Cant get decent indoors photos.

M

MTdigital

Suspended / Banned
Messages
16
Edit My Images
No
So I'm at home Christmas day, wanted to get some nice colourful photos of the present unwrapping with new camera.

But here's what keeps happening.

1. Flash makes photos too pale
2. Fast shutter setting too dull
3. In hand, slow shutter .. All blurred
4. Tripod with slow shutter, crisp background, subjects blurred!!!!!

Apart from saying to everyone "stay perfectly still and don't move an inch"... how can you get decent indoors images?

Any help appreciated, family getting quite annoyed at being human statues all day.

My little point n shoot can handle it though, so what's the score?

Thanks for any help or advice given.

Ps. Not much natural light in living room.
 
Sorry, forgot to say. I'm a complete novice obviously.

I just want to make the most of my new camera.

Thanks again
 
Which camera? Which flash?

I'd normally do something like put the camera on manual. 1/15th @ F5.6 (lets the ambient register) and let the flash work it out from there itself. The flash will then freeze the subject.....
 
Ok thanks, I'll try again tomo. It's a canon 1000d which I really like, just need to get a bit better at using it.

I haven't even started adjusting iso yet, it's just set to auto. Thanks for advice.

Iso is the sensitivity of the sensor isn't it?

I can't get my head around the difference between a higher iso and a slower shutter speed. Surely they both have the same effect? More exposure on the sensor ?

Am I wrong?

Thanks
 
If you want a higher shutter speed one way of doing it is by raising the ISO - one ISO stop is equal to one stop faster shutter speed, so....

ISO 100 - 1/125th @ F8
ISO 200 - 1/250th @ F8
ISO 400 - 1/500th @ F8

Change the sliders on this page and you'll soon grasp it....
 
MTdigital said:
Ok thanks, I'll try again tomo. It's a canon 1000d which I really like, just need to get a bit better at using it.

I haven't even started adjusting iso yet, it's just set to auto. Thanks for advice.

Iso is the sensitivity of the sensor isn't it?

I can't get my head around the difference between a higher iso and a slower shutter speed. Surely they both have the same effect? More exposure on the sensor ?

Am I wrong?

Thanks
Click to expand...


iso
shutter speed
aperture (fstop)

all effect the exposure.. but in different ways.. higher iso will give you noisy pictures.. lower numbered fstop will give you better blured background but capture subject and different shutter speeds will as you ahve found either capture or not capture movement..

Its all about setting the camera to a happy setting...
 
I must admit. If I put my slr on auto and take shots with the flash they don't look as good as my girlfriends point and shoot. It's almost like slrs are not designed for auto lol
 
Point and shoots by default usually do some pretty heavy post processing of images so that you dont have to. The point of a DSLR IMO is that you dont want all control of the final image wrested from your hands. Having said that some of the basic settings on the 1000d should be able to give very acceptable results (try portrait mode) or just set it to P (program mode) with the pop up flash and the results should be fine. If its too light in P mode press the +/- button and dial down the exposure a half stop. It sthe flexibility that makes the SLR great. Its not a P&S it needs to be learnt, thats the fun bit. Read the manual, read the forums and learn the camera.
 
I think that if you pay between £300-£500 for a dslr it should be able to take better photos in auto mode than a £100-£150 p&s regardless.
 
Last edited:
Built in flash can tend to bleach things out a bit.

Set it in AV mode, ISO 400 for normal room lights and the lens at its widest aperture, take a shot then use the flash compensation settings to sort things, + for more light from the flash, - for less.

A small piece of greaseproof or tracing paper taped over the flash can help as well
 
I have had more than acceptable results with the built in flash but never had to put greaseproof paper over the flash :lol: a bit of overkill I think and not helpful advice to a novice, if someone had suggested I had to do that when I bought my first SLR it would have been straight back to the shop. Remember we are giving advice to a complete beginner. Putting greaseproof paper over the flash and altering flash power levels buried in the custom functions menus is way too much advice IMO.
 
All valid options above ^
But, incase you are eager to spend money there is always the option of buying a some faster glass, I've never found the kit lens with the 1000D to perform fantastically. Something relatively cheap such as the 50 f1.8 would make a BIG difference to indoor shots. The wider aperture really making a difference at lower light levels and it's only about £70 from Kerso!
 
