Re: Indoor Photography
- From: "dadiOH" <dadiOH@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2011 10:37:31 -0500
pago wrote:
Hi All,
I have a Nikon D5000 fitted with 18-55mm VR lens.
Lately I have been taken lots of indoor photos (like birthday parties)
and discovered that I have a problem with balancing the built in flash
with the ambient light.
I have tried various modes (A, P and M) with various ISO settings but
the result is the same.
And what, pray tell, would that result be? Over exposed ambient? Over
exposed flash?
And what is it you actually want to do? Balance the flash on a nearby
subject with the ambient on the subject? Or balance the outdoors seen
through a window with the same subject? Other permutations too.
______________
I would appreciate your advice on the best camera settings for indoor
photos and how to take the sharpest, cleanest pictures as well.
IMO, the best thing you can do is to learn to use your camera on *manual*
exposure. Auto is nice and surely has its place but it also puts the camera
in control rather than you; given the multiplicity of auto exposure
options - and the frequent lack of user knowledge of what they actually do -
you wind up not knowing how to actually use them or what they do. A brief
primer follows...
Only two things control camera exposure with a given ISO: shutter speed and
aperture size. You can choose either as long as the other is set to provide
desired exposure. EXAMPLE: suppose that 1/100 @ f-16 yields a correct
exposure; you could also use 1/50 @ f-22 or 1/200 @ f-11 to get the exact,
same exposure. Or any other combinations such as 1/400 @ f-8, 1/800 @
f-5.6, etc.
Only one thing controls electronic flash exposure: the amount of light
emitted. That is because the duration of the flash is normally briefer than
are the shutter speeds available for flash which means that flash exposure
is controlled only by the camera aperture. (In your camera's case, the
maximum sync speed is 1/200; if the duration of your flash was less than
that [not likely] then flash exposure could also be controlled with the
shutter).
The second thing you need to know about light is that its intensity on a
given object varies inversely with the square of the distance between the
light source and the object. That means that objects close to the light
receive much more light than do more distant objects EXAMPLE: you want to
photograph two people, one five feet from the light, the other ten feet.
The square of the distance of the first is 25 (5x5), of the second, 100
(10x10); that means the second person only receives 1/4 of the light
(100/25) -TWO STOPS - as does the first. A diagram here will help you
understand why.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law
In the pre-auto anything days, the amount of light emitted by a flash was
reduced to a "guide number"; the aperture to be used was determined by
dividing the GN by the subject's distance from the light. Example: suppose
the GN was 110 and the subject was at 10 feet; the correct aperture would be
f-11 (110/10); if the subject was at 5 feet, the correct aperture would be
f-22 (110/5). (Photographers were known to avoid mental division by taping
a chart to the flash that gave the correct stop to use for different
distances :)
If you don't know what the GN for your flash is, you can easily determine
it...
1. Set your flash to manual
2. Select a subject 10 feet away in a dark room
3. Take pictures at different apertures until you find the correct
exposure
4. Note the aperture and multiply by 10
________________
Using the above info, let me show you how to use it. Suppose you want to
take a picture of a person that is 5 feet in front of you and who is
standing in front of a window; you want both the person and the outdoors
seen through the window to be "properly" exposed. The GN for your flash is
110 so you *MUST* use an aperture of f-22. You would meter the *outdoors*,
select an aperture of f-22 and whatever shutter speed gave you the correct
outdoor exposure at f-22. Both subjects - think of them as two separate
subjects, person and outdoors - would be properly exposed. If you are
canny, you would also be shooting obliquely to the window so that the flash
wouldn't be reflected in it.
But suppose that you flash GN in the above scenario is 220 (powerful flash);
the correct aperture now becomes f-44, call it f-45. You don't *have* f-45
on your camera so you can't take the picture, right? Wrong...you have to
reduce the intensity of the flash. In non-auto anything days, photographers
did that by putting a white handkerchief over the flash; one layer reduced
lighr by one stop, two layers by two stops, etc. They also sometimes just
covered up part of the flash with their hand. Or moved the flash off camera
and farther away. When thyristers arrived that was no longer normally
necessary as the thyrister would cut off the flash so less light was
emitted.
The same methodology is used in any situation where you want to balance
flash and ambient...determine needed aperture for flash, set that aperture
and use a shutter speed that will expose ambient as desired at that f-stop.
If your goal is fill flash, underexpose it by 1-2 stops; i.e., use an
aperture one to two stops smaller, adjusting shutter speed for the smaller
aperture.
--
dadiOH
____________________________
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Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico
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