Why do I see a faint halo around my subject in some indoor photos?
Asked 6/17/2011
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In some photos, especially indoors against a fairly uniform background, I notice a subtle diffuse dark/light halo around the subject. It can look like a soft shadow glow around the edges, even when the camera is not between the subject and the light source. In the example image, the subject is lit from side windows with an overhead lamp, and the photo was taken with a 35mm lens at f/2. Is this caused by the wide aperture or shallow depth of field, or is it something else in the camera processing?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
8
That's your Nikon body doing its Active D-Lighting trying to show detail in the faintly lit wall on the background (remember, it's further away from windows and the lamp). Close to your well-lit subject, brightening of the back wall must be reduced to retain original local contrast.
In other words, your camera is creating an HDR image and this is a typical HDR halo.
I suspect the large aperture part is only coincidental because you (or the camera) naturally chose to use it in the dim room.
Originally by user4390. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user4390
15y ago
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This is most likely not caused by the wide aperture itself. A more likely cause is in-camera processing such as Nikon Active D-Lighting or similar local contrast/dynamic-range enhancement.
These features brighten darker areas of the image to hold shadow detail, but near a brighter subject they often reduce that brightening to preserve edge contrast. The result can be a visible “halo” around the subject, much like HDR halos.
So the large aperture is probably incidental: in a dim room, a wide aperture is simply what was used to get the shot. The effect is more noticeable with a plain background and moderate resizing or contrast adjustments.
If you want to test this, turn off Active D-Lighting or similar auto contrast/HDR processing and compare results, especially in JPEGs. Shooting RAW and applying gentler processing later can also help avoid this look.
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