Shooting in Low Light: the Jazz Club

It's been a while since I posted. Several things have been demanding my time recently; family, work and music for starters, but I hope to spend more time on photography during the next few weeks.

I spent a couple of days in London last week. As an exercise in discipline I decided to take only a single prime lens with me; my reasoning was that without the ability to zoom in and out I'd have to think harder about composing images. The lens I chose was the 45mm f/2.8 Leica, a recent self-indulgent purchase. It's a good choice of walkabout lens, being small, fast and with a good focal length for shooting portraits and urban scenes. I had tickets for a show at the Pizza Express Jazz Club in Dean Street and hoped that this combination of camera and lens might allow me to take some good shots of musicians in the underground gloom.

The star of the show was Eddie Henderson, an American trumpeter. Alongside him was an ensemble of three fine British jazz musicians; Tim Lapthorn on piano, Stephen Keogh on drums and Arnie Somogyi on bass. It was the first time all four had played together and they clearly enjoyed the experience, giving the small audience a great show. I was sitting with my daughter at a table near the stage, with excellent views of the band and in a prime spot for photography. Obviously I couldn't use flash so had to set up the camera to optimise its low light performance. I used the semi-automatic Aperture Priority exposure setting, opened the lens to its widest aperture then whacked up the ISO to 3200. It's the first time I've used so much signal amplification but without this high ISO setting I'd never have got the shots.

Here's a photo of Eddie playing his trumpet. All of the images have been cropped a little then converted to black and white to match the evening mood.

Eddie Henderson, jazz trumpeter
45mm  f/2.8 1/100s  ISO 3200

Until I took these photos, I'd been a little concerned about the possibility of image quality being degraded by digital noise at high ISO settings. A few weeks ago I heard Niall Benvie, a well-known nature photographer, give a lecture in which he showed some images he'd made using film and compared them with similar digital images taken using high ISO settings. The film images were far more grainy than the digital equivalents and he suggested that with modern cameras we should stop worrying so much about digital noise and use whatever settings are needed to get the shot. I'm really pleased with the quality of this picture; it looks sharp and clean, which is amazing given the poor ambient light in the dark basement club.

Eddie was lit by soft stage lights but the bass player was sitting in deep shadows at the back of the stage. He was also partly obscured by the piano and music stands, making it more of a challenge to take a good photo. Here's one of my better efforts.

Arnie Somogyi, bass
45mm  f/3.5  1/80s  ISO 3200

I think this is my favourite picture from the evening as it conveys both the moodiness of the music and the intense concentration of the musician. Here's a brighter shot of the drummer, taken at a slightly slower shutter speed. I've managed to capture just a little movement in his sticks, which brings the image to life.

Stephen Keogh, drums
45mm  f/3.5  1/50s  ISO 3200

Finally, the most challenging shots of all were of the pianist's hands. He had his back to the audience and his hands were moving in deep shadows over the keyboard.

Jazz piano
45mm  f/3.2  1/60s  ISO 3200

This small series of shots shows the capability of the GH2 when it's set up for low light photography. I was lucky to have the Leica 45mm lens with me; it's fast and sharp but relatively expensive and I only felt able to buy it following some recent financial good fortune. However, the standard lens which ships with the GH2 isn't much slower and might have produced comparable images.

I thoroughly enjoyed a brilliant display of jazz musicianship and was particularly pleased to be able to capture such good images of the musicians. The photos will keep my memory sharp when I look back at them from time to time, probably with a little bit of Miles Davis playing in the background.

Dragonfly with the 300mm zoom

In an earlier post I commented on how the 100 - 300mm lens can be used to shoot reasonably detailed close-up images of insects and other small stuff. It's not a macro lens; at best the Reproduction Ratio is about 1:6 rather than the 1:1 you'd get from a true macro. However, it does have one major advantage over a macro lens -  it's closest focal distance of 1.4m might be as close as I can get to dragonflies and other skittish creatures. The 14 - 140 is even better for close-up shots as it can focus down to 40cm,  where it's easier to compose a tight shot without intervening vegetation getting in the way.

