First proper shoot!

Hi,

Its my partners, cousins 18th birthday on saturday. Their parents have a farm with a big barn they turned into a kind of disco. Its massive and will be full of people. Im planning to take my camera and plan to take some shots. I dont have a flashgun so will have to use the built in flash. It will be very dark and was wondering what settings/iso/aperture you would recommend?

I was thinking shooting in raw, iso400, f8 aperture, program mode so i can get the exposure perfect every time.

Any ideas?

Matt

I would personally go up to ISO 800 and would use the widest aperture initially, then step down only if you can.

To be honest, if really dark, then go as high an ISO as needed-you can always use noise reduction in Photoshop after.

I would never use program mode, and would also learn something about how a camera works....

but this is just me.

ANyway dont use ISO higer than 400 if possible. Look at this video and try to understand the settings - applying them to the on-camera flash. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NEmufNi70w

Good luck

Well you'll probably get as many answers as there are forum members on this. I wouldn't try to learn new skills for tomorrow but as Nathan says, you should learn more about how your camera works. I would use Program mode and 400ISO, remeber not to use the lens hood with the built in flash because it will cause a shadow at the bottom of the frame. You might struggle with very wide shots because the built in flash is about as powerful as a match; keep to singles and small groups, you should of course check to see just how much you can get away with and if you shoot RAW you can recover quite a lot from underexposed shots.

I agree with Ken, stick it in prpgram, ISO 400 and let the camera work for you, Nathan does have a valid point about learning more, but this seems like a one off event where getting the shots is more important than learning how your camera works, and it will also leave your mind free to concentrate on poses and people skills, and TBH I wouldn't even bother with RAW, these are going to be party snaps and jpegs will be good enough.

Just make sure you have a spare battery

EDIT, one other point, check the cameras manual re the onboard flash, know its limitations with the lens you intend to use, ie; it may not cover the full focal range of the lens so if you shoot wide you may gett vignetting.

That video could have been describing my last shoot, a couple of weeks ago.
Horrible place to photograph - too dark to focus, almost no ambient lights, really low white ceiling
So everything manual, 1/6th, f4.5 400iso. (really need the K20 at 1600 +iso).
Just to add to the hassle, it was very tight and it was salsa so loads of movement (very little posing on the spot).
Rattle off lots of pictures and expect a low hit rate.


 


 

Just had another thought,
if its going to be dark you are definately going to have problems with focusing, the onboard flash is going to be strobing away trying to aid the camera in locking on, it'll be more like a press conference than a party, do yourself a big favour, beg steal or borrow a flashgun like the AF360FGZ this will have spot beam focus assist and stop uou blinding the partygoers.

Matt, where are you located?

Im located in Cheshire

Matt

I firmly believe that you might want to consider an ISO greater than 400.

Given the amount of light mentioned to be 'very dark', and this is a large area, without a flash gun you are going to have to reach a compromise between image noise and a correctly exposed and sharp image without too much light trail and motion blur that will detract attention from what the pictures will be about - the people attending.

If to do this you need an ISO of 800 or 1600, so be it in my opinion.

I just think sticking to an upper limit of 400 could be too restrictive.

I tend to agree with Bob.
I asked a while ago about shooting in low light. I made a comment about not wantign to use higher ISO and it was put to me that they are there to be used.
Better a slightly noisy shot, than none at all ( IMHO )

Actually, the choice of lens will be a deciding factor too.

Well was going to take my Tamron 18-200 and GX20

Meant to say too, that you would have to shoot at 3200ISO to use f8, say at 30ft, with the built in flash. on 'P' in a dark room, 400ISO will give you f4, 800ISO will give you f4.5 and 1600ISO will give you f5.6 or thereabouts all at 1/60 sec.

What are the maximum apertures?