Low light portraits with natural lighting only

Can someone help me please.  So I'm trying to work on my natural lighting portraits and was trying to photograph someone in front of an old covered bridge as the sun was coming up.  The problem that I'm facing is the portraits when I look at them on computer are soft from my model moving.  With it being somewhat dark out, my exposure time was nearly 4 seconds with ISO set at 800.  I don't want to go much further up with my ISO and my aperture was set at f/11.  Although I did open it up to f/5.6 in a few shots, but didn't seem much difference.  

There must be a trick to getting sharp still shots using just natural light, even when not much of it?  Any help would be appreciated.  Thank you.

Sean

Sean Lewitts wrote: Can someone help me please.  So I'm trying to work on my natural lighting portraits and was trying to photograph someone in front of an old covered bridge as the sun was coming up.  The problem that I'm facing is the portraits when I look at them on computer are soft from my model moving.  With it being somewhat dark out, my exposure time was nearly 4 seconds with ISO set at 800.  I don't want to go much further up with my ISO and my aperture was set at f/11.  Although I did open it up to f/5.6 in a few shots, but didn't seem much difference.  

There must be a trick to getting sharp still shots using just natural light, even when not much of it?  Any help would be appreciated.  Thank you.

Sean

why was your aperture at f/11? That doesn't make any sense to me at all for a portrait in low light. When doing portraits I like having distinction between my model and my background and I never set it any higher (more closed) than f/5. I usually have my aperture at f/2-3. If you aren't familiar with aperture, there are probably some useful articles kicking around here that can help you. I'll give you a quick summary:
-the lower the number of your aperture, the more open it is
-the more open your aperture, the smaller the range of focus (meaning better background blur/distinction between that and your model) and also more light coming in
-more light coming in means you can have a faster shutter speed and lower ISO. If you were shooting f/2 for instance in those conditions (I don't know exactly what was going on, but) you probably could have managed ISO of 200-400 and shutter speed of 1/60-1/120. I'm saying this loosely because I can't account for shade, how much sunlight was there at the time, and whether it was cloudy, or your model was facing the light, etc. but I mean to say you could have had much easier settings to work with and a much nicer outcome if your aperture were more open.

As a portrait photographer, like I said, I never let my aperture exceed 5, and usually shoot almost as open as my lens will allow. The only time I have let it get to 11 was shooting mountains, when I wanted a whole scene in focus (although landscapes and nature are not my jam). 

This is picture is a good representation of aperture and a photo's consequent outcomes:
www.shortcourses.com/images/b4ch1/aperture.jpg (I'm on my ipad, sorry)
hope this helped!

I agree, the aperture was so small it probably didn't let enough light into the camera, especially that time of day. Was the subject moving or was the shutter speed slow?

A camera is recording light, so if you use the existing light and it's not very bright out yet, that's going to be more limiting than outdoors in brighter daylight; you'd need to use a larger aperture, higher ISO, slower shutter speed - and figure out what combination of those works best in low light situations.

It seems like if you want to do outdoor portraits, first you'll need to just get out and take pictures at different times of day and figure out what settings work in various lighting conditions.

Sean Lewitts wrote: Can someone help me please.  So I'm trying to work on my natural lighting portraits and was trying to photograph someone in front of an old covered bridge as the sun was coming up.  The problem that I'm facing is the portraits when I look at them on computer are soft from my model moving.  With it being somewhat dark out, my exposure time was nearly 4 seconds with ISO set at 800.  I don't want to go much further up with my ISO and my aperture was set at f/11.  Although I did open it up to f/5.6 in a few shots, but didn't seem much difference.  

There must be a trick to getting sharp still shots using just natural light, even when not much of it?  Any help would be appreciated.  Thank you.

Sean

<forehead hits keyboard>

Okay, now that that's out of the way...

Why are you using f/11 in low light?
Why are you using f/11 for a portrait?
Why are you using f/11?

The trick is to fully exploit the exposure triangle and combine that with good composition and technique. Also understanding focal length, distance to subject, things like that . Since you provide very little information about your settings (focal length/lens, ISO) I'm going to assume you were far away from your subject, perhaps enough to get a full body shot, and clearly you wanted to include a relatively large structure (the bridge).

A portrait isn't usually intended to have a deep DoF; the subject is the person. Not a bridge. So focus on the subject, and from a distance the bridge will take care of itself. Open up the lens and set your focus on the subject. Use the shutter speed and ISO according to the aperture.

If you simply must get the bridge in focus, take two shots: one of the subject exposed for the subject, and another odf the bridge exposed for the bridge. Watch you focus and DoF so you can then combine them in post.

