Indoor Photography

[home]

Hi,

I was the photographer for my company outing recently in Sentosa. Most of the activities were conducted indoor and some venues with minimum lighting surrounded. I was equiped wth Canon 300D, Canon 28-135mm IS len and 430EX flash. The standard setting was ISO 800, flash on most of the time, zoom are various depends on the distance.

I just completed download the photos. Some are OK, but in general, noise level is high. Therefore, thought of posting this question and seek for expert input.

- What's the general setting (Aperture/shutter/ISO) for indoor people photography for group & portriat?
- What's the ideal distance between the photographer and the crowd?


Thanks in advanced.

 

[Witness]

generally is 1/60 f/5.6 or 8....but its not a rule u have to abide by

try iso 200...i taking on film back wif these....hardly go wrong

sometimes depends on how fast the shutter speed ya flash can work wif too..

 

[RCheah]

Try not to go beyond ISO400 unless absolutely necessary.
Indoors, I find ISO400 to be a good compromise - hardly any noise, and faster flash recycling time too.
With the 28-135 indoors, I would recommend flash most of the time if you can. It's not quite fast enough to shoot without flash, unless you're near a window with lots of light coming in.

It's not clear whether you bounced your flash. In general, bounce flash will produce a more even, more predictable lighting and nicer colours indoors.

IMO, for group photos, you've to take note of DOF to make sure everyone's faces are more or less focussed. Use flash if possible.
For portrait, it's the opposite - natural light may yield nice results, and use shallower DOF to get some bokeh.

I recommend experimenting with Manual mode when using flash, to take in as much available light as possible. Depending on how much the subjects move, you can lower the shutter speed and make full use of IS. E.g. if at focal length 50-70mm, can use as low as 1/30, at 100-120mm, can use 1/60

With my 28-135, I somewhat find the results most pleasing when the subjects are about 3-5 metres away from me and when I'm using the 40-90mm range. I'm not sure if this makes any sense, but this is the impression I get.

 

[Amfibius]

I find that I can push the ISO all the way up to 3200 if there are no details which are going to be lost in the grain. This means that you have to fill the frame.

For example, this picture was taken at ISO 3200, F/1.4, 1/20s with my elbow resting against the table and my body leaning against the wall. Illumination was by candle light only! The picture appears reasonably sharp because I managed to fill the frame. The situation would have been different if I was taking a group picture - the faces become smaller and you might have a blotch of noise appear over someone's nose for example!

 

[home]

Hi, by using ISO 200 - 400 and shutter speed between 1/30 - 1/60, I find the background will be completely dark. Is it OK to be this way? Of course it'll make the your subjet stands out. My company does engage pro photographer to take photo for our events (I don't know them yet, so can't ask), generally the background are quite bright for all indoor photo, not sure what setting are their using.
Any advice?

 

[justarius]

background completely dark? did you use flash? if so, try slow or rear sync. It allows the sensor/film to gather some ambient light before the flash is trigger.

 

[kweehonjin]

I think the trick for a DSLR like the EOS300D is to shoot at ISO400 or ISO800 in M mode at 1/40 f5.0 with bounce flash.

Shooting direct flash at high iso (from what I experimented) tends to make either make the background too dark or subject too exposed due to Canon's so-so ETTL flash algorithm!

For 4R-sized shots that are properly exposed (lab doesn't have to do correction), there should be no (400iso) and little (800iso) noise to be seen.

Hope the above helps!

 

[Witness]

normally the backgrd is black coz the flash is directed at the subject directly....this is very harsh too....if the ceiling is low enough, bounce it...otherwise use and omnbounce and stand further away....