The guy is new to SLR photography and to be honest this thread isnt helping him in the slightest now he thinks he needs a new lens. Come on guys, the 18-55 kit lens is incapable of taking indoor shots now! and he needs to buy a new lens! I know thats not what your saying n1blo but he is a complete novice and with all respect to the OP he probably wouldnt know a fast prime if it jumped up and bit him. SLR photography is complicated enough (Try to think back to when you first picked one up and knew nothing of F-stops and depth of field was a farming term) without being bombarded with well intentioned but ultimately confusing help.

MTDIGITAL follow this link take your time read through the sections (ignore the one about sensors, I dont know why that is the first part of the series, it would put me off!) get a better understanding of your camera and exposure control etc and all will be well.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm

This is longer but lots of good info specifically about flash on Canon cameras.

http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/
 
Last edited:
Put it in AV and select the widest aperture (lowest F-number) and set the ISO as high as you have to (don't know the range on the 1000D) .

You should be able to get decent shots without flash then.

As you get better, you might want to look at lenses with wider aperture but you will be able to get acceptable pictures with the kit lens.
 
Andyvalver said:
I think that if you pay between £300-£500 for a dslr it should be able to take better photos in auto mode than a £100-£150 p&s regardless.
Click to expand...

Not at all. The lens used on P&S cameras are very short focal length, which gives an enormous depth of field to keep everything sharp. The flash in a P&S is also quite weak, and designed for exactly the sort of situation the OP is describing. After all, these things are designed for use by the lowest common denominators in our society, and have to be as idiot proof as possible.

An SLR is designed to be used by someone who knows what they are doing to get the best out of it, and if used in Auto mode everything is very much compromised, contrary to a P&S which is designed to shoot in Auto.
 
Can you get decent indoor portraits with a DSLR with a pop up flash and the kit lens?

Yes

How?

1.You need a well lit room if possible switch on lights and open the curtains

2. up the ISO to the highest you can stand the noise in.

3. If you are using bulbs for light change the White balance to Tungsten (small bulb icon usually)

4. Set it to Aperture priority and set the widest aperture your lens goes to (smallest number).

5. Check shutter speed and make sure it is at least 1/focal length. So at 50mm at least 1/50 sec for example. If shutter speed is too slow move subject to where there is more light or up ISO.

I would not use the pop up flash as the main light source indoors, it is always going to look pretty rubbish.

Going forwards what can you do if you want to invest some money in it?

1. Buy a fast 50mm 1.8 lens (lens than £100 and much wider aperture)

2. Buy external flash that can bounce off walls or be used off camera on a cord or wirelessly.

Keep practicing, show us your results and I'm sure you'll get some good results.

:thumbs:
 
Just remembered something else, your zoom lens will allow a larger aperture at wider focal lengths so zoom out and use your feet to get closer if you need to.
 
Last edited:
Good advice from Pete, but if you still struggle with normal room light, I would use fill-in flash, to lighten and brighten the shadows, and put some life into those faces. The flash will also freeze any movement.

Specifically, if you have a Canon, put it on Av (aperture priority), lowest f/number, raise the ISO to 1600, pop up the flash and shoot. This will balance the flash and the ambient room light automatically. Use auto white balance and that will switch to flash whenever it is charged.

On the other hand, setting the camera to the green square should make it play just like a compact. A lot of the time that works well, byt maybe not optimum or maybe completely wrong. If it's not right, you are then locked out of any corrective measures in that mode.
 
I know i didnt ask the question but thanks, there was some really useful information in there, in nice basic language which i like haha.:naughty:
 
What a helpful, polite collection of people exist on this forum. Thanks all.

I've been experimenting tonight with the lowest f/number (aperture) and experimented with the ISO. Immediate improvements. Chuffed.

Can see that this maybe become an awesome hobby. Spend all evening shooting anything and everything indoors. Pointless things ...but hey.

Think I'll be spending quite a bit of time on this forum.

Cheers
MTDigtal
 
None of this stuff is relevant to me yet as my camera still hasn't arrived, but its still good reading for when I get it next week.
I am hoping to use my DLSR for indoor shots as well, so this is all useful advice for me. Thanks for asking the question MTdigital, you've saved me asking it next week! :)
 
Andyvalver said:
I think that if you pay between £300-£500 for a dslr it should be able to take better photos in auto mode than a £100-£150 p&s regardless.
Click to expand...

