Shooting in low light

[SMN]

Hi all,

New to photography but i'm from a technical background so i think i'm picking up the terminology and ideas quite quickly.

I got a new lens this weekend, Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6 EX DC HSM, and thought i'd test it out indoors along with my walkabout lens (Canon EF-S 18-135 mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens) at an 'early xmas' party.

I struggled with the light being really low, but i didnt want to turn flash on as A) its irritating and B) it will flatten the photo.

I used my walkabout lens on ISO 800, lowest f-stop possible (to let the most light in) and a slow-ish shutter speed - about 1/30 - 1/40 as i was hand holding the camera. The shots all came out rather dark, and I had to get them to a half-decent standard by editing in Photoshop/Lightroom as I was shooting in raw.

Belows an example picture:

As shot

ISO 800, 42mm, f/ 4.5, 1/40 sec.

After edit

Edited in lightroom.

From my understanding, i should use a wide as possible aperture in low light, dial the ISO number up but expect noise, and use a slower than usual shutter speed. Does anyone have any tips? Granted i was shooting in manual mode, and i read yesterday i should be using a rough rule of 'shutter mode for moving objects, aperture mode for stationary objects' - so that may have helped me.

Is the darkness element down to something i'm doing, or is it that the aperture of the lenses above isnt a low enough F number to allow sufficient light in at a high shutter speed?

Thanks in advance - all the things / videos ive watched from references on here are really helping.

Cheers,
Sam

 

[SMN]

Those lenses are pretty 'slow' which doesn't help/ Did you apply any noise reduction in LR?

Ah, I did not - thats helped make it look better already! I was considering purchasing a cheap 50mm f/ 1.8 for scenarios like the one in my OP - as from what I can read it will allow more light in, allowing me to dial the ISO to 200/400 to get a better shot.

Does that make sense? Or have i mis-understood? Cheers for your help.

 

[SMN]

You've got it right, 50mm might be a bit long for indoors though. Perhaps swapping your walkabout lens for a Canon EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS would make more sense?

I would love to, but its a bit rich for my blood at the moment I'm going to Australia again for 4 weeks soon, so purchased my 10-20mm for some nice landscapes, cityscapes, etc (Uluru for example) - so my 'lens cash' is low for a while!

Just be careful when applying noise reduction on LR because you can make things look artificially smooth. Remember that the camera will not apply any noise reduction when shooting in RAW, it's left for you to do in PP. What body do you have?

I've got a 1100D.

Also the picture looked a bit underexposed to start with, I've noticed with my old camera (550D) that if I underexpose and try and raise the levels in PP, noise will be a lot more apparent than if I shot at the correct exposure to start with.

Yeah agreed, I'm still getting to grips with using the light meter on a half-press and then adjusting accordingly, its pretty tricky.