Suggested Settings For Christmas Day

[Jaykay]

So I'll be getting my first DSLR camera in the morning for Christmas, the Canon 350D, and it's already been charged up so I don't have to do it in the morning. I want to take some photos of family members sitting around in my lounge, and of them opening presents. I want to get some nice shots to hang on to, but instead of trying to figure it all out in a couple of hours in the morning, I was wondering if there was anything in particular you could suggest I do to get good shots right away.

It'll be in my lounge which will be fairly low lighting, most likely with soft wall lighting turned on, and the christmas tree, rather than bright ceiling lights in the middle of the room. The room is a fairly dark room, it has dark red carpets and furniture etc.

Should I just shoot in Auto mode, or will I achieve better results from tweaking some settings?

 

[stevegreen]

Auto mode will probably pop the flash up and kill any kind of atmosphere that there is in the room so I would suggest that you up the ISO to 800 or 1600 and use Av mode using the widest aperture available (kit lens will be f/3.5 at the short end and f/5.6 at the long end) You might get away with that depending on the amount of light available. If you start getting blurry shots then go Auto and live with the flash.........better that than miss the moment completely.

 

[pxl8]

Or better yet switch to M mode, set the ISO to 800 or 1600, shutter speed of 1/50s and aperture of f/5.6. Press the button on top to open the on board flash and shoot away. The exposure settings will capture as much of the available light as possible without being too slow to hand hold, the flash will make up the difference.

 

[kelack]

Ooo, good point, thanks for asking this. Will use these and see how I get on

 

[Plugus Maximus]

Or better yet switch to M mode, set the ISO to 800 or 1600, shutter speed of 1/50s and aperture of f/5.6. Press the button on top to open the on board flash and shoot away. The exposure settings will capture as much of the available light as possible without being too slow to hand hold, the flash will make up the difference.

In addition to this excellent tip you can use the red eye reduction flash option and move the flash exposure compensation to -2 or -3 to ensure the flash is not overly bright.

Also make sure the white balance is set to the right level.