Option: get over "natural light" and learn to use a speedlite in these situations. "Natural light" is becoming a term to describe lazy photographers that don't understand light. Don't be that guy. (This comes from personal experience, not just an opinion.)

Final comment: f/11 is used for landscape/ panoramas, big shots, macros and fireworks. Not for portraits.

garyrhook wrote: <forehead hits keyboard>

Okay, now that that's out of the way...

Why are you using f/11 in low light?
Why are you using f/11 for a portrait?
Why are you using f/11?

Option: get over "natural light" and learn to use a speedlite in these situations. "Natural light" is becoming a term to describe lazy photographers that don't understand light. Don't be that guy. (This comes from personal experience, not just an opinion.)

i take huge offence to that. Natural light simply looks better in most cases, and certain equipment can come in handy for certain situations, but compare the catchlight in an eye of a naturally lit scene to the catchlight of a flash (which eliminates reflection and reduces the light caught to one ugly white dot), and the flash is just a waste of time. Natural light can also come to a wonderful advantage for softer looking skin.
In a scene where the lighting is poor to begin with, yeah go nuts with the flash, but natural light simply looks better when there's enough of it and generalizing it to say that a flash is always superior and that people who appreciate what you can do with natural light are just lazy and unwilling to learn makes you look like such a tool.

Leilanee wrote:

i take huge offence to that. Natural light simply looks better in most cases, and certain equipment can come in handy for certain situations, but compare the catchlight in an eye of a naturally lit scene to the catchlight of a flash (which eliminates reflection and reduces the light caught to one ugly white dot), and the flash is just a waste of time. Natural light can also come to a wonderful advantage for softer looking skin.

In a scene where the lighting is poor to begin with, yeah go nuts with the flash, but natural light simply looks better when there's enough of it and generalizing it to say that a flash is always superior and that people who appreciate what you can do with natural light are just lazy and unwilling to learn makes you look like such a tool.

I'll begin by suggesting that you re-read what I actually wrote, not what you think I said.

I did not generalize, I said don't rely on natural light; I should have added "in every situation."  I did not state, much less suggest, that flash was superior; it is neither inferior nor superior. It is a tool, unlike me.  I did not say that those that only use natural light are lazy, I simply pointed out that, based on my observations, it's become a "nom de lense" for photographers that don't understand light. I didn't even suggest they were unwilling to learn. I believe that the term is garnering a negative connotation.

You've seen my work, so I think you know perfectly well what I'm capable of, both with and without a flash. I'll stand by my remarks, I don't think I was insulting, and I hope that the OP has something to think about. Besides, aside from perhaps oversharing, I did address the questions raised. Didn't I?

Oh, and with respect to catchlights, if the light is terribly diffuse, you can end up with no catchlights at all. I'll take those produced by a flash over none.

garyrhook wrote:

Leilanee wrote:

i take huge offence to that. Natural light simply looks better in most cases, and certain equipment can come in handy for certain situations, but compare the catchlight in an eye of a naturally lit scene to the catchlight of a flash (which eliminates reflection and reduces the light caught to one ugly white dot), and the flash is just a waste of time. Natural light can also come to a wonderful advantage for softer looking skin.

In a scene where the lighting is poor to begin with, yeah go nuts with the flash, but natural light simply looks better when there's enough of it and generalizing it to say that a flash is always superior and that people who appreciate what you can do with natural light are just lazy and unwilling to learn makes you look like such a tool.

I'll begin by suggesting that you re-read what I actually wrote, not what you think I said.

I did not generalize, I said don't rely on natural light; I should have added "in every situation."  I did not state, much less suggest, that flash was superior; it is neither inferior nor superior. It is a tool, unlike me.  I did not say that those that only use natural light are lazy, I simply pointed out that, based on my observations, it's become a "nom de lense" for photographers that don't understand light. I didn't even suggest they were unwilling to learn. I believe that the term is garnering a negative connotation.

You've seen my work, so I think you know perfectly well what I'm capable of, both with and without a flash. I'll stand by my remarks, I don't think I was insulting, and I hope that the OP has something to think about. Besides, aside from perhaps oversharing, I did address the questions raised. Didn't I?

Oh, and with respect to catchlights, if the light is terribly diffuse, you kind end up with no catchlights at all. I'll take those produced by a flash over none.

Alright, clarification received.
With such a saturated field, bad photographers can take any technique or idea and turn it into a clichéd nightmare, and such is why it seemed you were making a very unfairly general statement.

Well that's what learning is all about.  I'm just experimenting and learning as I go. You guys gave me something to think about.