Stick the ISO on auto (has the 100D got auto ISO - an A on the dial), stick the program select on green square (fully auto) and the dslr generally outperforms a point and shoot. You've got a bigger lens and a bigger in built flash.

However, you will run into issues with the flash just being just above the top of the camera. Turn it portrait and you'll have a little dark corner at the bottom, red eye is more prevalent, harsh shadows etc. An additional external flash gives you more power so you can light up the room more, but costs.

As a rule of thumb, I wouldn't shoot lower than 1/60th shutter speed, probably 1/125th, so you don't get motion blur if you move the camera when you take the shot (or someone moves), especially whilst you learn the camera.

But at the end of the day it's digital. Read a little (there's plenty of tutorials around if you google), experiment and see what works for you.
 
..taking Pete's advice on buying a flashgun - this is a defo for me, but I recently bought a Lambency diffuser (£10) for my Nissin flash and it is absolutely awesome in terms of helping me produce consistently good pics inside with nice colours and few shadows. I just stick the camera on P mode and shoot away.Admittedly, it's a bit cumbersome and bulky, but I can live with that.
 
I have problems on full auto mode indoors...light from what I gather is the most important. Am considering the Jessops flash myself at the moment
 
That's a very good start MT. You have good eye contact, a lovely model and an uncluttered pleasing background.

How could it be improved?

If she was standing a bit further away from the wall,it would be less focussed and you would get a better seperation of the background to the foreground.

Compositionally it is good that you have not placed her bang in the middle of the frame as most beginners do, but maybe it would be better if you could see a bit more of her shoulders.

Lighting wise, it is as good as you can expect from the on camera flash, have a try with some natural window light and you will get a more 3 dimensional effect compare with straight from the front flash.

Good start though, well done!

:thumbs:
 
Ok thanks. Good to know it's not a terrible attempt!
Looking at it now it does look a bit flat.
Maybe More shoulders in view. Noted.
 
Great shot mate.

Nice answers on here too. Will be taking those onboard myself.
 
MTdigital said:
Well, here's my first attempt of an indoors portrait.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mtdigital/5337221455/

How is it for an amateur. Looks a bit pale I think...... but better than
my first number of attempts.

1/15. f/5.ish and ISO was 800. Flash ON.

Any critique?

MTCR
Click to expand...

Like Pete says, that's about as good as it gets with the pop-up, which if I'm honest is not fantastic, but you've cheated with a really amazingly attractive model. With a really good subject like that, you can get away with almost anything ;)

You need to soften the light, which you do by making the light source bigger, and move it above and to one side of the model. You could do that quite easily with a separate gun by turning it around and pointing it at a wall/ceiling behind you, bouncing the light off that.

Or you could use some kind of modifier on the gun and move it off camera. Lots of ways of doing it, but the real trick is in having a basic understanding of how light works. For normal portraits - use a big light source for soft shadows, position it just above the subject's eye line, and slighlty to one side. You'll never go far wrong like that.
 
nice shot. As pointed out though, using a wider (lower number) aperture would throw the background more out of focus and make her stand out a bit more. Generally speaking, using wide apertures for portrait shots works very well.
 
I'm so grateful you asked this question, I've been thinking about selling my camera the last couple of days I've been so disheartened. There are some fantastic answers to your question, very helpful indeed.

I've been swithering whether to buy a flashgun or not and it looks like I've picked my birthday present now.

Nice shot and good luck with your photos, from another newbie :)
 
Kimbers said:
I'm so grateful you asked this question, I've been thinking about selling my camera the last couple of days I've been so disheartened. There are some fantastic answers to your question, very helpful indeed.

I've been swithering whether to buy a flashgun or not and it looks like I've picked my birthday present now.

Nice shot and good luck with your photos, from another newbie :)
Click to expand...

Stick with it Kimbers :thumbs: There's a bit of a learning curve with flash but it's actually not rocket science and when the penny drops, you'll be away.

There are a lot of knowledgeable and helpful folks on here. Read some recent threads (see lighting section) and post a pic if you're struggling :)
 
Being new to DSLR photography, I too have struggled with indoor flash use, I think the penny has dropped after reading this thread.

I couldn't understand why, even in full auto mode it was setting shutter values of 1/15 or 1/20, I realise now I was expecting too much of the flash, expecting it to light a very dark room with a reasonable shutter speed for hand-held photography.

Again i think this comes from comparing to P&S cameras with very short focal lengths and high iso settings.

Is this about right ?

