continuous light source into the scene. Colored
gels can also be used in front of the light-painting source to add
color. During the long—and I mean long—exposure, up to an
hour or more, the camera’s imaging chip records information
from only the illuminated part of the scene. Everything else is
still dark. Obviously, a tripod is required due to the long expo-
sure times involved (see Chapter 6). Manual focus is also sug-
gested, because some camera autofocus systems may not perform
well in low light; and with you out there traipsing around the
scene, the autofocus may try to focus on you! You should use a
low ISO setting to minimize digital noise (see Chapter 3.)Although a long exposure (one
second) was used, this is not an
example of painting with light
because the subject is in motion.
In this case, the image was made
from a bus driving through the
streets of Tokyo to produce the
streaks you see. © 2003 Joe
Farace.