Badly need your help for a birthday photoshoot

abhishekdg · May 25, 2012

Ok, the ceiling is not high.. may be average 10 ft tall one.
Well I do have access to photoshop but I do not know much about it as I just acquired it 2 days back. But the camera is D90 which I believe is not the best noise reduction machine. I have seen in the past that beyond 800 ISO it often does show noticeable noise. So in order to have an exposure of over 1/100th I really have to push the limits to 1600 or 3200..

That seems scary to me.. Can such high noise be reduced in photoshop?

Dao · May 25, 2012

If the ceiling is white or close to white, then all you need is a flash. Use the flash and bounce the light off the ceiling. With the added light, you can shoot it with low ISO. For $400, you should be able to pick up a flash and a standard zoom lens. (Maybe used)

MK3Brent · May 25, 2012

Besides gear... I suggest you go somewhere to photo people indoors.
You need to practice.

abhishekdg · May 25, 2012

Have borrowed a Yng - 560II froma friend of mine and think I need to go and rent a zoom lens.. Probably 24-70mm f 2.8g to try out and see how it works.
Yes feel like I am studying a lot without any practice...

KmH · May 25, 2012

abhishekdg said:
Well things have got worse as I recently travelled to my boss' house and found that the lighting is going to be too dim.. I am sure I would not be able to use a f/4 or f/4.5 without uoing the ISO to 1600 which really makes me worried. So was wondering if you can give me an idea about any good indoor lens with Vibration Reduction that would allow me to be within reasonable ISO and also have a shutter speed that can be hand held without blurring..

Any idea?

You need a speedlight (hot shoe flash unit).

Most pros use supplimental lighting, so they can shoot anywhere at any time..

abhishekdg · May 30, 2012

Ok got a Yng-560ii manual flash unit and was testing it out indoors. Well slowly getting hold of the flash but here's a small example .. So C&C hard although I know these have no relationship to a birthday party :lol:

The moment the Earth stood still :-

Espike · May 30, 2012

Looks like you find out how to make fast moving things stop using the flash. Also, keep in mind that you can use a slower shutter speed when using a flash. This will allow you to use a smaller aperture and get more DOF, unless you want it shallow on purpose.

abhishekdg · May 31, 2012

Thank you so much for the reply.. Well I found that shutter speed had very little to no impact on your flash exposure. Shutter speed mainly controlled your ambient light whereas aperture and ISO controlled your flash output. Please correct me if i am going wrong some way...

Dao · May 31, 2012

You are correct. The shutter speed is quite slow when compare to the pulse of flash, so it should have no impact. The aperture and ISO do. However, the shutter speed may have impact on your photos as you mentioned. Read more about shutter drag.

ChristianGrattan · May 31, 2012

Dao said:
Is the ceiling of your boss's house very high?

This is a great question. That is one of the first things I look at when I enter a room I am shooting in.

ChristianGrattan · May 31, 2012

I think you are going to to great!

There has been some great tech advice here. I would add a couple of things here.

RENT!!!
get a quantum battery pack for the flash (from the rental place)
look into a Gary Fong Origami diffuser
ask your boss about paying for the rental
practice in a club. Drunk adults are about on par with 3 year olds.
relax, you are shooting a kids birthday, it is going to be fun. It's not like you will have secret service breathing down your neck
make sure you get yourself some cake

LizardKing · May 31, 2012

Not sure if someone said this before, but try to mix among them and take the pics from the ground. You want to be eye-level with them... Photos taken from above are usually not as good as eye-level pics of kids.
Look for their expressions, mostly when they're really concentrated in doing their stuff and not paying attention to the big stranger with the big camera jaja

Most importantly, have fun and take lots of pictures using different settings... Good luck!

Espike · May 31, 2012

LizardKing said:
Look for their expressions, mostly when they're really concentrated in doing their stuff and not paying attention to the big stranger with the big camera jaja

+1

Kids always have the cutest looks on their faces when they are concentrating really hard on something!