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How to get bright photos in low light

Submitted byLennart Ootes onAugust 3, 2019

I regularly get the question what camera gear I use and how to get bright photos in dark environments. So here are some general thoughts on low light photography and some examples of the magic called photo editing.

Gear:

As chess is played indoors, there is usually limited light to work with - in photography we call that low light. To make a photo brighter, one has to make compromises: either a larger aperture (more expensive lens), a lower shutter speed (harder to freeze action) and a higher ISO (more grain). That's why a better camera (with more dynamic range) and faster lenses (f/2.8 and lower) are important investments for chess. At tournaments I shoot in manual mode, with my shutter speed usually at 1/125, my aperture at f2.2 or f2.8 and an auto-ISO between 400 and 1250.  

For my work, I have used the following cameras:
2012-2016: Sony a55 (16mp, a-mount, dslr)
2016-2017: Sony a7ii (24mp, e-mount, mirrorless)
2017-now: Sony a7riii (42mp, e-mount, mirrorless, silent shutter)

And I currently work with the following lenses:
Zeiss Batis 85mm f/1.8
Sony Sonnar T* FE 55mm f/1.8
Sony FE 28mm f/2
Sony 16mm Fisheye (Conversion Lens for Sony 28mm)
Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III RXD

I've made some practical choices regarding price and size of my equipment. The entire set of 1 camera and 5 lenses fits in a small camera bag (11.4 x 9.1 x 9.5" / 29 x 23 x 24 cm) and weights 8.3 lb / 3.8kg. I do miss a telephoto lens (like a 70-200mm f/2.8), but such a lens is really heavy and expensive - so I generally come closer to the players than other photographers. 

The Sony mirrorless cameras are simply amazing and its development is going in such a fast pace. It's great to be able to shoot 10 frames per second with eye autofocus and without a single *click* noise. But, as you can see from the images at the end of this article, the photos straight from the camera have to undergo quite some post processing.

Editing, where the magic happens:

Although great gear does help low light photography a lot, it is still easy to take horrible photos with the most expensive camera setup. I also produce shots that are out of focus and I publish roughly one out of 6 photos that I take. But once you have a photo that's sharp, the most interesting part starts: editing. This is where you can really personalize your photo. How will you crop the photo and do you want color or black/white? In a program like Lightroom you will see so many sliders: color temperature, exposure, contrast, highlights and shadows to name a few. I think it really depends on your own style how you move the sliders. With the same photo you can easily edit 5 completely different photos. But as my rule of thumb, depending on the light situation, I add somewhere between 0.7 and 2 stops of exposure to my photos. 

To give some idea what's possible with editing software, here are some photos before and after editing. To kickstart your photo editing, I can recommend the Camera Raw and Lightroom tutorials at Lynda (now LinkedIn Learning).

A7riii, 85mm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec, ISO 1250

 

A7riii, 28mm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec, 500 ISO

 

A7riii, 28mm, f/2.8, 1/80 sec, 1000 ISO

 

A7riii, 48mm, f/2.8, 1/200 sec, 1250 ISO