A couple of days ago I visited the Saltholme RSPB reserve. It's part of the Tees estuary and has a variety of freshwater and saline pools and creeks, surrounded by open fields and scrub. Some pools are enclosed in the reserve but some of the more interesting ones are on open land around Greatham Creek. Teesmouth is a marvelous place for birders and has a very active club, teesmouthbc.com. Club members recently published a brilliant book about the area's breeding birds. I'm not going to write a review but it's an excellent publication, containing articles on all of the habitats, birding hot-spots and breeding species to be found in the County of Cleveland.

While I was at Saltholme I visited the enclosed garden, seeking some shelter from the strong south-westerly winds that have been such an annoying feature of our weather for the last month. In the garden I found a few late season dragonflies enjoying the shelter and the sunshine around the pond. One in particular kept flying up to catch insects, then returning to the boardwalk to eat them while basking in the warmth of the sun. I was able to lie on the ground nearby, as close as the dragonfly would allow, compose my shots using the tilt-out viewfinder, and take several photos. This is the best one.

Common Darter
275mm  f/8   1/640s  ISO 200

As the dragonfly is fairly large the lens wasn't even at maximum magnification. The light was good, allowing me to stop down the aperture and keep some depth of field while making a relatively fast exposure. When viewed on a full-size monitor the detail and sharpness of the image is really good, particularly the fine hairs and tiny claws on the insect's legs.

I know it won't be to everyone's taste but I like this photo, especially the way it captures the lacy shadows of the dragonfly's wings on the boardwalk.

The Panasonic 100 - 300mm zoom is a top quality lens and continues to impress me with its combination of light weight, ease of use and excellent optical performance.

More about Built-In Camera Flash

For the last couple of days I've been playing around with the GH2's built-in flash and have worked out a few important points.

1. When using flash, the camera is limited to a fastest shutter speed of 1/160s.
2. The flash fires twice for each shot; once to meter the exposure and a second time to record it.
3. Flash intensity can be varied using the Flash Adjust option in the Rec Menu.
4. The Slow Synch option allows the flash to fire during a slow exposure. It's used to show background detail when the main subject is flashlit.

5. Second Curtain Flash delays the flash firing until the end of a long exposure.

Shutter Speed 1/160s

When built-in flash is in use the camera won't make an exposure faster than 1/160s, which means it's not possible to freeze action. In fact, when any of the automatic exposure modes are programmed, the flash doesn't fire until the exposure time is longer than 1/160s. Most of the time it doesn't kick in until shutter speed is about 1/80s. Even with manual settings it's still not possible to make a faster exposure. I'm not sure what's happens if an external flash is used as I don't own one; the fastest shutter speed might depend upon the flash unit.

Exposure Metering & Flash Delay
To take a picture the flash fires twice, once to meter the scene and the second time to take the picture. As I understand it, the camera first makes an approximate exposure, the software uses this information to set the flash power output and then a second, more accurate exposure is made and saved to the memory card. There's a small delay between the two flashes as the software processes information and determines power output. Most of the time this isn't significant but it can be prolonged if Red Eye Reduction or Second Curtain options are chosen. If the subject moves after the first burst of flash, but before the exposure has been completed, the image will be blurred.



Forced Flash

The Forced On setting makes the flash fire with every shot - if it's opened. It's easy to over-expose the image when flash is forced. For example, if the ideal shutter speed for a partially-lit scene should be 1/320s or less, forced flash will prolong the exposure to 1/160s and produce burnt-out highlights. The Flash Adjust menu option allows flash power output to be modified and provides a bit more control over the lighting. To get the exposure just right it's sensible to use the histogram function, either when composing the shot or when reviewing the image.


Flash Adjust
The camera software uses the exposure meter to set flashlight intensity automatically; this depends on the ambient light and the distance from camera to subject. The Flash Adjust menu option allows the photographer to vary flash intensity to get the best exposure in different lighting conditions. The flashlight might be the only source of illumination for a dark scene or it might be used as a fill-in to reduce shadows in a backlit subject; the optimal flash output in these circumstances won't be the same.


Here are some examples of how flash power can be varied. They aren't particularly interesting images - just an orchid in a darkened room -  but show how altering the flash power output makes a difference to the exposure. The aperture and shutter speeds don't change between shots.

