Shooting indoors?? HELP!

Blog Forums Photography Shooting indoors?? HELP!

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  • #7951
    Avatar photoMatt Jones
    Member

    Hello everyone.

    www.mattjonesphotography.com

    #66845
    Avatar photoBen Cochran
    Member

    Built in flash or hot shoe strobe?

    #66846

    -sorry to jump in Ben.

    Some indoor stuff is just plain hard to get right without serious lighting, in fact most interior shooting is hard.

    If you have a good flash you can use something like the Stoffen diffuser and a high ISO (800 depending on camera) and a slower shutter speed – you point the flash up and the diffuser spreads the light around the room.
    This will give you overly warm light in the room you describe, but with a manual white balance you should be able to take a lot of that out.

    You might also put a warming gel filter on the flash to match the color of it to the ambient light and then shoot at around 4000K (WB) to blend it all.

    Hard to say without seeing more of the shop.

    www.dsaphoto.com

    A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.

    #66847
    Avatar photoJohn Bennett
    Member

    Some indoor stuff is just plain hard to get right without serious lighting, in fact most interior shooting is hard

    Without alot of coin invested in lighting setups and without alot of technical know how to over come some of the issues, you want to accept that you are limited.

    You don’t need highly reflective surfaces to bounce flash but as David said before trying to find your solution via bounce, get yourself a diffuser.

    I started with a stoffen omni type, then graduated to a Gary Fong LS. LOVE IT. Especially for someone like me whos challenged when it comes to artifically lighting stuff. It’s an area I have to yet to sit down and force myself to learn.

    GF LS at work

    What I like about ths pic, while not perfect is the prop isnt a “hot spot”

    Re not getting crisp photos.
    Could be a couple things but if I have to guess (which I am) the problem with the photo you attached is a little “shake”. Your shutter speed is insuffiencint.

    You could.
    Bump your iso or open the lens as wide as you can. Both introduce problems.

    you could
    Set the camera to M or TV and start by fixing a SS thats high enough to avoid shake. If the camera is still metering an under exposure, the flash will compensate to bridge the gap. While that may introduce more “flash” problems it will eliminate shake. Of the two, Id rather have colour cast, than soft photos.

    You could
    Shoot from a Tripod. Depending on the Shutter speeds your acheiving with the lens wide open, you may need to use a cable release to avoid vibrations from your finger releasing the shutter, and you may even need to use mirror lock up to avoid “slap” if your glass isnt fast enough. Meaning I suspect yourshooting at fairly low SSs where al of the above may be in play.

    #66848
    Avatar photoMatt Jones
    Member

    Ben, I have the hot shoe flash goin.

    www.mattjonesphotography.com

    #66849
    Avatar photoBen Cochran
    Member

    Never a problem with me David, I enjoy reading your posts too much for it to be [ch9786].

    Matt, some good suggestions have already been made, especially adding a warming gel so that you can better white balance with the ambient lighting. A couple of additional suggestions; I see that you have some posters suspended from the ceiling, you can temporarily hang a white foam board and then angle it down, to keep the bounced light at floor level, and bounce off of that. Another thing that I noticed are the beams, perhaps you can place a foam board on that and use one of the beams to support your bounce board. If you have any stands that go high enough, tape a bounce board on that or, as dumb as it may sound and/or feel, tape a small bounce card onto a hat. In all cases, make sure that the angle is good and that warming gel would still make life a lot easier. If your camera has wireless capability, try placing the strobe in a more favorable area and then use the Stoffen , it may end up in some of your shots though.

    Hope this helps some.

    #66850

    Given the photo above, another issue might simply be watching carefully where your focus is sharp.

    #66851

    I’m with Mick on this photo. It looks like you used spot focus and pointed the center at the Trout poster in the background.

    This brings up another question I’ve had about WA lenses. I’ve noticed that when I use mine at 16mm the images looked soft or pixely (new word). However, when I zoom in on something in the image it looks nice and sharp. Why is that and how do you make crisp WA shots for low resolution applications.

    #66852
    matt boutet
    Member

    Matt,

    You should head over to strobist.com for some great ideas.

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