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Basic Training: Looking for Light

One of the inherent problems in shooting in "low light" is that there is no real definition for what low light is. Some people may consider anything darker than a cloudy day to be low light. To others, a sixty-watt bulb in an overhead socket may be low light, and to a Special Forces team in the desert, starlight may be "low light." These definitions and the solutions to shooting under them all hinge upon what you expect to get from your video. A police surveillance tape has different goals than a feature film. The second difficulty that you'll run across in "low light" shooting is that camera manufacturers can (and often do) use arbitrary methods of determining their products' capabilities.

There's a very complicated definition of how light is measured in LUX, but the basic rule is that a 1 LUX camera will be able to achieve an acceptable image lit by a single candle from three feet away. What's "acceptable" varies from one camera manufacturer to another and from one use to another as well.

The Electronic Industries Association has come up with a standard called EIA-639 that seeks to hold everyone to the same rating system, but at the moment it's voluntary. So, it's possible that you have camera manufacturer "A" saying that an image is acceptable at a level of light that another manufacturer doesn't think is acceptable. So, if you're buying a camera for its low light capabilities, spend some time reading the reviews before you believe what's on the side of the box. Understanding all that, here are some tips for shooting in low l…