You asked, I listened. This week’s topic was suggested by a Tuesday Tidbit reader. If YOU have something you’d like to know more about, drop me a line (comment here, email me at info@weddingsbyvantage.com, send me a Facebook message…whatevs) and you’ll see your answer in an upcoming Tidbit.
So, taking better pictures in low light situations with a point and shoot camera (see the definition of a point and shoot here). There’s a short answer and a long answer…
The short answer: Put your camera on the “Party” or “Indoor” setting and shoot away.
The longer (and, imho, the more interesting) answer: For most of you, this low light situation probably means taking pictures at a party, when you’re out at dinner, etc. And in most cases, the camera flash probably simply pops up (or turns on), you take the picture and it looks like someone’s pointing a flashlight at you, right? (Some affectionately call this the “deer in the headlights” look) The reason for this effect is that the shutter is not remaining open long enough to allow enough ambient light in. The only light registering in the camera is coming from the camera’s flash, hence the flashlight effect. Get it? Flash, light, flashlight. 
I’m a dork.
The basics
I talked about the how shutter speed works back in March (you can read that post here). Here’s the basics of what you need to know: The length of time the shutter is open determines how much light can come into the lens. If the shutter is open for 1/400 of a second, you’ve allowed light into your lense for 1/400 of a second. If it’s a bright sunny day, that’ll be just fine for a properly exposed image. In the case of a darkened room and no extra light source, however, you’ll need your shutter open anywhere between 1/16 of a second and five minutes (or longer) to suck enough light into the lens to see anything worth seeing! And unless you have a tripod, that’s going to result in a blurry (and unusable) image. In the case of the image below (taken by my husband Michael in Jordan), he used a tripod and left the shutter open for a long time (I’d guess a few minutes) since the only ambient light was coming from the stars and a city far far faaaaaar off in the distance.
So, you want to take a picture but don’t have a tripod or the patience to wait for that dern shutter.
Enter the flash
Camera flash adds light to the environment, meaning that the shutter doesn’t need to be open so long to get a properly exposed image. Problem is, in a dark environment, the flash on that little camera isn’t bright enough to light up the whole room (or, in the case of the photo above, the Jordanian desert). To correct for that, we have to set up the camera to keep the shutter speed open longer so the camera can “collect” enough ambient light to properly expose the background but not so long as to overexpose the main subject…or at least the flash can’t be so powerful as to overexpose the main subject….yada yada yada. Here’s where it gets super technical here and I’m not going to go all into how the camera does it (or how you would do it manually). Suffice it to say that here’s where a little knowledge of what your camera can do really comes in handy.
Know thy camera
In the case of your point-and-shoot camera, you’re probably not going to be able to set it up manually and override the camera’s internal light readings. However, there are (usually) preset lighting/exposure settings built into your camera that will (as best as possible) optimize the shutter speed/flash combo for the best exposed image. On our point and shoot (a Canon PowerShot SD850 IS), we have several options for the situation, with the following settings in an average lighted room, all f-stop 2.8 (definition of f-stop here):
“Indoor” – 1/60 second
“Night Snapshot” – 1/10 second
“Fireworks” – 2 seconds
In these cases, the camera has decided what the shutter speed should be; in each case, the time the shutter is open increases as the environment gets darker (fireworks, I assume, is set up for a night time scene with….fireworks. Right.)
Practice makes perfect
Next time you have your camera out, take a look at the settings available to you and do some experimenting. In most dark environment cases (in which you’re taking pics of people), something like “Night snapshot” will be your best option. The shutter is open long enough to get some ambient light in (avoiding the deer in the headlights look) but not so long that everything has a ghostly blur to it.
Happy shooting from Vantage! And keep those suggestions coming!
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[...] only pops up when the camera detects there’s not enough light to avoid camera blur (see this post about avoiding camera blur). This can result in your subject being in the shadows on a perfectly sunny day, like the photo [...]