The Mystery of Indoor shots!

amytomjerry

I have to admit I find indoor photography quite difficult. For example, if at parties or peoples' houses I like to snap close,candid shots of everyone and more often than not, they turn out blurred with little sharpness. My technique is completely off the mark! And I would appreciate a few pointers in the right direction...

I have experimented with the following settings using the 24-70mm lens, f2.8, iso400-500, Centre AFpoint, AV, and camera sets shutter speed usually between 1/30-1/60...

I am having real bother as of course people are moving, yakking away and even when i have taken a couple of small group shots where the people are posing, there's still much of the pic out of focus.

OH to be able to respond to every situation and get the pefect pic:)

swingking

I would suggest switching to manual mode and doing either

a) 1/100 sec but you will get no ambience

or

b) 1/30 sec but using rear curtain sync on either a hotshoe flash gun bounced or pop-up flash which will fire the flash at the end of the exposure. This way will give you more room ambience

goldseeker

You should invest in good external flash. Try turning all lights up in the room if it is evening,just then you have to have right BLACK WHITE balance set up.
Create custom if camera allows. Use cameras build in flash, just cover with white plastic or something else,to avoid that shadow behind person you are photographing, or wrap in kitchen folly and leave hole on top,so flash will bounce from sealing. That what i sometimes do

2.8 is very shallow. I do be around the local pubs/clubs in the town taking photos of parties, etc. and have been doing this for about two months now (though it's usually just one day a week, for an hour or two).


Even shooting at f/5.6, I find that I get some people in focus and others out of focus. It's a pain in the balls. Thankfully the photos aren't really that important and I can take the same photo a few times if I like, etc. but there's definitely a massive learning curve.

bounced flash, via a flash gun, is essential. There is a venue in my town, where the whole fecking roof is black though, and the lighting is terrible, so you can't really avoid shadows behind the people at all. Pain in the ass.


I find shooting at 1/30 of a second gives too much room for blur. I'm usually at 1/100 myself, but I do lack a bit of ambient light, alright (i shoot, generally, at ISO400 to avoid noise deteriorating the image). At 1/30, Unless people stay very still, which is rare, you get 'ghosting' of their lips or eyes or such as they move during the exposure.

pixbyjohn

Try this with flash manual mode, (preferably a hotshoe mounted one)or try the onboard if you haven't hotshoe flash, Shutter 1/160 f5.6 and flash on.
See what you get.