Shooting Low Light Landscape

by Ken Hubbard

With some of the most beautiful landscape images hidden away in very low lit places, there are a number of important rules to follow. I always plan ahead and pack my gear specifically for the location I am going to. The worst feeling is to be caught out in the field realizing I forgot to pack something into my bag.

Planning ahead and packing my bag correctly is my first step in getting the best images I can from the location. Since many of my favorite places to shoot have low light and are in very tight quarters, I usually like to bring a super wide angle lens such as the Tamron 11-18mm. This lens allows me to get everything I want in my images even in some tight situations. I also prefer to have a wide to standard zoom such as the Tamron 17-50mm. I use this lens when I want to capture some of the finer details of the location by cropping a little tighter to the subjects. If I have room for a third lens, I will always bring a 90mm 1:1 macro. I have found that no matter where I am, be it a vast landscape or a tight slot canyon there is always some super fine detail that could have only been shot with a true macro lens.

The speed of your lens is not always critical. If you do not have a F/2.8 or faster lens, do not be concerned. With the examples below of Antelope Canyon in Arizona I was shooting at F/11 or better to maximize my depth of field. This helped me create a very sharp image from foreground to background. If I had shot any of these images at F/2.8 or a faster shutter speed I would not have gotten the walls completely in focus. Either the foreground or background walls would have gone soft.

This image was shot @18mm F/16 with a 8 second exposure and an ISO rating of 200

Expect very long shutter speeds. Since I shoot in conditions that will produce exposures of 1 second to 10 seconds or more, I always bring 2 very important pieces of equipment. First and foremost my tripod is my best friend, and is absolutely necessary. Secondly, a shutter release cable helps aid in preventing camera shake. Since exposures of such lengths are extremely sensitive to camera shake, these two pieces of equipment help me provide the sharpest images possible. If I forget to pack my shutter release cable I can use the self-timer on my camera, this will prevent any shake from firing the shutter manually.

This image was shot @ 38mm F/11 with a 2 second exposure and an ISO rating of 100

ISO setting and exposure settings. I usually shoot at an ISO of 100 for optimum image quality. This setting will cause my shutter speeds to be very long but will prevent noise from appearing in the images. Since ISO ratings of 800 or higher will still need a tripod and runs the risk of noise, I find no advantage in a higher sensitivity rating. When exposing in such extreme conditions like Antelope Canyon I am tempted to try and keep all detail in the shadows. In many cases this is impossible, so I expose to keep the highlights accurate and let my shadows fade to black. When I frame an image I try to keep the heavy black areas to a minimum so not to distract from the rest of the image. Keep the sky out of the image. If you notice I do not have any sky in the images. I purposely do this for a aesthetically more pleasing image as well as a properly exposed image. The contrast ratio between the brightness of the sky and deep shadows is to high for the camera sensor to handle, keeping the sky out of my images also helps to keep as much detail in my shadows.

This image was shot @ 18mm F/13 with a 4 second exposure and an ISO rating of 100

Lastly, be patient. I always want to capture so many different images when I go to these beautiful places, I have to remind myself take my time and capture the best images possible. It is always more rewarding to capture the best images possible than the most images possible. No matter where I am I always go through the steps of setting up my images slowly and carefully. Frame up the image, lock down the tripod tight, check exposure and shutter speeds, and fire the shutter with a cable release. Finally, I almost always bracket my images one stop under and one stop over, better to be safe than sorry, since it may be the only time I visit an area.