In this lesson: Explore how to use a slow shutter in low-light situations for interesting effects

When shooting in a low-light environment, forcing a slow shutter speed may highlight motion and create pleasing effects with ambient lighting.

Shutter dragging is a technique used in settings with less-than-optimal lighting, such as wedding reception halls, churches, and concert venues, by selecting ISO and aperture settings that require slower shutter speeds for a correct exposure. It’s often used when firing a flash in these environments, to combine ambient light to illuminate the background with a flash exposure to highlight the primary subject. Without a flash, dragging the shutter creates dynamic images with unusual motion blurs and unusually balanced lighting.

In the sample image above, notice how shutter dragging has allowed the photographer to take advantage of the ambient lighting in the room. Also note how the shutter speed is ideally set to get motion blur as the party-goers move around.

While it is certainly possible to overuse this technique, the potential benefits of shutter dragging include:

• • Improved background lighting: A common issue when using a flash is that the background can be overly dark. To lighten the background, you can slow down the shutter so your lens can collect more ambient light. In the image above, for example, the slower shutter allowed the photographer to capture more ambient lighting such that the background is well-lit. It also allowed the photographer to forego using the flash inside the building.
  • Unusual color blending: Much like with the panning technique we explored in the previous lesson, when dragging the shutter, the colors of the scene can blend together, making for interesting patterns of colors.
  • Random motion blur effects as people move: Since dragging the shutter requires using a slower-than-normal shutter speed, it opens up opportunities to highlight motion, as we discussed in lesson 5 of this series. Note how the movement of the woman in the image above has some nice blur effects while the remainder of the scene is in sharp focus.

• Unpredictable and surprising results: Shutter dragging can result in unique and visually interesting effects that make the image more dramatic and dynamic. Whether it’s color blending, motion blur, or interesting light effects, the final result is an image that can delight and surprise the viewer.

Challenge Activity

Your challenge activity is to work on perfecting the use of shutter dragging. In a low-light environment, practice shutter dragging without a flash to capture motion blur and other effects produced when only using low ambient light. For example, you might set up your camera in your family room with nothing but the overhead lights on to practice shutter dragging to blur the movement of your kids as they play.

Step 1: Setup your camera on a tripod in a location with subdued lighting. Use a room in your home, as described above, or try a busy building like a church, train station, a friend’s party or even a park or sidewalk lit faintly at night with street lights.

Step 2: Dial in exposure settings that includes a shutter speed in the 1 second to 1/4 second range to give you significant enough motion blur without being so slow that the subjects appear as wispy blurs. Use shutter priority mode or manually adjust ISO and aperture settings to maintain correct exposure. Try metering for a dimly-lit portion of the scene using spot metering mode on your camera.

Step 3: Take several exposures as people move within the lit spaces. If your subjects are moving rapidly, like dancing, try panning with the subject in a few of the shots you take (note that you might need to hand hold the camera to pan effectively). Experiment with different shutter speeds, angles, and metering for different portions of the scene. Evaluate and enjoy the surprising results!