I am taking a lot of portraits etc. but I never experimented much with low light and I really want to, becasue I think night sceneries are some of the most beautiful.
However, all my tries were utter failures so far. I tried different methods of lighting up the scenes, but it never brings desired results.
For example, when I was trying to take a portrait in a relatively low lit hallway using a flash with softbox, the subject close to the camera was lit beautifully, but the rest of the hallway was really dark and I could not capture the beauty of it. It also looked bad with the reflections caused by the flash.
https://i.imgur.com/uczMyyX.jpg
(ISO 200, 56mm, f/2.2 1/160sec)
Is there anything I could do differently using flash or I have to try completely different mthod?
Or for example when trying to capture buildings, architecture or groups of people during a night while still having things in focus, how do I go around doing that? I see people doing some beautiful night photography with everything in focus and no blur (at least not enough to be visible on social media). I though of getting a tripod + longer exposures, but then my subject could be blurry.
Therefore I don't know what do I need to do and what kind of equipment I may need. I am using nikon z50 and sigma 1.4 56mm (mostly) but I also use kit lens 16-50mm when I can't move far away from my subject.
Use a tripod and a longer exposure. Flash will light what's close, the longer exposure will fill in the background... Make sure the subjects know to stay still, and don't push it too far. You can kick the ISO up a stop or two and that cuts your shutter speed in half so if you get down to a 1/15-1/30th at 400-800 ISO you can let a lot of ambient light in but the flash will freeze the subject. Make sure to gel the flash to match the color of the ambient.