Hello, today I'm going to be talking about shooting in low light
with your GoPro HERO3+ Black Edition camera.
AdoramaTV presents 'Capture the Action' with Martin Dorey.
Hello I'm Martin Dorey and you are watching AdoramaTV.
We are back in the studio again today
because we going to be talking about shooting in low-light with your GoPro
HERO3+ Black Edition camera.
Now, because your GoPro does so much for you,
it sorts out your exposure automatically, your white balance automatically.
You might not think that there is not very much you can do when it comes to
shooting in low-light. But there is.
I am going to explain a couple of things that are
going to really help to enhance your low-light shooting.
The GoPro is a pretty smart bit of kit. Every time you switch it on
it's working hard to work out what the ideal exposure is for that shot.
It takes an average reading of the whole picture.
This is fine, while you've got plenty of light, but as soon as the light level starts to drop
the cameras is going to do a couple of things.
Firstly, it's a fixed aperture lens at f/2.8, so it can't open up to compensate for low light.
So it is going to either have to compensate by altering the shutter or the ISO.
When your camera automatically adjusts the ISO to compensate for lower light
it digitally enhances the picture to make it brighter.
It's a bit like making the sensor more sensitive to light.
Now this is fine, the only problem with pushing the ISO, is that the higher the ISO
- the more 'noise' you have on your picture.
Now when your ISO, on this camera, is pushed to the limit
it can really ruin your shots.
So there is always going to be a compromise between low light and noise. If you want to shoot in low light you are going to get more noise.
However, there is something that you can do and that is to adjust the frame rate.
Now the frame rate, obviously, will affect the amount of light that is getting to the sensor.
If you shoot at 30 frames a second, there will be more light getting to the sensor every time the shutter goes,
than there will be, if you shoot at 60 frames a second.
Right - naturally so if you worry
about low light keep your frame rate down.
Or you could allow the GoPro to do it's thing
in 'Auto Low Light Mode'.
This GoPro's way of compensating for low light situations.
Basically, what it is does is, it adjusts the frame rate
to allow for more light if you're shooting at say 60fps
it will adjust the frame rate automatically and dynamically down to 30fps.
It won't actually adjust the frame rate itself, it will just expose twice
to allow more light to get to the sensor.
So what you will find, when you look back at it when you are editing,
is the you'll have 60fps
but you will have two frames that are duplicated, you'll shoot 2 frames for every 1.
It's a bit of in-camera trickery really and I would say if you are worried about shooting in low-light
drop the frame rate.
You can always turn off the Auto Low Light Mode and shoot it a lower frame rate
if you're worried about the effect it can have on your Slow-Mo for example.
But your camera will still want to compensate
and that will mean pushing your ISO.
Which will mean more noise so we really are back to where we started.
However, you can always set the limit of the ISO
in Protune Mode. Now there will be a compromise here between
having darker images and less 'noise'.
You can set the ISO to either 1600 or 400
so, the lower the ISO, the lower the grain.
Personally, I would rather have
darker images with real black blacks
and white highlights than I would
lots and lots of grain. So again it's your call
but at least you can control it.
It is a bit like using the exposure function in Protune Mode
to lighten or darken your images, although
once you've set your ISO, you're exposure in Protune
will not make any difference to your images.
Finally, I want to tell you about 'Spot Meter Function' on your GoPro.
This will give you the ability to take an exposure reading from a spot
in the center of your image. It means that it won't take an average reading.
Now this is going to be really useful if you are
inside a car for example, a dark space
and you are looking out and you want the exposure to be right
for the outside - perhaps looking through a doorway or something like that.
You can see how, with Spot Metering, you can have more control over the exposure on the brightest
and most important parts of your image. You can see how that would be really useful.
And I hope that this has been really useful
and will help you get more out of your GoPro.
And that's it for now - thanks for joining me on
AdoramaTV today. Don't forget to subscribe
to the AdoramaTV channel for more great
videos and also don't forget to go to the Learning Center for more great tips
and tricks and please
like, share or comment on this video.
If there's anything you want to know - just get in touch!
That's it for now!
Do you want great-looking prints at low cost?
Be sure to visit our easy-to-use online printing service.
AdoramaPix has professionals who treat your images
with the utmost care that you can count on. For quick turnaround on photos,
cards or albums use Adoramapix.com