Thank you guys again for another very informative thread :clap:
 
BigRuss said:
Being new to DSLR photography, I too have struggled with indoor flash use, I think the penny has dropped after reading this thread.

I couldn't understand why, even in full auto mode it was setting shutter values of 1/15 or 1/20, I realise now I was expecting too much of the flash, expecting it to light a very dark room with a reasonable shutter speed for hand-held photography.

Again i think this comes from comparing to P&S cameras with very short focal lengths and high iso settings.

Is this about right ?

Thank you guys again for another very informative thread :clap:
Click to expand...

What I think has happened here is that the camera has attempted to expose for the ambient light, hence the long shutter speed, and then the flash has run out of power to deliver the correct exposure. As far as the flash exposure is concerned, the shutter speed has no bearing.

The camera behaves differently with flash, according to which exposure mode you have set, and also the custom functions in Av.

If you post a pic, with Exif data intact (camera settings info) then we can tell you exactly what's gone wrong, and how to fix things. It won't be hard to sort out :)
 
There's no getting away from the fact that you need a flashgun at some point in time so that you can gain some control over where your light is coming from.

If you just have the option of a built in flash then there's a little trick I picked up. Get a little square mirror that you can use to angle the pop-up flash so that instead of the light going directly at the subject it bounces up towards the ceiling instead. This will give a taster of what a flash gun can do when you bounce it.

YOU NEED TO CLOSE YOUR EYES WHEN YOU PRESS THE SHUTTER AS PART OF THE FLASH WILL COME BACK TOWARDS YOU AND HIT YOU IN THE EYE.

It's not elegant I admit but will show you a different sort of light, you can do the same with a P&S, handy in a pinch.

However, you want to be moving towards getting the light source as big as possible and without going to great expense at first, then look for some old brand flashes on Ebay that were cutting edge a few years ago and costing a few hundred quid but are now going for a tenth of the cost.

I'd start at on camera flash but experiment bouncing it a (ideally white) ceilings and walls so they effectively become your light source and not the flash itself.

As has been said, nice model, you have a head start there ;)
 
HoppyUK said:
What I think has happened here is that the camera has attempted to expose for the ambient light, hence the long shutter speed, and then the flash has run out of power to deliver the correct exposure. As far as the flash exposure is concerned, the shutter speed has no bearing.

The camera behaves differently with flash, according to which exposure mode you have set, and also the custom functions in Av.

If you post a pic, with Exif data intact (camera settings info) then we can tell you exactly what's gone wrong, and how to fix things. It won't be hard to sort out :)
Click to expand...

Cheers Richard

That is what is causing confusion for me, I would have though the camera would take the fact that you've set 'flash on' in to the equation when working out the appropriate exposure, hence increasing the shutter speed, Obviously not ?
 
BigRuss said:
Cheers Richard

That is what is causing confusion for me, I would have though the camera would take the fact that you've set 'flash on' in to the equation when working out the appropriate exposure, hence increasing the shutter speed, Obviously not ?
Click to expand...

The camera gives you control. If you want it to work like a compact, then stick it on the green square. But if you want control, then you also have P, Av, Tv and Manual.

P is actually underrated and gives you both a lot of control plus the ease of point 'n' shoot. If you want, you can use programme shift to get all the variations available on the other modes, plus it is configured for flash in a unique way. It will track the ambient light level between max x-sync (1/200sec on a 500D) and 1/60sec, after which it decides that it is better to let the background go dark than risk any movement blur. Quite versatile, and foolproof.

On Av, it will track the ambient light for correct background exposure down to as long as it takes, and balance the flash to it. There is also an override for this in custom functions, if you want to restrict the length of the shutter speed.

Or there's Manual. You can do anything with that, and the in E-TTL the flash will still balance with the f/number. Plus you've got the FEL lock (which might have resolved your problem) which prevents incorrect exposure with off-centre subjects, amongst other things.

Then you have options like second-curtain sync, and with a separate gun you can bounce the light around, have the option of high speed sync, use diffusers etc etc.

It might sound a bit confusing, but flash needs a bit of learning to get the most from it. Get a decent gun (eg Canon 430EXII), read the handbook, play around a bit, check out some of the threads on here, ask questions. You'll be away. Flash is fantastically useful, and has endless creative options :thumbs:

Tip: if you run out of flash power, then raising the ISO one stop, or lowering the f/number one stop, effectively doubles the power of the flash.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top