another one for pointers

[Misty-Bug]

I am being very open to suggestions. I was shooting this one at church. It is the offering bread and cup. But I am not too sure about it. I think it is too dark. What could I have done differently. There was some editing on photoshop done.
obviously no flash was used. Should it have been used in this situation? I just used the light they had there.
ISO-200
1/512 of a second
F3.7
shot in manual mode

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f12/Misty-bug/november152007015edit.jpg

[Marko]

This is a dramatic shot but you are right it is too dark on the cup and a bit too bright on the bread.

For a shot like this I would have asked the priest if I could have moved the cup and moved it more into the light.

OR I would have played with exposure maybe shooting at ISO - 1600 or 1000 instead of 200 and cutting exposure by maybe a stop.

OR I would have used a bit of flash (maybe bounced or used in manual) and tried to balance it with the existing light to add more detail to the cup.

Marko

[tegan]

The simple answer that I see is that you were using too fast a shutter speed at 1/512 of a second for a still photo. Given your photo info., you should have shot at about 1/125 of a second and a higher fstop number to give you a better exposure and greater depth of field to get the bread in focus without the necessity of using flash.

Tegan

[Misty-Bug]

ok thanks
my camera goes from f3.2 to 8.0 and the ISO options are only 100, 200 or 400. I have the Kodak Z650. So not a SLR.

[tegan]

ok thanks
my camera goes from f3.2 to 8.0 and the ISO options are only 100, 200 or 400. I have the Kodak Z650. So not a SLR.

Yes, but if the information you provided is correct, you used a 1/512 of a second shutterspeed and that is the problem. A slower shutterspeed of about 1/125 of a second approximately with a lower ISO of 100 instead of 200 and a higher fstop of perhaps 5.6 would have probably produced a better exposed shot with less picture noise or grain.

Tegan