10 Better Available Light Digital Photography
beach in the Hawaiian Islands. Areas near Mount St. Helens and
Yellowstone National Park had their sunrises and sunsets obliter-
ated during the eruption and massive fi res, yet photographers
thousands of miles away had intense colors added to their low-
light experiences.This third aspect of light deals with the color temperature emitted
by our light sources and is measured in degrees on the Kelvin
scale. To successfully create low-light photographs, a basic
understanding of the color temperature of light is necessary. The
sun on a clear day at noon measures 5500 K. On a thick, overcast
day, the color temperature of light rises to 6700 K. You will
experience 9000 K in open shade on a clear day. These higher
temperatures are at the cool, or blue, end of the spectrum. On
the lower side, however, light sources are at the warmer end of
the spectrum.
Lights used by videographers or tungsten-type lights have a
Kelvin temperature of 3200. Household lightbulbs are close to
that color temperature, measuring about 2600. When we photo-
graph that special sunrise, its color temperature may be well
down on the Kelvin scale, at about 1800. As you can see, the
photographic process not only demands a certain amount of lightThis photograph of the Fine Arts
Center on the campus of the
University of Massachusetts at
Amherst was made at dusk using
a Minolta DiMAGE X point-and-
shoot camera. Exposure was
1/500 sec at f/3.5 at ISO 50 in
straight Point-and-Shoot mode,
proving you can use a simple
digital camera to make low-light
photographs. © 2003 Joe Farace.