From the course: Photography Foundations: Night and Low Light

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Understanding dynamic range

Understanding dynamic range

From the course: Photography Foundations: Night and Low Light

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Understanding dynamic range

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In photography, the measure of the darkest to lightest tones that your camera can capture is referred to as the dynamic range. Now you may think that low-light shooting is inherently a low-dynamic-range situation: Everything is dark, right? But actually, low-light situations often have a very high dynamic range, because you'll have a dark scene and usually have bright light in it somewhere. The important thing to remember about dynamic range is that your eye has a much higher dynamic range than your camera, probably close to twice the range. So, while you're standing there, you're going to be able to see detail around the bright light and in dark shadows. Your camera though won't be able to see that full range without using a very long shutter speed. Typically, the camera will meter for the bright thing; in other words, it'll decide to go with shorter shutter speeds and smaller apertures so that the bright thing doesn't overexpose. But that means that shadowy areas will most likely be…

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