Forced flash: no adjustment  0 eV
32mm  f/5  1/60s  ISO 200

Forced flash -2 eV
Under-exposed

Forced flash +2 eV
Over-exposed

Slow Synch 

Slow Synch makes an exposure using the available light and adds a 1/160s flash, either as the shutter opens or just before it closes. The effect is to brighten the subject with flash while the background is illuminated with natural light. This might be used for taking an outdoor portrait shot after sunset or to fill-in shadows in a backlit subject. It can produce some interesting and unpredictable images if the subject moves quickly during the exposure. 

Here are the same orchids, shot with standard flash and then using Slow Synch to show a little of the background and reduce some of the harsher shadows.

Forced flash
41mm  f/5.3  1/60s  ISO 200

Slow Synchro flash
41mm  f/5.3  1.0s  ISO 200

I've a lot more to learn about the built-in flash, particularly how to use it to supplement available light. I'm going to leave the subject of Second Curtain Flash for another day,when I've got a few images to show what it does. Meanwhile, here's an example of the flashlight in action. This song thrush was searching for earthworms in a shady spot, where I couldn't make a sharp exposure in natural light. By adding flash, and altering the white balance afterwards in the computer, I was able to produce a reasonably good image.

Song thrush
Forced flash  300mm  f/5.6  1/60s  ISO 800

 conditiond

British Birds No.2

At the moment I'm messing about with the GH2, working my way through the flash controls and taking some comparison shots. Meanwhile, here are a few more photos from my British Birds project: I'm trying to make at least one good image of as many species as possible.

First up is an easy one, the blue tit, taken at a garden feeder. This is one of the first shots I made after buying the camera and I was interested to see how it would compare with similar shots taken with my previous Canon set-up. It compares very well indeed. The focus is sharp, the depth of field just right, the colours realistic and the bird has adopted a classic pose for its portrait. It's a simple but effective photograph.

Blue tit   Parus caeruleus
300mm  f/5.6  1/200s  ISO 400

The next bird is the sanderling, a small and very active migratory wader or shore bird, which I regularly see in the winter as it scurries about the beach, searching for food. I took this one on a bright afternoon early in the year, with wintry sunlight casting shadows across the sand at South Gare. I simply sat still on the sand and after a while the birds ignored me and went about their business, which allowed me to take some close-up photos of one of our smallest waders. The way the light falls across the bird has given it a very bright, almost burnt out forehead but has kept good detail in its shaded face and flank as it concentrates on looking for small invertebrates in the sand.

Sanderling   Calidris alba
300mm  f/5.6  1/640s  ISO 320

The final bird, the avocet, is one of my favourites. Not only is it a very elegant and beautiful wader, it's also a triumph for conservation and the symbol of the RSPB. Having been extinct as a breeding bird in the UK for over 100 years, it's now spreading along the south and east coasts of England, helped by strong conservation and protection measures. This bird was photographed at Minsmere, possibly the best bird reserve in the whole of Britain, but we've had a local breeding population on Teesside for the last couple of years. I visited their nest sites in the springtime to view these beautiful birds and watch them raise their young; by summer they had disappeared, hopefully to return next year.

Avocet  Recurvirostra avosetta
300mm  f/6.3  1/500s  ISO 200

Using Built-In Camera Flash

The Lumix GH2 has a built-in flash. It's activated by sliding open the lever to the left of the viewfinder and selecting an appropriate setting from the Mode menu. To de-activate it, simply press the flash unit down until it clicks shut. To aid focusing in low light, the camera has a dedicated autofocus light, the AF assist LED, which Panasonic rates as having a range of up to 3 meters. It can be disabled in the Custom menu.

GH2 Flash Unit

The camera manual contains over 4 pages of instructions about using the flash. There's a list of Flash options in the Mode Menu: they aren't all available with every exposure mode but Aperture and Program AE allow the full selection.

There are countless magazine articles, blogs and books dedicated to the use of flash. I'm only going to look at some of the more important adjustments to the built-in flash; how and when it should be used to get the desired exposure is a matter of learning from experience.

The first and most important thing to be aware of is that use of the built-in flash requires a positive selection. Unlike simple point and shoot cameras, flash doesn't deploy automatically when there's a low light scene; it has to be deliberately selected. So a decision must be made about whether the chosen scene needs additional lighting, which is where the histogram comes in.

