Inside The Church

[jie25zel]

Hi, Let me tell you what I have right now. I have D-70, 18-70 Nikon lense and 50 mm f1.8, My cousin ask me a favor for his son's baptism next sunday, And he told me that I can,t use my flash. Any tip from the pro? or I can buy affordable lense, but which one?

 

[Garbz]

You have an affordable lens. The 50mm f/1.8 is as fast as it gets. Yes there's an f/1.4 on the market, If you search through the history books you'll see an f/1.2 was made but even these are less than 1EV brighter.

My advice go in with the 50mm f/1.8 lens and bump the ISO up to 800 or even higher. A grainy picture is better than a blurry one.

 

[jie25zel]

Thanks for the advice, which exposure mode and what is the settings?

 

[RyanLilly]

I guess you could keep it in aperture priority, so you can keep the lens wide open, then adjust your ISO only high enough to have a reasonable shutter speed.

 

[jie25zel]

Thanks I will do that and also I posted another thread regarding sigma 70-200 f2.8 , im gonna get that.

 

[Garbz]

Just remember to shoot hand held you will need a higher shutter speed to keep the 70-200 steady. Not a good option in my opinion but you may be able to work with it.

It's definitely a fine lens for closeup portraits and sports though.

 

[usayit]

Low light hand held no flash... your options are pretty limited but

- use a fast lens but keep in mind how DOF is affected.
- many journalists use slightly wide-angle lenses
---* more intimate
---* you can hand hold wider-angled lenses at slower shutter speeds
- bump up the ISO a bit.
- Take some time to practice taking photos in these conditions to learn just how of a slow of shutter speed you can hold. Everyone is different.
---* You can start by setting the camera to shutter priority and set to 1/ISO.
---* Try not to move quickly or run during the shoot. Keep heart/breathing down.
- You can try to brace yourself against something or use a monopod.

My favorite focal length for this shooting is often 35mm and 50mm on full frame.

 

[jie25zel]

So theres no way I can use my 18-70 mm nikon for this low light condition?

 

[Garbz]

There is it just makes it harder. I have used the 18-70 at a weddings but I used a flash. There was no other way around it since even at ISO1600 the church lighting was too slow at f/4.5

 

[JerryPH]

At f/1.8, his depth of field is going to be extremely narrow. You have to be ready to step back further to increase DOF a little at f/1.8 or be ready to accept the big blurring of the background (bokeh).

Your second choice is to increase ISO to something like 400-800 and shoot at smaller apertures like f/5 to f/8 to increase DOF.

Use a monopod to steady things if you need.

If you really must know exactly what settings to use... go to the church a couple days before and do some test shots.