At the restaurant: dealing with low-light conditions

Restaurant is a common setting for a group portrait, because dining out often commemorates a special occasion, as in the photo above – last Saturday we went out to celebrate my wife’s birthday. Using flash is not a good idea for several obvious and not-so-obvious reasons. In addition to disturbing other customers, a flash would completely change the character of the lighting, so capturing the ambiance would be out of the question.

Restaurants are typically dimly lit, so low light performance of the camera is very important. This characteristic cannot be narrowed down to one particular specification. It depends on the lens, the sensor and the firmware. Cell phone cameras cannot compete with DSLRs in this regard, so if you must use a cell phone, the first thing to adjust is your expectations.

If you choose to bring a DSLR, a fast lens (f2.8 or lower) is a must. Also, the lens-camera combination should ideally be relatively compact. In the Canon world, a Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM is an excellent lens for this situation. Sigma also makes a good quality 35mm f1.4 lens (Sigma 340101 35mm F1.4 DG HSM), which is quite a bit less expensive. (By the way, these are just recommendations based on my experience, and although the links are affiliated by Amazon, they are not sponsored in any other way). In fact, compactness would be a very good reason to choose a cell phone over a pro camera – after all, it is a dinner first and a photo opportunity second. Having said this, I shot this photo with a Canon EOS-1D X, which is anything but compact. My family is probably getting used to me lugging a huge camera. I’d like to think that the photos are worth it. (Still, I am waiting impatiently for my new iPhone 6 plus, with its image-stabilized camera…)

Here is a roundup of the best cameras for low-light conditions compiled by Adorama (as of Summer 2014). A colleague has recently used their top choice, the Sony Alpha a7S, to photograph a fluorescent helium jet seeded with acetone in near darkness in our lab at UVic. But that hardly qualifies as a common photography situation, so it’s a subject for another story.

As a more general resource for handling low-light situations, check out this book: Chasing the Light: Improving Your Photography with Available Light.