Before considering full or semi-manual exposure modes, I was curious to see how the Intelligent Auto iA exposure mode deals with low light scenes. If the camera determines that a scene will be badly under-exposed, the aperture and shutter speed data at the bottom left corner of the viewfinder flash red and the histogram, if it's been activated, turns yellow. Sometimes, and this seems to be very unpredictable, a message will appear on the screen: Please Turn On Flash (or words to that effect). It's so unpredictable that I can't get it to display right now and confirm the wording, even by pointing the camera into the darkest corners of my study.

The flash has three main choices; off, on and auto. Forced On simply means that the flash fires with every exposure. Auto allows the camera to decide whether flash should be activated; it's no surprise that this option isn't available in the manual exposure mode.  iA Mode only operates with the Auto setting while the semi-manual exposure modes allow either Forced On or Auto flash selection.

Image Brightness

The brightness of a flashlit scene falls off rapidly as the distance between the flash unit and the subject increases. The "inverse square law" states that light intensity falls as the square of distance increases and for reflected light, which has to travel there and back again, intensity fades as the 4th power of distance. If the distance between camera and subject doubles, the light intensity falls by a factor of 1/16; this ignores the fact that not all of the light will be reflected back to the camera in any case.

Here are a couple of photos taken with the 20mm lens to demonstrate the reduction in flashlight intensity with distance.

Sculpture at 50cm: flash lit
20mm  f/5.6  1/60  ISO 200  

The first picture shows a piece of sculpture resting on a bookcase. The room was in darkness and the camera flash provided the only illumination. The shot was taken from about 50cm away; it's well lit and in focus.

Sculpture at 5m: flash lit and cropped
20mm  f/5.6  1/60  ISO 200

The second photo was taken from a distance of about 5m with the same exposure settings and cropped so that the sculpture is a similar size. The reduction in light intensity is so severe that there's no visible detail in the statue, it's just a silhouette. This demonstrates fairly clearly why the camera flash isn't much use as the main light source when the subject is more than a couple of metres away - although I wouldn't normally try to take a photo in complete darkness and could have cranked up the ISO to produce a brighter image.

The GH2 manual includes a table of effective camera to subject distances, which vary with the focal length of the lens and the ISO setting. The closest distance at which flash can be used is about 50cm and ranges up to about 7 metres at ISO 800. The manual also mentions 'vignetting', which means a reduction of the image's brightness at the periphery compared to the centre. To quote from the manual;
"When you use certain lenses, light from the flash may be blocked or fail to cover the lens
field of view, causing dark areas to appear in the resulting pictures.
When taking pictures with flash with the lens hood attached, the lower portion of the photo may
turn dark (vignetting effect) and the control of the flash may be disabled because the photo
flash may be obscured by the lens hood. We recommend detaching the lens hood."


Red-Eye Reduction


'Red-Eye' is a phenomenon which is seen when taking flash portraits in low ambient light. The pupils of the eye become dilated in the darkness; this allows more light to reach the surface of the retina at the back of the eye and improves visual acuity. Flashlight is reflected from the retina and appears as the familiar red glow in the photographic image; it's the same phenomenon which causes animal eyes to glow green when illuminated by car headlights. Most cameras have an option to reduce red-eye which works by firing the flash twice in quick succession. The first flash is a dummy; when it fires, a simple reflex causes the pupils to reduce in size and allow less light to enter the eye. The shutter only opens during the second flash. Red-Eye reduction isn't available in all exposure modes.
The GH2 also has a software option, Digital Red-Eye Correction, which can reduce red-eye in JPEG images processed by the camera. The manual states that this doesn't always produce satisfactory results and I'd rather deal with red-eye by processing images myself in the computer.

There's much more to cover on the subject of flash photography and the GH2 but I'm going to finish for today with an image from Bastille Day celebrations in Nice. It shows some street musicians who  put me in mind me of characters from the film, 'Cabaret'. The exposure captures movement by combining a slow shutter-speed with second-curtain flash - topics I'll leave for another day.

Street musicians, Nice
Flash  25mm  f/4.7  1.0s  ISO 400

Image Stabilisation: Mega O.I.S.

Every time I pick up a camera to look through the viewfinder I see a moving image. The movements may be minimal; they're due to my heartbeat, breathing and tiny muscular tremors but they result in what's called 'camera shake'. Without using a tripod, or some other stable platform, it's impossible to keep the camera still, especially when using telephoto lenses or at slow shutter speeds, and the consequence is blurring of the images.

