Pentax K-5 indoor shooting

Going to a party and would like to take photos there , the Pentax K-5 doesn't have a setting in camera , the same has the K-x used to have for indoors or night time photography. I really don't want to use a flash all night any ideas please.

Trixie

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[[quote]Trixie xx If at first you don't succeed, try, try again,then quit. No use being a damn fool about it. W. C Fields.

What lens will you be using?

Will you be printing any images or are the results likely to be posted on social media or as email insertions or attachments

Rgds

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Daronl

I might use my Sigma 17-70 and I will use them to give to my friend at the party, might use some on here.

Should I shoot in Jpeg I usually do ?

I would change the ISO initially to 800, see what your shutter speed is and go up as far as 1600 ISO or come down to 400 iso. You'll need to keep the shutter speed ideally around 1/200th of a second to freeze some movement, and a minimum of 1/100th to eliminate camera shake.

Keep the Lens around F5,6 / F6.3 for reasonable DOF

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Chris

www.chrismillsphotography.co.uk

" A Hangover is something that occupies the Head you neglected to use the night before".

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K1 - Sigma 85mm F1.4, Pentax DFA 150 -450 F4.5 / 5.6, Pentax DFA* 24 - 70 F2.8

Samyang 14mm F2.8, Pentax DFA* 70-200 F2.8

K3iii + K3ii + K5iis converted to IR, Sigma 17 - 70 F2.8, Pentax 55 - 300 F4.5 / F5.6 PLM

Brilliant thank you so much, I will follow this advice.

Cheers Trixie

Also check your white balance. As a beginner I suggest you leave it on Auto. UNLESS of course you know exactly the type of lighting then set it to suit.
CHEERS Vic.

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Born again biker with lots of Pentax bits. Every day I wake up is a good day. I'm so old I don't even buy green bananas.

Sent you an email

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Daronl

Hi Trixie.

I also shoot a fair bit indoors with my K-5, and I hardly ever use flash at all (mainly fill-in during the day, if at all). Yes, the K-5 doesn't have built-in modes, so here's what I would do:

- Use Av exposure using a combination of fast lens, higher ISO and shake reduction - your Sigma will give you a max aperture of f2.8 at the short end (useful for indoors), although this will drop to around f3.5 in mid-range and f4 at the tele end. An alternative would be to use a faster lens if you have one: I typically use my 'plastic fantastic' 35/2.4 indoors, or the 20-40 at the wide end (2.8 ). The K-5's noise performance is excellent, and you should be able to go to ISO 1600 (I often use 3200 too) to enable a faster shutter speed. This is where the shake reduction function (which I normally have turned off) is very useful. Indoors with a wide aperture and higher ISO, you might be able to get around 1/30 or 1/40 shutter speed which isn't really fast enough, but shake reduction can give you the security of up to three extra stops, effectively moving the shutter speed into the 1/hundreds, which is ample. This also gives you the flexibility to stop the lens down a bit to assist with sharpness and depth-of-field.

- Shoot RAW - this gives you the option of modifying the white balance in-camera if there's a perceived problem when you review the image, and then generating a JPG from it. If you've never shot in RAW than it can be a daunting experience regarding post-processing on a PC (which is a different ball game), but the in-camera option gives you a good half-way house as it enables you to apply some easy corrections and produce JPGs out of your shots, which you could then give to your friend. Use the review button to bring the picture up that you want to modify, press the down button (bottom of the four buttons surrounding the OK button) and select RAW Development. This gives you access to a range of modifying options: custom image, white balance, ISO (for changing exposure), noise reduction etc. The quality of the JPGs produced like this is pretty good.

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K-3II - HD DA20-40 Limited, HD DA55-300PLM, SMC DA10-17 Fishy, AF201FG Flashy

Maybe a bit late, but consider TAv; set shutterspeed at 1/100s or faster and aperture to you liking. Camera will take care of the ISO (but set a limit like 100-1600 or 100-3200).

When using flash, make sure that you switch to Av or M and ISO is set to a fixed value (100 or 200 but depending on needs). If you don't, the camera will probably still pick a high ISO and that might defeat the purpose and can result in overexposed images.

I suggest to shoot RAW+; you will have the RAW in case you need to fix things up.

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Pentax K10D + Vivitar 55/2.8 macro + Super Takumar 55/1.8 + SuperMultiCoated Takumar 85/1.8 + SuperMultiCoated Takumar 135/3.5 + SuperMultiCoated Takumar 200/4 + Super Takumar 300/4
Pentax K100D + DA18-55ALII + DA55-300
Pentax K5 + FA31Ltd + M50/1.7 + DFA100WR + M120/2.8 (+ DA18-55WR at occasion)

thank you so much , I had a good time at the party, and the photos came out well, considering the dark room with disco lights!

Thank you all so much Trixie