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Photography tips: How to take great photos of people at night and low-light

Note: This article was first published on 21st December 2015, and republished again as it's suitable for this season.

Taking photos at night is challenging, and taking photos of your friends and family at night is even more challenging!

But it is possible. Besides the usual techniques like increase your ISO and shutter speed, there are other simple things that anyone can do to get better shots at night.

Here are seven step-by-step tips to take better photos of your friends and family at night and low-light, shot with the Canon EOS 760D, and my friend Cordelia Daphne.

1. Shoot during dinnertime

One of the best times to take ‘night’ photos is actually just after the sun has gone down, and it’s not completely dark yet.

Here are three reasons why:

  1. The daylight is fading, but there’s still some of it, so you can still see your friends and family, as well as the background

  2. Outdoor and indoor lights are being turned on, which give you more light to brighten your subjects

  3. The yellow lights contrast beautifully against the sky, which is turning dark shades of blue and is not yet a murky black

Compare the photo above with this photo below, taken at the same place, but at a later time. The background is darker, and the sky is an empty black.

To shoot after the sun has set:

  1. Find out when the sun sets using your smartphone’s Clock or Weather app, or just check online

  2. Shoot quickly, because you won’t have much time before it turns completely dark

2. Find the light, face the light

How many times have you seen this: People find something nice, like a Christmas tree, stand in front of it and take a photo?

Nothing wrong with that when there’s good light, but when you’re shooting at night and in low-light, you have to watch where the light is. If the object behind you is brighter than you are, your face will be in shadow.

The tip is to find the light, then face the light. This way, the most important part of your friends and family — their faces — will always be lit. They might have to turn sideways to face the light, which is actually a more interesting pose, compared to standing straight at the camera.

Tip refreshed: I used “find the light, face the light,” in the “shoot during dinnertime” tip as well, when I asked my friend to turn her face slightly upwards to face the lamp above her.

3. Zoom out (don’t zoom in) to grab the most light

The aperture setting on your camera refers to how large your lens can open up to take a photo. The smaller the number, like f/3.5, the larger the opening, and the more light the lens can capture in an instant.

On most lenses, the largest aperture setting is only available on the widest focal length, when the lens is not zoomed in.

For example, on the Canon EOS 760D’s 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens, the largest aperture it can shoot at 18mm is f/3.5, and the largest it can shoot at 135mm is f/5.6. So the more you zoom in, the smaller the aperture becomes, and the less light can enter the lens.

To compensate for the decrease in light, the camera will do things like lengthen the shutter speed and/or increase the ISO setting.

Here are two examples to show you what I mean:

In this first photo:

  1. The lens is not zoomed in, so I’m standing closer to my friend

  2. The focal length is at its widest of 18mm (29mm in 35mm equivalent)

  3. The aperture is at its widest setting of f/3.5

  4. The shutter speed is 1/30th of a second

  5. The ISO speed is ISO 800

In this second photo:

  1. The lens is zoomed in, so I’m standing further away from my friend

  2. The focal length is zoomed in to 50mm (80mm in 35mm equivalent)

  3. Thus, the aperture is at a narrower setting of f/5.0

  4. The camera, set to Program mode, has cleverly increased the shutter speed to a faster 1/80th of a second, to compensate for any camera shake*

  5. As a result, to capture more light, the ISO speed has doubled to ISO 1600, so this photo is noisier than the first one

*Here’s another reason to zoom out in low-light, the more you zoom in, the more sensitive the lens becomes to camera shake.

So, to grab the most light you can in a single image, don’t zoom in, walk in. This will help your camera shoot with the widest aperture on your lens, and get the most light it can in a single shot.

4. Don’t be afraid to go dark

One of the fun things about shooting in low-light is that you can get scenes with bright and dark contrast. When you see a scene with lighting contrast, don’t be afraid to experiment and make use of the dark.

I purposely underexposed the shot above to make it moodier. To ‘underexpose’ means to shoot a picture at settings that make it darker than usual.

Here’s the same picture, but ‘properly’ exposed afterwards using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Which do you prefer?

To underexpose a picture in Program (P), Shutter-priority (Tv) or Aperture-priority mode (Av), find the exposure compensation setting, and then set it to negative.

On the Canon EOS 760D, you can do this quickly via the back LCD panel:

  1. Press ‘Info’ if the screen is turned off, to get to the Shooting Function Settings menu

  2. Press ‘Q’ to access Quick Control

  3. Use the d-pad to choose the exposure compensation setting

  4. Use the quick control dial to change the exposure compensation settings

  5. Turning exposure compensation to the left (with the ‘-’ sign) makes the image darker

  6. Turning exposure compensation to the right (with the ‘+’) sign makes it brighter

  7. Remember to change the setting back to ‘0’ so you don’t underexposure every shot you take that day!

5. When to use flash, and how to make flash look better

How do you know when to use flash, and when not to use flash? Here’s a simple rule-of-thumb to remember: There’s a difference between low-light and no light.

Most of the photos you see here were shot by finding the light, then facing the light. Even at night, there’s still some light to be found, especially in the city and indoors.

But sometimes, like this shot above, there’s just no light around. That’s when you have to bring your own light, i.e. use flash.

The shot below is what I got after I popped the flash. But here we see the reason why people don’t like to use flash: It casts a harsh light, and makes the background disappear.

Here’s where the ability to control advanced camera settings with a DSLR camera can help us take better photos with flash.

1. Increase ISO and shutter speed to bring the background back

In the shot above, my subject is lit by the flash, but the background is completely black.

That’s because the shutter speed is too fast at 1/60th of a second, and the ISO too low at ISO 400 to capture enough light to show the background.