In the days of 35mm film cameras, the slowest shutter speed which would allow hand-holding without camera shake was reckoned to be the reciprocal of the focal length of the lens in seconds. A 40mm lens might produce sharp images at 1/40 of a second; on a 2x crop factor camera such as the Lumix GH2 this would double to 1/20 second. A little thought suggests that this takes no account of variation in aperture size or the ability of digital cameras to increase the ISO setting; it's not much of a rule.

The way to minimise camera shake, apart from using a tripod, is to use the fastest possible shutter speed. This means shooting with the widest possible aperture, increasing ISO sensitivity or using additional lighting. Sometimes the desired photograph can't be made with a short exposure time so most good camera manufacturers design their systems with some sort of Image Stabilisation. This allows the use of shutter speeds 2–3 stops slower than would be possible with a simple lens, although it's important to remember that I.S. can't prevent motion blur caused by the movement of the subject.

Canon and Nikon use a lens-based stabilisation system while Olympus cameras mount their sensors on a mobile platform in the camera body. Lens-based systems work by shifting a lens group on a plane perpendicular to the optical axis. This is done with the help of gyro sensors, which detect fine movements, a microprocessor which computes the necessary adjustments and tiny motors which move the lens and focus light on the plane of the sensor. Obviously the system needs a very fast reaction time to deal with rapid fine movements.

Several Panasonic lenses are equipped with an image stabilisation system they call Mega O.I.S. It's found on the 14 -140 and 100 - 300mm zoom lenses which I own but not on the 20mm prime. Here's a quote from Panasonic marketing copy which explains how it solves the problem of camera shake, which they refer to as 'jitter':

"All LUMIX cameras help solve this problem with an advanced optical image stabilizing system that we call MEGA O.I.S. This system uses built-in gyrosensors to detect even tiny camera movements and then shifts a lens in the opposite direction to compensate. The system is completely optical - it does not affect the CCD or image processing - so you get sharp, clear images without deterioration."


I've taken a few test shots to investigate how useful O.I.S. can be: to maximise the effect I shot in poor light, at the slowest ISO and with the aperture stopped down. I also tried with more realistic exposure settings, to minimise the effects of camera shake, and compared them with shots taken using a tripod. I took a couple of photos at each test setting and selected the best ones for comparison.

The photos show a detail from the cover of a very useful work of literature, 'Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance'. They aren't photos of an actual bike and I wouldn't expect any of the images to be of good quality. The test isn't about artistic merit.

The first photo was made with O.I.S. switched off and is very blurred. I wouldn't normally try to take a hand-held shot through a 50mm lens at a shutter speed of half a second.

O.I.S. off
54mm  f/6.3  1/2s ISO 160

The next image was taken using the same exposure settings. When O.I.S. is switched on, the view through the lens becomes much more stable; random fine movements are reduced and the camera locks onto the focal point. The resulting picture is much sharper but still not perfect. 

O.I.S. on
54mm  f/6.3  1/2s  ISO 160

The next shot was also taken using O.I.S. The aperture has been opened up slightly and ISO increased to compensate for the poor light. I expected that it would be an improvement on the previous picture but don't think it's turned out any better - it might even be worse. I guess that's because the effects of camera shake are variable and unpredictable; sometimes one image in a series might be reasonably sharp while the others aren't worth keeping.

O.I.S. on
54mm  f/5.6  1/10s  ISO 640

The final shot was taken with the camera mounted on a tripod and when viewed at full magnification it's clearly the best of the bunch. No surprise there.

Tripod and O.I.S.
54mm  f/6.3  1/2s  ISO 160

Some manufacturers include a stabilisation option which compensates for vibrations in a vertical direction but allows for horizontal panning movements. Canon, for example, include a selection button for this option on the side of their lenses. Panasonic has hidden the panning mode option in the Rec Mode menu of the GH2. It's selected by choosing Stabilizer and Mode 3. I might try it out for shooting birds in flight or following bike races but haven't used it up to now.

When O.I.S. is selected and the camera hand-held, the gyroscopic motors try to maintain lens stability, even between shots. Quiet mechanical noises can be heard coming from the lens; it's clearly a drain on battery power. The Panasonic manual recommends that O.I.S. be switched off when using a tripod. It's not clear whether this is simply to save power or whether image quality suffers when it's selected. I took a couple of tripod shots for comparison and found no obvious differences in image quality with O.I.S. either on or off.

