ISO tips for inside church

scottduffy · 20 May 2011

Guy's i am taking some photographs of a friends kids communion on Saturday and i was wondering if someone who shoots in churches regularly could give me an idea of manual settings they use. I can't get into the church before the ceremony to fire off a few shots so i will have to be quite quickly into stride.

The wee girl will have a white dress on so not sure if this makes any difference at all.

Any advice welcome.

By the way i have a 50D, 70-200 F4L, SIgma 105 macro and the Tamron 17-50 for the day but due to the f2.8 i was planning on using the tamron unless i am too far back.

Jiffy · 20 May 2011

An iso of around 800 should be enough especially at 2.8 try and keep it between 800 and 1600 maximum. When I shoot weddings I use 800 as a starting point, if you can go lower then by all means. I guess it all depends on what you get once your in there. 800 is usally a good starting point

Jiffy · 20 May 2011

Also the white dress shouldn't make any difference as long as you get the correct white balance. But that can always be adjused in post editing. Just be careful of over exposing as once the highlighlights in the dress are blown, thats it, pretty much gone. Indoors this shouldn't be too much of an issue though. X

AndyB1976 · 20 May 2011

I guess it won't be too different to a wedding and 2.8 zoom seems to be the minimum. I think ISO 800 to 1600 would be in order? Of course that depends on your shutter speed gonna estimate 1/100? How good is the 50D at the higher ISOs if you use the f4?

The Matt · 20 May 2011

That will depend wholly if the church is Norman, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque or even later in style, as the number, size and placement of windows will vary accordingly. Consult your local pevsner's architectural guide and report back

It'll take you literally a few seconds to make the call based on the light present on the day. Just watch your shutter speed isn't going to fall too low, and keep checking your histogram in case the light changes.

ianfrance · 20 May 2011

Assuming you won't be using a tripod then its the old trade off between iso grain and the risk of shake

Ive been right up to 6400 in a church with the d700 so my advice is to use the highest iso feasible with your body, that way you can use longer lenses / faster shutter speed

Using the f4 at the iso 1600 will give you a shutter speed of about 1/40th in most older churches
Which I'd say was too slow

icnoble · 21 May 2011

You need to take test shots at various iso's to check what noise you get. Like ianfrance I have a Nikon D700 and regularly shoot at iso's of 6400 without any problems.

Stu Meech · 21 May 2011

I was shooting a wedding last weekend with a D3 and 70-200 f/2.8 and still had to push the ISO up to 6,400 to get good shutter speeds of around 1/160th-1/200th! So be prepared for wide apertures and high iso!

danbroad · 21 May 2011

Frankly, any blurred shots you take are going to be binned, and not worthy of gifting/printing/exhibiting. Noisy, sharp shots are better than a binned shot.

Whatever ISO your camera goes up to, be prepared to use it in order to freeze action. If you set yourself an arbitrary ceiling of ISOxxx [that's as high as the 'pro's' go, y'know, and anything else is plainly unacceptable] then you're heading for a potentially blurry fall.

Personally, I'd use Shutter priority wide open on a fast fifty; let the lens open up as much as it could, with auto ISO set to ramp up below 1/125-ish [depending upon the degree of subject movement involved]. In other words, I'd use the fastest lens I have, and still let the ISO get me a few extra stops.

Of course, this assumes ambient light. A powerful diffused flash changes the game a bit..