How to freeze motion in low light - the viewfinder advantage
Keywords: tips_and_tricks, digital, exposure, shooting_conditions, wildlife, chimping, postprocessing
Post-processing
Now to restore the correct exposure. Before you can see the images, you have to set an exposure correction to offset the underexposure caused by the high shutter speed.
Before this correction amount is set, the shots look black - as in Figure 1. By the way, they also will look black in the transfer utility (so don’t panic).
To correct the exposure using Adobe Bridge, open any one of the black images. Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) will launch. Increase the exposure slider (under the “Basic” tab of ACR) until the image looks right, or choose “Auto.”
In this example all shots were taken with the shutter speed four stops higher than metered (f/5.6, metered at 1/8, shot at 1/125).
And now for the really handy part: this compensated exposure will be applied to all shots viewed back in Bridge once you save it in ACR. To the right of the heading “Basic” there is a pop-down menu, select “Save New Camera Raw Defaults.” This pop-down is shown open in Figure 2.
Now return to Bridge. Bridge will use this newly saved exposure compensation when displaying all images in the filmstrip - as in Figure 3.
Proceed now with your normal workflow to select, process and output your shots.
These shots were taken on a sunny morning but before the sun cleared the ridge to the east. The subject was hiding in some evergreens, and she was not staying still at all, but bobbing and hopping from branch-to-branch. Post-processing was done with CS5 for Mac.
The recovered images are surprisingly good. The 1/125 shutter speed avoided the motion blur that would have been very visible at 1/8 or 1/15 which the meter called for. It also gave me more frames-per-second than 1/30.
Once finished working with this set of underexposed images, re-reset the exposure compensation back to zero - and save it using “Save New Camera Raw Defaults” again.
Disadvantages
There are disadvantages to underexposing to freeze motion.
First, chimping is hard or impossible depending on how many stops you underexpose. At four stops all you see is a black screen.
Second, by under exposing you are giving away dynamic range and increasing noise in the final image. This technique, after all, is the opposite of “expose to the right.” Chimping will show the histogram pretty hard over to the left.
Third, if your post-processing software doesn’t make it easy to preview shots without having to open them individually, that can really slow down your workflow. It just gets frustrating staring at all-black frames and having to open and correct each one while trying to remember which one had the right pose or wing position.
Adobe Bridge and ACR work great once you learn the trick of setting an exposure compensation as above. I looked at ViewNX2 for a similar default exposure correction, but was unsuccessful. Is there a ViewNX2 expert out there who may know?
Summary
DSLR’s have a number of advantages over simpler cameras. In this article, a DSLR’s manual controls and optical viewfinder are used to manage low-light shooting situations.
Photographers moving up to a DSLR can be frustrated that their f/5.6 zoom-equipped camera can’t automatically produce crisp images in all conditions. The persistent ones will discover that you can do a lot more once you take manual control of your shooting.
When you are shooting moving subjects in low light with a DSLR, you can still get the shot without blur. You need to manually choose a faster shutter speed than the camera would choose in its automatic modes. You also should shoot RAW. And you then need to recover the correct exposure in post-processing.
There are disadvantages to this technique, particularly noise in the image, but that is preferable to a blurry subject. The right post-processing tool support is also critical.
You can still frame and shoot with the available light because the viewfinder doesn’t darken to match the exposure you choose - and in this case that’s a good thing.
Tim Marchant
Originally written on September 12, 2014
Last updated on February 21, 2019
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12 comments
User on September 4, 2015
Without trying this myself, by comparison, I don't think there would be much of a difference between your method and just jacking the ISO by four stops. You're still going to get increased noise and contrast but at least you'll be able to see the image on your camera and as you begin post processing. Processing in Adobe Light room as opposed to Bridge offers some noise reduction and selective sharpening to balance things out.
Larry Johnson (larry_j) on August 13, 2015
I will try this. Quite often, I am only trying to get enough of a picture to assist in identification, but I have not tried underexposing to this extent. Thanks
Thomas Otterbein (thott) on August 9, 2015
Perfect tip! Just try it with my D7200 with -4 EV. Greetings Thomas
Min Chai Liu (mcliu19) on January 30, 2015
interesting article , never tried before
John A. Meiers (Dakotaboy) on October 13, 2014
Being fairly new to digital cameras I find this information very helpful. It will benefit us novices who don't quite know enough about our Nikon DSLR to adjust on the fly out in the open
Denny Beall (CPR) on September 29, 2014
Good article. As photographers we often just need to "get the shot" and this demonstrates a way that works to do that.
Thomas Adderley (The SGM) on September 24, 2014
When in doubt I use my tablet which allows me to upload off the SD Card right on location. This affords me the photo reference for adjustments. Sometimes use my small laptop for the same purpose but the tablet is lighter.
Clive Liddell (cliddell) on September 17, 2014
Hi Tim, Interesting exposure suggestions! In ViewNX just select all underexposed images and make the necessary exposure (and other) adjustment on the first selected image and press Ctrl-S. Regards Clive LIddell
Randall E Myers (megustanfotos2) on September 16, 2014
Thank you!
Bob Gudramovics (BobG55) on September 13, 2014
Great article, didn't consider this workflow until now!!
Stephen Blakesley (lajolla) on September 12, 2014
Thanks for the article. I use the optical viewfinder for Nikon DSLR's, and NOT the rear-screen live-view settings. I think this article needs some proof-reading.
John D. Roach (jdroach) on September 12, 2014
Good article.