Photography newbie - low light conditions

[Brum Man]

So I've recently picked up a DSLR (650D) as I'm interested in trying out a bit of photography as a hobby. I've been outside over the past couple of days taking some pics in various settings but one thing I'm struggling with is getting the pictures looking bright enough in what have been dull, overcast conditions.

I've been using a mix of auto and manual settings in attempt to actually get some pictures of the places I'm visiting (auto) and also understand how certain setting effect the pictures (manual).

When using auto it seems to pretty much constantly default to ISO100, F6-7 and 1/125-200 shutter speed, which leaves the pictures really dark (my girlfriends point and shoot look a lot brighter). Now as far as I'm aware I can increase the brightness in a three ways (?):

1) increase the ISO
2) decrease the F number
3) decrease the shutter speed

I'm happy to play around with the settings over time but I'm just surprised at how bad the automatic settings are a getting the brightness up, is this normal or am I missing something?

Also, any advice on which settings would be the most effective to alter as a starting point?

Some quick examples below (excuse the rubbish photos, I am after all a complete beginner ).

Thanks for any advice!

 

[Brum Man]

Yep it's definitely on auto, I've been playing around with a bit and setting it on a fixed number and back so pretty sure it's not that.

 

[Brum Man]

OK so had another play around with it yesterday and it definitely wasn't stuck on a particular ISO as I shoved it on auto and took some shots underground at the Roman Baths in Bath and it went up to 6400

Had a further play around outside and set the shots up myself and playing around with the shutter speed/F-stop whilst keeping the ISO set to 100/200 and managed to get the lighting OK, it just seems to me that auto was setting the shutter speed to high and not getting enough light in to expose the shots.

Points noted regarding the sky being too bright to expose the building properly, I guess even though it's overcast the clounds might still be refelecting a lot of light back

Ho hum, I'll play around some more as I'm sure there are more overcast days to come!

 

[Brum Man]

Cheers for the tips. I appreciate that Using Auto is not really the way to go but this is literally the first time picking up an SLR so just thought I'd use it until I got used to where all the buttons were.

Yesterday about 70% of the shots I tool were in full Manual mode, and where I got a shot I liked I switched it to Auto to compare how it came out and found that I generally did a better job.

Agreed with the (very) blue twinge, especially on the car! I'll go and check our the light balance now.

It's new, but it was also a display model (cheap cheap) so your right that it may have had the settings messed around with.

 

[Brum Man]

I checked in the settings this morning and it was set to 'Flouresent' so I'm assuming the camera was expecting some dodgy lighting.

I should also clarify what I meant by Auto, it was set to P (hence my ability to change some of the settings), but with all the individual settings set to auto with, it seems, the exception of white balance!

Thanks for your help guys.

 

[Brum Man]

How are you editing your photos? (if you are)

If you are serious about photography you should invest in Lightroom and then you will be able to edit your photos

I'm not at the moment, those pics were straight of the camera and resized. Am planning on getting Lightroom to enable me to edit phots in the future but I'm using the gf's laptop at the moment waiting for Apple to get their act together and release the the new rMBP so can't purchase it immediately! I think I was surprised at how poor the 'standard' shot came out with no manaul adjustments.

It seems the white balance being set to auto was the setting that was ruining it, which I've now set to auto so hopefully this should fix it and I'll shoot in JPEG + RAW so I have the RAW to play around with in the future.

AV is definitely the setting to have the camera on. Set the camera back to defaults as it wa set up to use inside the shop. Auto setting is not the best unless you are in a hurry with a shot

I would agree with the others that using Aperture priority (Av) and then adding or subtracting exposure compensation is the most hassle-free way to go for when you're out and about. Again, make sure your white balance is set to auto to ensure you don't get that blue or yellow caste to your images (this can be corrected in editing if you shoot in RAW rather than jpeg)

Cheers for the advice, looks like Av is the best way to get 'quick snaps' when I just want to use the camera with as little hasstle as possible, and switch it manual when I want to play around with the lighting etc when I have a little more time.

 

[Brum Man]

Snip

Thanks for your thoughtful post, it's really helped outline the fundamental aspects that require controlling (aperture/DoF) and which are to a certain extent by-products (shutter speed), with the caveat noted with regard to catching images where you want to enhance or avoid blur (the main example I've seen here seems to release to water where you might want to reduce shutter speed to give the effect of movement).

You may have mentioned it and I've missed it, but what about ISO control? Is this generally a function that is determined by your camera after setting the required DoF and effective shutter speed?

Also, you had me all the way to EC (although I'm not completely sure about diffraction and ND filters, but I think I'll just stick to the basics for now!).

Thanks again for all the advice.

 

[Brum Man]

OP - I recommend a book called Understanding Exposure. It'll sort you right out.

It's already on its way

 

[Brum Man]

Just thought I'd give a bit of an update on this after using the camera for another couple of weeks and taking a load more pictures. Things I've learned are:

1) The blue tinge to the photos was definitely caused by a stray auto white balance setting, school boy error

2) Using Av seems to work pretty well most of the time for general snaps

3) In most situations where there is a bright sky and a building (or similar) in the shadows (as per the second photo above) my camera will underexpose the foreground. Setting exposure compensation to around +1ish seems to be the perfect fix for this

4) The maximum aperture of f5.6 at the long end of the lens is no way near fast enough to get any sort of decent depth of field to pick out specific items, such as a flower head etc. I definitely think I need to buy a 50mm.

So, a mix of all the above advice has helped a lot so cheers

And just to prove the blue tinge has gone....!