Photo & Video 101 | High ISO | low-light scene mode

Ever see those beautiful photos which capture the natural light? The ones where someone is sitting near a window and light gently dapples over their face?

Hey, now we’re entering the realm of the DSLR camera, aren’t we? Well, it doesn’t have to be so. This is possible, albeit, not quite as good, with your point-and-shoot camera.

Depending on your camera, the scene mode about which we’re going to learn will be called low-light scene mode, high ISO, indoor scene mode, etc.

Again, depending on your camera, this scene mode may behave a little differently. On all of them it will raise the ISO (film speed). On most it will automatically fire the red-eye reduction flash. And on some it will auto-focus on whatever is closest to the camera (which may not be what you want).

We’re about to get technical. If you’re not interested in the technical side, skip ahead to the actual photos and ignore all the math looking stuff.

High ISO or low-light scene mode tells your camera to set the ISO (film speed on a traditional camera) higher. On traditional film, a higher ISO number meant the film itself had more receptors with which to capture the light.

This means that you could use a faster shutter speed to capture the photo, so you wouldn’t have to worry about camera shake, moving subjects, etc.

The photo above was taken of our beautiful redhead using auto mode on a point-and-shoot camera. It looks ok. But you can’t tell if the photo was taken during the day or at night. In fact, she was sitting in front of a sunny window.

So you have a point of reference, in auto mode, the camera used an ISO 200, shutter speed of 10/601 seconds (very quick), aperture of f/4.8, and a full flash.

Here’s our first attempt at low-light scene mode:

Hmmm. You can now tell that she is in front of a sunny window. That’s about the only good thing I can say about this photo.

The camera kept the ISO at 200, shutter speed of 152/100 (about 1.5 seconds), same aperture, and red-eye reduction flash.

Now that we know the shutter is going to be open a really, really long time, let’s try it with a tripod. Well, who has easy access to a tripod? Let’s stack up a bunch of books and try that.

Cool! What happened there? Well, our subject apparently got a little bored during this shot, and the camera made her a little invisible.

The natural light had changed a bit and the ISO scene mode told the camera to leave the shutter open for almost 2 whole seconds! Between the time the shutter opened and closed, our busy subject decided to skedaddle.

The camera somehow turned her into a ghost in the shot. It’s a neat effect, although I’m not sure I could repeat it if I tried.

Let’s try this again with a stationary subject.

Now this is what I’m talking about. This time our shutter speed was 10/13 second, almost a full second. The red-eye reduction flash was used; all other settings remained the same.

She has some beautiful natural light and is in focus. Yay, the stack of books worked like a charm.

But, if we’re going to be a bit picky, the colors look a little washed out.

Not perfect, but pretty good.

First I toned down the brightness quite a bit, so that the highlights weren’t so bright and her pink outfit wasn’t blinding.

Next I did a levels adjustment so that it wouldn’t look so faded.

Then I picked the pink in her outfit (using color range selection in Photoshop) and desaturated it quite a bit.

Lastly, I used a spot healing brush to remove the beautiful tattoo from her cheek and boo-boo from her nose.

The photo correction steps in Photoshop are not totally necessary. If you are happy with the photo taken using auto settings go ahead and use it.

But, if you are planning on printing it out to frame or as a headshot in a portfolio, I suggest learning how to do a little enhancement.

So, how can we sum up high ISO mode? It takes great photos inside in low light, but only if you use a tripod, or a makeshift one.