CaptainNapalm
No longer a newbie, moving up!
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2012
- Messages
- 796
- Reaction score
- 143
- Location
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada
- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos OK to edit
Hi guys,
Tonight it my wife's birthday and we've invited a few of our friends to join us for dinner at a restaurant. I know this restaurant is low lit especially at night but there is some dim artificial and spots of bright candle lighting. This will be my first night out with the Nikon d5100 I've had for some months now and I really want to take a few great pictures tonight.
My protocol for the past few years in these kind of situations was to grab my $150 dollar point and shoot on auto mode and snap away with flash which gave well exposed pictures which were very average. Faces would often be slightly over exposed and obviously details lost in the distant background as is the case with a weak flash. This year my goal is to take much better pics with my DSLR.
Now I understand the exposure triangle and have been diligently taking pictures in manual mode in all kinds of situations but I'm still not sure what my best approach for tonight should be. I don't have an external flash and I fear that using my stock pop up flash will create same scenario as with my point and shoot. If I skip using the flash, I will have to open up to the max and raise ISO extremely I'm guessing to expose well enough at shutter speed for which I don't have to use a tripod. I fear that ISOs over the 800 range or higher will give me unacceptable noise. So question is, what settings would you guys recommend for tonight? Flash or no flash? Should I bother setting up Tripod? I'm not sure if I'll even be able to do this, and if I can't what would you recommend?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. BTW I have the following lenses: 18-55mm VR kit lens, 18-200 VR lens, and 12-24mm Wide Angle lens.
Tonight it my wife's birthday and we've invited a few of our friends to join us for dinner at a restaurant. I know this restaurant is low lit especially at night but there is some dim artificial and spots of bright candle lighting. This will be my first night out with the Nikon d5100 I've had for some months now and I really want to take a few great pictures tonight.
My protocol for the past few years in these kind of situations was to grab my $150 dollar point and shoot on auto mode and snap away with flash which gave well exposed pictures which were very average. Faces would often be slightly over exposed and obviously details lost in the distant background as is the case with a weak flash. This year my goal is to take much better pics with my DSLR.
Now I understand the exposure triangle and have been diligently taking pictures in manual mode in all kinds of situations but I'm still not sure what my best approach for tonight should be. I don't have an external flash and I fear that using my stock pop up flash will create same scenario as with my point and shoot. If I skip using the flash, I will have to open up to the max and raise ISO extremely I'm guessing to expose well enough at shutter speed for which I don't have to use a tripod. I fear that ISOs over the 800 range or higher will give me unacceptable noise. So question is, what settings would you guys recommend for tonight? Flash or no flash? Should I bother setting up Tripod? I'm not sure if I'll even be able to do this, and if I can't what would you recommend?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. BTW I have the following lenses: 18-55mm VR kit lens, 18-200 VR lens, and 12-24mm Wide Angle lens.
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