Have you ever wondered why that photograph you took just after sunset came out blurry? Or how about that shot you took in the ‘night portrait’ mode of your friends and family with the city lights in the background? Frustrating isn’t it? You might have hoped to capture the flavour of an evening out with friends or maybe the raw emotion of an early morning sunrise on holiday only to discover later that the scene you remember is not what your camera has recorded.

It can be easy to blame the camera or even give up trying when these important pictures don’t come out, but it doesn’t have to be this way. With a small investment of your time and the proper equipment your next attempt can become your next favourite desktop picture or wall hanging. The main factor involved in these failures (learning experiences) was the low light environment in which they were taken. Which, by the way, was probably part of what made the idea of the photo so appealing in the first place!
Using natural or ambient light rather than a cameras in-built flash can give a more natural feel and deeper sense of being there. A camera’s inbuilt flash tends towards harsh, flat, white light, which can create a cold and uninviting scene. It is also next to useless for landscapes or night scenes (Ever seen a camera flash at the fireworks?) The power of most is only enough to illuminate subjects in the immediate foreground causing the background to appear dim in the photograph… if at all!
So how do we make use of ambient low light and make a beautiful photographic record of what we remember? It’s easy once you know why photos turn out blurry.
Cameras require light focussed on an image sensor to record a sharp vibrant scene. When there is very little light reaching the sensor during a short exposure the image produced will be too dark . Daylight photography is technically ideal as sharp images can easily be rendered by even the cheapest of cameras when hand held. Exposure times can be as fast as 1/4000 of a second in many consumer cameras and little camera shake is detected in the final image unless you are using a long telephoto lens. To create an image in low light requires a little more than holding up the camera and snapping away. More time is required to gather enough light to render a good bright image with vibrant colours and contrast.
What about image-stabilizing I hear you say?
Most, if not all camera manufacturers have incorporated image-stabilizing technology into their new cameras. This technology was first applied in TV broadcast cameras and high-end sports lenses to help with the problem of camera shake at high magnification. Camera shake is still noticeable at times if you watch the cricket or other sporting events. The camera may be zoomed in to a subject at high magnification and the camera can seem to be jolted violently even though the actual bump or jolt was very small. Image stabilizing can help out by countering these jolts in still cameras quite well, but when it comes to longer exposure times we need to look to another method of reducing camera shake. Enter the humble tripod.  
Whether you want to take photographs using ambient low light, or you just want to be in the picture yourself, tripods are an essential accessory.
Many cameras can take automatic exposures up to 30 seconds at a time and some even have what’s called a ‘bulb mode’. This enables the photographer to “hold open” the shutter with the use of an external trigger known as a cable release (wireless units are also available). The combination of a tripod and a cable release will give you the results we were hoping for earlier in this article. Night scenes with your friends and family nicely illuminated in the foreground and city lights and streaming vehicle lights in the background all of a sudden become possible. (Most cameras have night scene modes that expose for the ambient light and fire a soft flash to create night portraits.)
There are many different types of tripods available from many manufacturers starting from only a few dollars for tiny tabletop models up into the hundreds of dollars.

The preceding text is from our October 2009 e-News Letter. If you wish to receive these monthly articles, simply log in or create your new account and subscribe!