Taking photos indoors

[FauzzyD]

I tend to find that I take better shots when im outside or indoors with a lot of light coming in from outside. But when im taking photos indoors with either a lightbulb that doesnt provide sufficient lighting i find it hard to take photos.

so what can i do to take ideal shots?

I have Canon EOS 1100d
Lens: 18-55, 50mm f1.8, 24mm f2.4, 75-300mm

 

[cherylynne1]

I was in your position exactly when I started to study flash. I started with bounce flash and moved on to off-camera flash. It's a lot to take in at first, but there's a reason photographers do it. There is an incredible amount of freedom in being able to control the light at any time of day and in any conditions.

My two favorite websites are Tangents - photography by Neil van Niekerk and Strobist

 

[tirediron]

Yep... it's all about learning how to control your light. A couple of inexpensive speedlights, triggers and umbrellas and your images will improve ten-fold overnight!

 

[dennybeall]

There are steps you can take from no flash all the way up to complete lighting setups. I started when flashbulbs were the tool and even then we could turn the reflector to affect the light. Now you can start with something as simple as a tissue over the built-in flash and then external flash units and bounce flash with a remote flash remote triggered. Lighting can be an interesting and challenging aspect of photography.

 

[Designer]

But when im taking photos indoors with either a lightbulb that doesnt provide sufficient lighting i find it hard to take photos.

so what can i do to take ideal shots?

The continuous lighting that eminates from an ordinary lightbulb is not very strong, so you are quite limited as to aperture and shutter speed. Using an electronic flash will enable you to use ordinary apertures and hand-held (if you prefer) shutter speeds.

 

[Derrel]

Many cameras can take a decent to even good shot indoors if a few basic concepts are understood, and good practices followed. FIRST is to remember that in most places, light indoors is fairly low in brightness level, but that some areas within a room are likely to have bright areas which are several times brighter than the darker, less-lighted areas. The indoor basics often mean that a slow shutter speed with the camera on a tripod or firm support (tabletop,desk top, countertop) will be required to make a "good photo". Along with that firm support, a small lens opening is often helpful to get deep depth of field, in order to get plenty of the room in good, sharp focus. By slow speeds, I mean speeds of from 1/30 second, down to as long as 10 seconds. Really! Not kidding; in a dim interior, a 30-second exposure at f/8 is a real possibility.

Second: selecting the right camera placement, with the camera set up in a good location. Keeping the back of the camera parallel with walls and large rectilinear things, like paintings hung on walls, and so on--that helps a lot.

Third: test exposures, alternate lighting, using reflectors to fill in dark spaces with reflected light, white balance settings for artificial lamp light, flash + slower speeds for household lamps. Third is a huge category. You can combine longer exposures with flash, multiple flashes, light painting with flashlights or flood lamps or flash units. You can take multiple shots and combine them in software to do HDR type tone mapping.

Fourth: Learning how to use electronic flash either on-the-camera, or off-camera, to shoot things hand-held OR tripod-mounted, such as at a party or other indoor event. Bounced flash is a popular method.

 

[table1349]

 

[astroNikon]

Less light means
- the shutter speed has to slow down .. AND/OR
- you have to raise the ISO AND/OR
- you increase the Aperture (assuming you have the right DOF).

if your shutter gets too slow and you have motion blur AND/OR
your ISO gets too high and you have too much noise from it AND/OR
your aperture is maxxed out for the DOF that you need

then
you need to add more light or just deal with the results.
open up more windows, reflectors, speedlights, etc.

OR
Get lenses that open up to provide more light AND/OR
get a larger sensor camera ... and that pushes the problem several stops later.