Night and Low-light Photography Photo Workshop

Building Interiors

Photographing the interior of a building might

seem straightforward, but there are some concerns

when shooting interiors, chiefly, using proper focal

lengths and dealing with multiple light sources

all on top of the basic low-light concerns. When

photographing inside, there is usually not a great

amount of light and the light that is there can at

This helps to keep them upright and avoids the

dreaded slouched look. The light used here was

a single on-camera accessory flash bounced off

the ceiling. If the model is standing, let her

relax between shots. Have her take a couple of

deep breaths and then return to the pose.

Photographing people outside at night in low
light is the same as photographing them indoors
under low light, but there can be more space to
work and some more interesting backdrops. The
one thing to keep in mind is that the lighting
conditions outdoors can change as the sun sets
and the moon rises. That just means that you
need to check the settings between the exposures
more often and will probably need to make more
adjustments.

In Figure 4-13, the sun had set and the sky was
turning dark, but with two external flashes aimed
at the subject and fired remotely with Pocket
Wizards, the image wasn’t that hard to capture.
When trying to balance the ambient light with
the flash — even an off-camera flash — the shut-
ter speed controls the ambient light and the
f-stop controls the amount of light from the flash.
This is because the light from the flash is all out-
put in a single burst that lasts a split second, so it
makes no difference to the flash whether the
camera’s shutter is open for 1/200 second or 1/4
second; all the light from the flash is discharged.
However, the aperture does matter. The wider
the aperture, the more light reaches the sensor; so
set the shutter speed to capture the ambient light
(in Figure 4-13, that would be 1/4 second), and
then set the aperture to capture the flash light (in
Figure 4-13, that was f/5.6).

ABOUT THIS PHOTO Nicole photographed on the beach 45

minutes after the sun had set and the very last of the daylight was leav-

ing the sky. Taken at 1/4 second, f/5.6, and ISO 400.

4-13