So, how do you use flash, and have the background show up as well? One way is to increase your ISO and lengthen your shutter speed. Here’s what happened when I increased my ISO speed to ISO 1600, lengthened the shutter speed to 1/40th of a second, and shot with flash.

Here’s how to set your camera to do the same:

  1. Switch to Program (P) mode

  2. Increase your ISO setting, from ISO 1600 to ISO 3200

  3. Shoot and see! If the background is bright enough, you’re good

If the background still looks dark after increasing your ISO, then you’ll need to try lengthening your shutter speed:

  1. Switch to Shutter-priority (Tv) mode

  2. Your previous ISO settings should carry over

  3. Lengthen your shutter speed — try from 1/80th to 1/30th of a second

  4. If the background is too dark, lengthen your shutter speed more

  5. If your image is too blurry (from camera shake), make your shutter speed faster

Because your camera is set to Shutter-priority (Tv) mode, it will adjust the intensity of the flash accordingly to whichever settings you use, so your subject should always be well-lit.

Tip: When you start playing with slow shutter speeds, you have to remember to hold your camera steady, and ask your friends to hold still as you take the photo.

2. Use an external flash

Now, if you don’t like the look of direct flash, you can think of investing in a hot-shoe flash, which is a flash that attaches to your camera’s hot-shoe. Canon calls theirs Speedlites. You can change the direction of the flash using Speedlites, and by bouncing the light off a surface like the ceiling, you get diffused light that’s softer and not as harsh.

This photo below was taken with a Canon Speedlite 320EX. Because there wasn’t a ceiling to bounce the flash off, I had to aim it directly at my friend, which meant it didn’t look that much different from the on-board flash.

This photo below was taken with the same Speedlite, now pointed upwards, and a third-party reflector attached (a large Rogue FlashBender 2) to bounce the flash forward. The flash looks more pleasant, with softer gradients from bright to dark.

6. Use a faster prime lens

If you want to get better shots in low-light, one of the best investments you can make is to get a fast, prime lens.

We call a lens ‘fast’ when it can open up to large apertures like f/1.8. The larger the maximum aperture setting, the more light it can capture in a single shot.

Here’s the difference in results between a smaller and wider aperture. I shot this image below with the EOS 760D’s 18-135mm kit lens, at 50mm (80mm in 35mm equivalent), f/5.0 at 1/80th of a second, ISO 1600.

Here’s a photo shot at the same place, with a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens. Because the aperture opens to a wider f/1.8, the ISO drops to a cleaner ISO 250. If I increased the ISO sensitivity, I could have shot at an even faster shutter speed.

The other advantage to having a fast, wide aperture lens is that when used at maximum aperture, it produces beautiful background blur.

If there’s one disadvantage to having a prime lens, it’s that the lens doesn’t zoom. But it offers you so much as well; the ability to capture more light and provide beautiful background blur. Canon’s EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens is relatively inexpensive and compact, which makes it an invaluable lens to pack along as you shoot into the night.

Tip: To get beautiful blurry backgrounds like this one, shoot against points of light to create those blurry circles. To make the blur even more obvious, have some distance between your friends and the background.

7. Pump up the motion blur!

Here’s one fun way to use the darkness to your advantage. Pop the flash, lengthen the shutter speed, and make the shot blurry on purpose to give it some extra oomph!

To get this effect:

  1. Switch to Shutter-priority (Tv) mode

  2. Increase the ISO to ISO 1600 or higher

  3. Lengthen the shutter speed to 1/20th of a second (experiment with different speeds)

  4. Activate the flash

  5. Switch the flash to 2nd curtain flash

  6. Move the camera as you’re shooting the picture

  7. Your friend can move too, as long as your camera moves along with her

  8. Play!

You really don’t know what exactly you’ll get with these kinds of shots, so it’s just a matter of playing around with different settings, playing, and getting some nice images among weird ones. Here are some tips to help you along:

  1. Experiment with different shutter speeds

  2. If the effect isn’t blurry enough, lengthen the shutter speed

  3. If the effect is too blurry, make the shutter speed faster

  4. Try different hand speeds when moving the camera

  5. Try different ways of moving; turn your camera like a steering wheel, pan from left to right or from top to bottom

  6. Even though you’re moving the camera, make sure the focus is locked on your subject before you take the shot

FAQ: Why switch to 2nd curtain flash?

To make this technique work, it’s better to switch to 2nd curtain flash. There are two ways a camera’s flash can fire:

  • 1st curtain flash is when the flash fires at the start of taking a picture

  • 2nd curtain flash is when the flash fires at the end of taking a picture

The key difference between the two is in how the subject looks if he, she or it moves during the photo-taking. If the shutter speed is slow enough, there will be motion blur, and each flash produces a different effect:

  • If you use 1st curtain flash, the motion blur will appear as if the subject is moving backwards, with motion blur appearing in front of the subject

  • If you use 2nd curtain flash, the motion blur will appear as if the subject is moving forwards, with motion blur appearing behind the subject

Because of this, using 2nd curtain flash looks more natural when shooting moving subjects with slow shutter speeds.

To switch from 1st curtain flash to 2nd curtain flash on the Canon EOS 760D:

  1. Press the ‘Menu’ button

  2. Select ‘Flash control’ from the first menu screen

  3. Select ‘Built-in flash settings’

  4. Select ‘Shutter sync.’

  5. Choose ‘2nd curtain’

FAQ: Back to you

Taking photos of friends and family at night and in low-light can be challenging, but I hope this guide shows you that it can be done. There’s always going to be some testing and playing around involved, so I invite you to go try these tips for yourself and see what results you get.

Got questions on how to shoot photos at night and in low-light? Ask us on our HardwareZone Facebook page, or ping me directly on Twitter @alvinsoon.

Have fun and happy holidays!