Which of my lenses is best for a low-light indoor glow event on a Canon 6D Mark II?

Question

I’m photographing an indoor “glow in the dark” event on a Canon 6D Mark II. I’d prefer not to use flash if possible, though I do have a Speedlite available. My lenses are:

- 50mm f/1.8
- 85mm f/1.8
- 24-105mm f/4 IS

As a beginner, I’m trying to understand how to choose between these lenses for very low light. Which lens would be the best choice, and what factors should I consider such as aperture, focal length, image stabilization, and focusing?

user15871 · Answer

Either of the f/1.8 lenses will do. So will the EF 24-105mm f/4 IS.

The 50mm will give you a little more room than the 85mm to use a slightly longer shutter times before camera movement becomes (too) noticeable. The 24-105mm with about three stops of IS will allow you to use even slower shutter times to capture movement of glowing things. Of course, due to the narrower maximum aperture, it will also require longer shutter times - at f/4 you'll need four times as a long a shutter time to get the same exposure as you would at f/2. 1/30 second @ f/2 becomes 1/8 second @f/4. So i'd probably mix it up a bit: Use the 24-105mm for the longest shutter times when you want to capture the movement of the glowing things and use the 50mm or 85mm for shorter shutter times when you don't want to show motion.

I generally stop most wide aperture prime lenses down a click or two. The EF 50mm f/1.8 II is quite a bit better at f/2.2 than f/1.8 or even f/2. In this situation, though, that might not really matter as much as in other low light situations that still have a lot more light than typical "glow" situations.

Don't be afraid to use long shutter times to catch the movement of the "glow". Be sure to use good camera stabilization techniques!

Save your images in raw format. You're going to need to work them a lot in post to get them looking their best. You can pull a variety of different looks out of them. Don't expect them to be studio perfect, either! They're going to be a bit noisy, a bit blurry, etc.

These were taken at a high school pep rally before the "blackout" game where the team wears black jerseys instead of their normal red ones. The strip lights on the floor were black lights. All were taken handheld. When I got there the pep rally had just started and my EF 24-105mm f/4 was on the camera. I took a few with very long shutter times and IS on before swapping out to the EF 50mm f/1.4.

_{Canon EOS 5D Mark III + EF 50mm f/1.4. ISO 6400, f/2, 1/50 sec. I used the Hue-Saturation-Luminance tool to pull most of the magenta and purple out of the white cheerleader uniforms and their reflections on the very glossy gym floor.}

_{Canon EOS 5D Mark III + EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS, ISO 6400, f/4, 1/6 sec. w/IS. The long Tv shows the movement of the glow noodle to the left being whipped around by a student.}

_{Canon EOS 5D Mark III + EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS, ISO 6400, f/4, 1/13 sec. w/IS.}

_{EOS 5D Mark III + EF 50mm f/1.4, ISO 6400, f/2, 1/30 sec.}

_{EOS 5D Mark III + EF 50mm f/1.4, ISO 6400, f/2, 1/500 sec. The lights from the phone screens was a bit brighter than from the glow strings.}

Which of my lenses is best for a low-light indoor glow event on a Canon 6D Mark II?

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