So you want to take low-light pictures right?

In the past years, I've encountered lots of people that needed to take pictures indoors and in low light, and didn't want to use a flash. It may look easy, but it's not really. There is some stuff we need to know about before jumping into the low-light wagon.

First there is the concept of aperture on the lenses (ie. 300mm f2.8). The smaller that f number is, the bigger the "hole" that lets the light pass is. This concept is pretty important in low-light photography.

So by now you probably go like: I'm so buying that 50mm 1.2 lens, but wait! There is another thing linked with a wide aperture, and it's the concept of depth of field. The smaller the number, the thinner the depth of field will get. So getting a nice portrait shot of someone at 6 feets away from you at 1.2 might prove very difficult unless you don't care having one eye in focus and not the other.

So let's jump into a concrete exemple. You are at a show, you want to take your kind on stage with your 135mm f2.0 which is about 30 feet away. Using the calculator (linked below) you have a depth of field of about 3.5 ft, which is a bit too small especially since your kid is moving (let's say). You are at 1/160th of a second and can't really go to f4.0 else it might get blurry.

At this point you have choices. You either can use a flash  - kind of disrespectful for other spectators, plus it's normally not allowed - , bump the ISO  - and deal with noise later but at least have a sharp picture - or just show the motions a little bit and use a tripod to stop your own hand shake.

Most of the time I find the tripod or monopod use is the best approach, but yours may differ. Hope this post helped you!

J. Enno



External Links:
Depth of Field Calculator

How to choose a lens correctly for your use

Hi everyone,

Today I'm gonna talk about a subject you might find really interesting. In the past years, I've been buying lenses and selling them. SLR Lenses are a great way to find what range of your camera you use and like most.

But as most of you, I spent dollars that I could've saved. First because at first I did have a cheap zoom and I decided to buy a slightly better zoom to replace this one, thinking the pictures would be a lot better suddently. At my great regret, I learnt that even though a lens cost more, it doesn't mean it is better - or even as good.

So I started reading review on sites such as
The Digital Picture Reviews (Canon-only)
Fred Miranda Reviews
Ken Rockwell Reviews

Wow! So much choice! I heard all over the internet that "L" lenses were THE lenses to get, so I thought let's go with the EF 70-200 f4L lens. But at that time I had a 30D (crop factor of 1.6) so in fact that lens became a 112-320.

Here's what I thought:

• A bit too long for most of my needs (especially on crop bodies) - I don't do nature shots.
• The f4 aperture was great outdoors, but indoors it was too dark.
• The quality of the image was great though, so I figured I'd keep it for a while (now sold)
• I was addicted to L lenses and couldn't go back

So that made me realize some things:

• Try to find what you PLAN to do with your lenses. In my case it was indoor/outdoor portraits.
• I may need a Full Frame camera because ISO performance is better in low light and my 50mm will really become a 50, not a 85 or so.

So save some time and money and buy what you need, here is a small guide if your needs are the same as mine - ie. indoor / outdoor shooting.

Try to skip the zoom lenses, and go prime. ie: 135mm F2.0L & 35mm f1.4L. This is a great kit, if you only need one of the two, go with the 35 or consider investing in the 85mm 1.2L.

For outdoors-only shooting, your needs are MUCH less restrained and just look at the recommendations on the site I mentionned above.

Thanks for reading!