Indoor Photography Problems (advanced?)

[SirFroggy]

Here's the deal:

I'm an advanced amatuer, but I still make some stupid technical mistakes. I'm using a D70 with a 35mm F2 nikkor (translated to 52mm on the D70), and the built-in flash. I recently went to a conference that i was asked to shoot, and had a lot of trouble getting good shots of the performers there. THis was indoors with pretty good flourecent light. I know enough to use a slower shutter speed and higher F-stop to balance out the background and the flash-illuminated subject, but in this situation, because the subjects were moving, I got an annoying halo around them from the drag of the flash. It was too obvious not to matter, and not obvious enough to look cool (not that cool, slow-flash drag stuff would have been appropriate anyway). Any advice on what to do in this situation? I want a relatively well exposed background, and moving subjects to be frozen. Is it even possible? At the very least, I'd like to know what pros do in this sort of situation in terms of choosing what elements are the most important and making them look good despite a less than ideal situation. Thanks.

 

[wil]

Can you post a few so we can see?

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome to the forum.

I think you hit the nail on the head with your last ssentance...

choosing what elements are the most important and making them look good despite a less than ideal situation

If you can't freeze the action and still let the background be exposed...you need more light on the background. If you are in control of the situation, this may not be to hard...but if you are just observing....it may be very difficult.

One solution might be to make multiple exposures and combine them in post processing.

 

[will turner]

faster flash duration?

 

[selmerdave]

Use a higher ISO?

Dave

 

[SirFroggy]

not sure how to post images....says I'm not allowed to post attachments.