Shooting with low-light at events #photography

The first event was part of the Birmingham and Sandwell Jazz Festival and was a performance by Chickenbone John playing an amazing guitar made from a cigar box.

Low-light

This was in the evening in Wednesbury Library and I did a couple of shots using the flash but then raised the ISO on the camera to shoot without the flash. For close-ups like this I was using a wide aperture and so that helped with the low-light as well.

Coloured lights – low light

As it got darker the coloured lights made more of an effect. There is some movement in this shot and you have to choose between a slight blur from the movement or raising the ISO even higher (for a fast shutter speed) and risking some noise.

Eileen Ward Birch

This is Eileen Ward Birch and her husband Mick telling stories at the library on Saturday as part of a Black Country Festival event organised by Wednesbury Poet Laureate, Brendan Hawthorne. Again, this was low-light and I raised the ISO to 400 for these shots.

The Scarbelly Blues Band

This is Brendan singing with the Scarbelly Blues band at the same event. Even though the ISO setting of 400 gives faster shutter speeds I still try to wait for a pause in the movement to take the shot. That is even more important at low-light events where it is very dark.

Miss Fortunes

This was Miss Fortunes with The Banned doing their set at Wednesbury 2000 later on Saturday afternoon. I used a professional flash for this shot that metered the light through the lens for the shot. I think it is quite a good shot considering most of the frame is black. Often when people are wearing black clothes the flash will be too bright and makes the faces of the people too white.

So basically in low-light, you can use wide apertures, which I did for these shots. You can also use a higher ISO level or use a flash. A flash metered TTL (through the lens) is the best.