WHAT DID I DO WRONG???

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

I know these pictures are a mess, but I don't actually know the basic mistakes I made. My son asked me to take a few pictures of his martial arts class.  I don't take many inside night pictures so I tried several automatic choices - automatic, sport, and even portrait because I could see right off that I was doing something wrong. I have about a hundred bad examples but obviously you don't need to see more than a few.  AND how did I get the invisible body parts??? They are grainy, blurry, the lighting was awful and on and on.  I know normal mortals can take pictures inside at night and have them come out with cameras on automatic settings. SO???? I am so frustrated I can't even get

[Ann Kendig]

The invisible body parts. I am assuming you are talking about the second photo where you can see thru the foot. That would be from a slow shutter speed. Your camera said give me more light so it slowed down the shutter speed and the result is the blurred foot and pant leg. Indoor shooting it tough due to lack of light. You could try shooting in Aperture mode with a large aperture (small f number), bump the ISO up but you would have to watch out if ISO is too high then pictures will be grainy. I will assume you used your on camera flash thats what the strong shadow in the first picture. If you have an external flash that allowed you to point it at the ceiling you could bounce the flash to reduce the strong shadow. You could play with the white balance setting also. The white in the second photo is slightly blue tinted. Ann and I shoot mostly outside since light is typically a lot more friendly.
Mike

[Gail McHugh]

the slower the shutter speed the more you need to use a tri pod, they really help to get better pictures

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

I don't have any extra flashes or whatever. Shouldn't automatic settings enable me to shoot indoor photos in artificial light? How am I going to get any good photos of when my new grandbaby is born??? She certainly isn't going to be in natural light? Perhaps I will just tell my DIL to have the baby in the morning and in a garden so I can get ok pictures????!!!

[Gail McHugh]

sometimes you can trick the camera. Hold your hand in front of the lens and click half way down (this will force the camera to meter to a darker area) then take your hand away and press all the way down to take the picture. Practice this a few times in different lighting

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

I will try this, Gail. Perhaps I could have set the camera on a table to steady it. Ann I will try the A mode - I know I have messed with it for our assignments but that was one that I 'failed' I will try it again. Maybe, I could get my son to have some special students come to class early before it gets dark and they could work outside. I have taken pictures of things indoors at night before and they weren't this bad!!! What a mess all of them were and these were not necessarily the worst.

[Ann Kendig]

If they have additional lights in the gym you could have them turn them on to give more light also.
Mike

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

No extra anythings - these classes are held in a church rec hall. I asked if he could have the class meet early outside in the courtyard one day - if they do I am sure I can get better photos. At least I hope so. This was so very disappointing. They weren't even good enough for a home family snapshot.

[Richard Crowe]

Honestly, with your camera set on auto and using the built-in flash, your results are quite good. It would help to know the make and model of your camera and, if it uses interchangeable lenses, what lens you had attached.

If your camera can use a hotshoe flash, that is a great investment. However, without knowing what camera you are using, it would be hard to recommend a flash.

Bouncing a hotshoe flash against the ceiling while using a reflector-diffuser would certainly result in better images...

Using a bounced hotshoe flash is also a great way to capture infants. Bouncing the flash will provide natural lighting and will not bother the infant's eyes like direct flash could possible do.

In case you are not familiar with the term hotshoe flash, here are some examples:

The 430EX is the best compromise for Canon DSLR cameras:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-430EX-II-Speedlite-Camera-Flash-Free-Ship...

However, the far less expensive Yonguo flashes have had a lot of good press:
http://cgi.ebay.com/YONGNUO-YN-468-Flash-Speedlite-Canon-450D-500D-...

The choice of a flash unit, and even if you can use an accessory unit, depends on the camera that you are using.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Thanks, Richard. I have a Nikon D60. I have two lenses and I tried both. Part of my problem is that I so badly want something to come out that I just try everything I can and hope..... I don't seem to be able to use my sport option with any luck at all except when taking pictures of water polo. I don't have an external flash, but now that I am going to have a grandchild that I am sure I will photo incessantly, I need to try something like you are suggesting.

[Richard Crowe]

I took a look at the Nikon Manual for your D60 and suggest that you set your camera as follows for low light photography:

1. Set camera in "A" (aperture priority) mode, Rotate your command dial to get the largest aperture (smallest f/number) available. Page 43 in the manual...

The f/stop or aperture allows light to pass through the lens. The smaller numbers mean the largest opening since the f/number is actually a fraction between the size of the opening and the focal length of the lens.

Using the largest aperture you have at your command will allow you to use the shortest shutter speed posible. Short shutter speeds freeze action.

2. Set your ISO sensitivity to 1,600. Page 43 in the manual. The higher ISO will allow you to use either a shorter shutter speed or a smaller aperture or both.

The advantage of a smaller aperture is that you will have a larger area in front and to the rear of your subject in focus. The higher ISO settings sometimes give noise in the image but, this can be corrected in post processing.

3. Use your lens at a shorter focal length. Both the Nikon and the Canon Kit Lenses have a variable aperture which means that the size of the aperture decreases as the focal length increses. (actually it stays the same resulting in a smaller aperture compared withthe focal length which is basically the same as the aperture decreasing)

4. Set your camera for burst mode and fire several shots in a burst.

NOW... that is probably the best you can do. Shooting fast moving subjects in low light levels might be more than your camera/lens can capture.

The next thing to do would be to use a flash. The built-in flash really is quite useless for shooting like this. A flash that fits on the hotshoe of your camera would be the way to go.

The hotshoe flash will have several advantages over the built-in flash...

1. Hotshoe flashes are always quite a bit more powerful
2. Hotshoe flashes can be swiveled and tilted. This allows you to bounce them off the ceiling in both the landscape (horizontal) and portrait (vertical) camera positions.
3. Hotshoe flashes can be combined with either a factory made difuser reflector such as the Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro or Joe Demb FlipIt ( www.dembflashproducts.com ) or with a diffuser reflector you can fabricate on your own ( http://super.nova.org/DPR/DIY01/ )
4. When a flash provides the primary or majority of the light for the photograph, the very short duration of the flash will freeze motion.
5. I probably would not shoot in burst mode if I were using a flash because it might not recycle fully in the short interval between shots.
6. Most hotshoe flashes will provide attioonal focusing help for your lens in low light situations.

There are many hotshoe flashes available at a variety of prices. Here is a refurbished flash which should be all you will ever need...
http://cgi.ebay.com/Nikon-SB-600-Speedlight-Flash-D60-D700-D40-D300...

However, here is a less expensive but, quite adequate flash for your D60...
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&rlz=1G1ACGWCENUS38...

As I mentioned earlier... Bouncing a flash is a great way to take pictures of babies (or anyone) indoors. It gives nice soft lighting without the harsh shadows and "deer in the headlights" look that straight on (especially built-in flash) delivers.

You also do not have to worry about hurting the eyes of infants (I would not want to shoot a flash diractly into an infant's face) or getting the red-eye effect in humans or the ghostly blue eye effect in dogs.

The bounce against the ceiling gives a large expanse of light reflected onto the subject while the use of a reflector/diffuser aims a portion of the light at the subject to fill in the shadows beneath the eyebrows, under the nose and under the chin.



Finally, using flash as fill light for outdoor shots really helps the quality of the imagery in most instances...