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This past week we did some work in a couple of remote villages in Guatemala, and a lot of pics were taken at night with minimal lighting, a CFL bulb or two at most. I tried using some of the different pre-settings (night time, low lighting, etc...) Just wanted to know what to do to better low lighting pics. I have an Olympus E-500. Let me know what you think.
This past week we did some work in a couple of remote villages in Guatemala, and a lot of pics were taken at night with minimal lighting, a CFL bulb or two at most. I tried using some of the different pre-settings (night time, low lighting, etc...) Just wanted to know what to do to better low lighting pics. I have an Olympus E-500. Let me know what you think.
For those with still or almost still-motion, buy a tripod or find something sturdy to set your camera on (it's a lot easier just to get a tripod!), enter manual mode, and set your camera to take the picture at the lowest F-stop and a shutter speed of 1s or 2s, and work up from there. Note that your subject has to be sitting still. I've found that at 1 or 2 seconds, I can get people who are sitting normally to "almost" freeze.
For active scenes, you have to use flash, perhaps in conjunction with manual focus (due to the camera's AF not being quick enough) OR a constant LED panel (you can get them for really cheap, and they are useful for other purposes, too), buy faster (which usually means more expensive) lenses, or scrap the Olympus and go for a modern DSLR with good low-light (high ISO) performance, or possibly all three of these things, depending on the severity of the darkness! (Or you even might not be able to get decent pictures at all, if it's that dark)
As EinsteinsGhost said, shoot RAW and process the shadows and highlights, noise reduction, etc. yourself in a program like Adobe's Lightroom or the free Darktable.
The picture of the little girl is great! She's adorable. It's very nicely done.
I looked at info on the E-500 and I looked at the info embedded in your images. Actually you have options with what you have right now.
You shot in the "creative" modes. You said that anyway in your original post. While those modes can help, they won't push your camera. Shoot manual, and take a night or two practicing. And then take another night or two practicing. If you want to get better pictures without spending any additional money, you need to do that.
Your camera will go to ISO 3200. In very dark situations where you're trying to get a large area, set your ISO to as high as 3200, open the lens fully (lowest aperture number), and shoot at a slow shutter speed.
You shot the picture of the little girl with your on-camera flash and it gave you a shutter speed of 1/30s. It also chose an ISO of 100. In manual, you could put the ISO to 800, shoot at 1/30s, and your widest aperture, and you'd get the little girl and more of her Mom (assuming you composed the image to capture her too). That would also work with the 4th and 5th pictures.
For the 2nd and 3rd pictures where you are attempting to shoot groups with your lens zoomed out, set your ISO to 3200, shutter to 1/6s or 1/8s (which is what your camera chose on all but the picture of the little girl), open the aperture, and shoot. If you're getting blurring, up the shutter speed. The tiny built-in flash won't help much on groups, but, you know, I'd try that too.
Also, when you're in a place similar to the 2nd picture, set your white balance to the type of light you have. I'd guess from the image it was tungsten lighting; set that on your camera, and you'll get a better image. Auto white balance doesn't always work.
I shoot with high end and low end equipment. For me, it's all about pushing whatever equipment I have. You can do a little better with what you've got. The Olympus E-500 was rated as "Highly Recommended" when it was released, so you have a nice camera. While it is an older camera and considerably surpassed by what's available today, you can still push it farther.
You can bring it out better after the fact with software. This is hardly a big improvement as I only clicked, clicked but as noted above if you can shoot in raw you should be able to bring the entire background out with software.
You can bring it out better after the fact with software. This is hardly a big improvement as I only clicked, clicked but as noted above if you can shoot in raw you should be able to bring the entire background out with software.
Wow that did bring out a lot...is there a free version of this kind of software out there.
Wow that did bring out a lot...is there a free version of this kind of software out there.
I'm sure there is.......You'll have to do a search for what works best for you. I did this in Photoshop Elements that I got free with a scanner I purchased.
I noticed in your middle picture that you have what looks like a light bulb in the frame. Your camera will sense that bright light and adjust for it, making the rest of the image too dark. Avoid having any bright lights in your image. Others have stated the main things you can do. Set that ISO up to 3200 and work from there. What you REALLY need for these kinds of photos is a large external flash with a rotating/swiveling head so you can bounce light off the ceiling -- in conjunction with the other suggestions.
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