The Best Settings For Low Light Photos With The Nikon D3400

In this video , I'm gonna show you how to get the best possible photos in low light using the icon D 3400 .

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Getting good photos in low light is all about maximizing the camera's ability to capture the light that is available .

Low light means there's not much light there , which means we need to do everything we can to get as much of what is there into the camera .

So for this , you're going to be shooting with the camera in manual mode because you're going to be setting the iso the aperture and the shutter speed and when shooting in low light , one of the first things you need to do is figure out what shutter speed you want your camera to be set to in order to allow you to handhold the camera and take a photo and have the image come out sharp .

And the easiest way to figure that out is just to take a look at your lens and see what the longest focal length on your lens happens to be .

I'm using the kit lens here , which means the longest focal length is 55 millimeters and an easy rule of thumb to use when setting your shutter speed is that if you want sharp handheld photos , then use a shutter speed that is near one over the focal length of your lens .

In this case , 1/55 .

So let's set the shutter speed which you do by spinning the back dial and see what we have .

We can use 1/50 we can use 1/60 .

I'm going to go with 1/50 which is close enough to give me a sharp photo and being just a little bit slower , that's going to maximize my ability to get light .

Now , the next thing you're going to want to do is set your aperture .

The aperture is the opening inside the lens that controls how much light can get into the camera .

And you want that opening to be as large as it possibly can to let in as much light as possible .

And on the D 3400 to change your aperture , you're gonna press and hold down this button right here and spin that rear control dial to the left in order to make that aperture number smaller , and we want it to be as small as it possibly can be .

In this case , that is at 5.6 .

Now , in order to take a properly exposed photo , you want this arrow that you see to be at the zero right now , it's pointing all the way off into the negative , meaning that the image is going to be under exposed .

So the last option we have is to change the iso setting .

And what we're going to do is change that and increase the iso sensitivity until that indicator comes and rests on the zero .

In order to change the iso , you're going to hold down the function button , point the camera at the subject that you are about to photograph .

Because if you point it at something that you're not photographing , then your settings are going to be incorrect .

As you can see as it pointed at my desk .

I don't actually need to change my iso all that much .

But if I point it back up here at my camera , I need to change my iso quite a bit .

So if I want to take a picture of the camera in front of me , I'm going to keep increasing the iso till I get to zero or close to zero .

You can see here it's actually a little bit over zero at IO 12,800 .

And then I can go ahead and I can take my photo now .

I already know what you're thinking .

Well , if I use an ISO like 12,800 isn't there going to be noise in my image .

Yeah , there's going to be noise in your image .

But here's the thing , if you want to take a picture in low light , that's how you do it .

And sometimes that means using a high is o if you don't want to shoot at iso 12,800 that means you're not gonna take any pictures in low lights and you're just gonna have to live with that .

Now , one of the things you can do to help you push that iso down is use a lens that has a larger maximum aperture .

Remember here with the kit lens , the largest possible aperture I was able to get here was F 5.6 .

But if I had a lens that had a smaller aperture number , which would give me a larger aperture opening , then I could use a lower iso number .

Say I had a 50 millimeter F 1.8 lens I could then probably shoot this particular image right here at is 0 800 or maybe even iso 400 .

But even with an F 1.8 lens , you're still sometimes going to find yourself in situations where you've got to increase .

That is o up into a range that's going to make noise , show up in your image and again , it's entirely up to you .

But if you want the photo , that's what you're gonna have to do to take it .

Now , I've put together a free cheat sheet that you can grab it this link right here that takes you through this exact process of choosing these settings for getting the best possible photos and low lights .

If you have any questions about the icon D 3400 , check out these playlists in the car right here and if I haven't covered it in those videos , then let me know down in the comments .

And if you have any other questions , let me know down there as well .

Don't forget to subscribe to my channel for more great photography videos and hit that Bell icon to make sure you don't miss a single one of my videos and then grab your D 3400 and get out there and take some damn photos .