Whatever image stabilisation system is being used, as shutter speed increases it eventually becomes unnecessary. A very short exposure time will reduce the effects of camera shake and at some point the reaction time of the gyroscopic motors will also limit their usefulness. I'm not sure at what shutter speed this happens but to maximise image sharpness - unless the desired effect needs a long exposure - it's usually best to shoot with as short an exposure time as possible.

I'll finish this post with a photograph of a seal pup taken from a small boat. The Mega O.I.S. had to compensate for the effects of camera shake as well as the slower movements of the boat rocking on the swell. The light wasn't great either. The O.I.S. allowed me to set a shutter speed of 1/800s; without stabilisation this would have been 1/100 - 1/200s. The picture isn't as sharp as I would have liked but it's definitely better than anything the 300mm lens could have achieved without some sort of image stabilisation. I keep O.I.S. as my default selection when using Panasonic telephoto lenses but try to remember to switch it off and save battery power when I'm using a tripod.

Grey seal pup, Anglesey
300mm  f/5.6  1/800s  ISO 400

Three-Legged Thing: a new tripod

I've owned a tripod for a few years; currently a Giottos with 3-way head. It keeps the camera steady but it's a bit too heavy and bulky to carry comfortably so most of my photographs are made hand-held. Usually the images are sharp enough, especially with Image Stabilisation on the Panasonic zoom lenses or if I'm using the fast 20mm f/1.7 prime lens, but there are times when a tripod would have let me make a better picture.

Here's an example. In June I came across a pair of fledgling long-eared owls in a small pine wood on the edge of the North York Moors. The light was poor; dusk was falling and they were in deep shade but I managed to take a few photos.

Long-eared owlets
300mm  f/5.6  1/30  ISO 800

The expression on the owlets' faces is a priceless mixture of surprise and curiosity. Unfortunately the photo isn't very sharp; even using Image Stabilisation and pushing the ISO up to 800 wasn't able to prevent camera shake with the shutter speed at 1/30s.

The next evening after work I hurried back to the same wood, hoping to find the little birds again, this time carrying my tripod. The owlets were still there, fluttering through the pine canopy, but it was impossible to even think of shooting a picture in the fading light. Then to my delight and amazement, one of the adult owls appeared. She flew onto a nearby low branch and inspected me closely while I set up the camera and tripod. I was able to take several photos before she flew off after her fledglings.

The image of the adult lacks the cuteness and appeal of the owlet shots but there's no doubt that it's sharper.

Long-eared owl
300mm  f/5.6  1/40s  ISO 800

Since then I've been looking out for a smaller, lighter tripod - one that I'm more likely to carry on walks and which can be packed easily for holidays and photography trips.

A range of tripods called the 'Three-Legged Thing' is being marketed in several photography magazines at the moment: see www.3leggedthing.com  The products are Chinese but have been re-branded by a British company; similar ones are sold by Benro. I decided to order their smallest alloy travel tripod and it was delivered the next day. With a panning ball head it only weighs around 1.8 kg and packs down to a height of 30 cm; there's a carbon fibre model which is about 200 gm lighter but costs a bit more. The tripod comes in a neat travel bag with shoulder strap and looks classy. Closed down it's much smaller than the Giottos but reaches to eye level when the legs are fully extended. The centre pole can be raised even higher and the camera can be mounted upside down for ground-level shots. This is where the GH2 flip-screen is a real winner; it isn't possible to use a standard DSLR this way unless the photographer is willing to stand on his head to look through the eyepiece.



The TLT seems to be well made and solid enough to support smaller cameras such as the GH2 -  although it's advertised mainly at full size DSLR users - and I really like the panning ball head. It's much smaller than the Giottos 3-way and doesn't have such awkward control levers. Even if I hadn't found a new tripod I was looking to change the head and this one hits all the buttons for me. There's even a choice of colours.

This evening I tried it outdoors in the fields near home, looking to shoot some images of hay bales in golden light. I didn't make any photographs that were worth keeping but was happy with the performance of the Three-Legged Thing. I expect it to see plenty of service in future.