Shooting Inside

[McAusher]

New to the forum so first off... hello to all. I'm really looking forward to improving as a photographer and hope that I can lend help where I can as well.

Shooting with D300s
My question for today has to do with shooting inside. Especially with the holidays season and the weather turning cold, I will have more and more opportunities to shoot inside. I have 1 hell of a time finding the right setting to give me both a fine picture and the proper light, all the while trying to keep the temperature on point. I dont like the result of my built in flash as it gives me a picture brighter then my actual scene.

What is my best bet? Would it be to get an external flash? Does anybody know any tricks as far as ISO, shutter speed etc...? My intuition now is just to set on aperature priority, set my aperature as low as possible and let it ride.... but I'm not loving my results. Thank you all for your help!

 

[Josh66]

Well, if you're taking pictures of stationary objects - all you need is a tripod.

For kids running around and all that, that's another story - lol.

Not sure what the lighting is like at your place, but with the blinds open I can get hand-holdable shutter speeds @ ISO 100 & f/2-2.8. At night (or with the blinds closed) with the lights on I can *just barely* get hand-holdable shutter speeds @ ISO 100, f/1.4-2.

Usually I'll bump the ISO straight to 1600 after that so I can get a decent shutter speed and stop down a little.


I think shutter priority would be more useful than aperture priority in this situation. Set it to 1/60th (or more, depending) and let the aperture fall where it may. Personally, I use manual.

For your white balance - it sounds like you're using auto. Switch to daylight or tungsten (or whatever kind of light you have inside) and you'll have much more consistent results.
RAW is very helpful here too.