Advice for shooting indoors

[vyeko]

I am also Pentax user and I agree with all what they say about lightning.I have old Pentax 50 mm f/1.7 and my experiences is unbelievable. Is dead sharp sometimes too much (portraits). I use for mid night walk in my town for night shots.It is so fast that I can take image handhold too.For concert shotting too.Hope that will help you for easier decision.

[Nic]

Thanks for ur research Mad Aussie. I'm going to check Cameras Direct out after I attempt to learn how to use my flash. I'm still very tempted by a faster prime lens. I appreciate ur time & advice. I currently shoot in RAW & jpeg, although I have to admit to mostly using the jpeg images. I haven't played enough with RAW. I found a great vodcast that shows photoshop techniques for the digital photographer & have been playing around with high pass sharpening etc. I still have a lot to learn though. I have a graphic design background so I'm familiar with photoshop, but not so much the techniques used by photographers. I'm quite enjoying expanding my knowledge in that area. So far my post processing includes (if necessary) levels, high pass sharpening & some spot healing. If you don't mind sharing, what do you do?

I did manage to get my daughter to do an activity on our deck so I could shoot something for the one assignment. Much better with some extra light, although it was quite late in the day. The light is quite warm, I'm not sure whether it's too warm or not.

theantiquetiger, thanks for ur tips. I'm particularly interested in ur ping pong idea. A lot of the time I want to shoot my daughter I don't have time to attached my portable flash etc, so that would b perfect. I'm definitely going to try it. I've been using the custom settings for white balance since hearing on a number of podcasts that AWB is evil , but I haven't tried setting it with white paper. I'll give that a go too.

Thanks again for all your help! I've made a New Years Resolution to put more time into my interests & this forum is a perfect way to develop my photography skills.

[Marko]

Aside from a couple of strong lights ready to shine on her I can't really add to what Iggy has suggested.
You simply lack light so you simply must find a way to get more light to the camera sensor, whether that be via adding physical lights/flashes or getting a faster lens is your call.

100% agree. You could also try used video lights and bounce them. Those are way cheap if u can find them and they will add a good amount of light.
I have a smith victor 650 watt halogen bulb in a small smith victor head. The thing is ancient, but throws a lot of light. The bulb gets 3rd degree burn hot so you have to be careful, and the bulb is 25 dollars - but aside from that it works great in the situations you describe in the first post.

[Mad Aussie]

I have a graphic design background so I'm familiar with photoshop, but not so much the techniques used by photographers. I'm quite enjoying expanding my knowledge in that area. So far my post processing includes (if necessary) levels, high pass sharpening & some spot healing. If you don't mind sharing, what do you do?

I share all the time! Having a graphic design background (as I do) will help you in learning the photography side of photoshop for sure.

I used to use Lightroom, as many do, and that's a good program for sure. I used to use HDR software, as many do, and they can give some great results as well. Nowadays though, I use Adobe Bridge and Photoshop exclusively.

Bridge helps me view my RAW shots, arrange my photos and add keywords and other data I want. I can stack multi-exposures together etc and then launch the photo into Photoshop. The only downside is the preview is a bit soft.

When it opens in Photoshop I can then use all the RAW adjustments available to me, including adjusting the white balance as though I did it before shooting, sharpen, adjust 8 different colour groups in 3 different ways, levels, rotating, reduce chromatic aberration, and much more. All on the RAW before actually opening the photo completely in PS for further work or saving as a Jpeg etc.
Once in PS, and assuming the photo is pretty good to start with, I often do very little unless I want to really do something dramatic with it. Then I often use layers and layer masking to achieve the effects I want.

I've made a New Years Resolution to put more time into my interests & this forum is a perfect way to develop my photography skills.

Good decision. This is the best forum I've found for learners in years of visiting photography sites.

Where in Aussie are you Nic?

[Nic]

I'm in the Blue Mountains, NSW. I'm definitely going to start playing more with RAW. I don't currently use bridge as my camera shoots jpeg & RAW so it's easy to preview, but it sounds like a better way to organise my images.

Thanks again for ur help, I have lots of tips to play with.

[Nic]

Thanks for video light advice Marko. I've been listening to ur podcast for a while so I went back to ep. 71 to learn about my portable flash. Thank u for ur podcast, it has taught me a lot.

[Mad Aussie]

Blue Mts! Well ... I do hope we can convince you to get out and shoot that awesome landscape around you too then!

[Marko]

My Pleasure Nic!

MA - how come you switched from LR to Bridge?
( I use LR mostly for the cataloguing, and I still use Bridge to do the basic corrections before I bring an image into Photoshop. I know I can use LR to also do what bridge does, but I learned Bridge first.)

[Mad Aussie]

MA - how come you switched from LR to Bridge?
( I use LR mostly for the cataloguing, and I still use Bridge to do the basic corrections before I bring an image into Photoshop. I know I can use LR to also do what bridge does, but I learned Bridge first.)

When I switched to Mac I didn't have any editing software at all, or the money to buy any to start with. We didn't want any pirate software on our computers.
We bought the CS5 suite so I made do with Bridge instead of LR with the intention of buying Aperture or Lightroom at a later date. Now I won't bother with either. After loosing all my adjustments from LR with the change to Mac I'm over the, what do they call it ... non-destructive ... non invasive ... whatever it is that doesn't permanently write to your original files. I'm having to go back and add all my keywords etc to the files but at least they'll stay with the files from now on.

In terms of LR vs Bridge ... LR has a few features I liked but overall I never did a lot in it anyhow, preferring Photoshop.
As far as HDR software goes, I'm really quite over it because of the un-natural results. It steals the shadows which are an integral part of light in an environment. I like photos, not painting like photos. A very, very good HDR is stunning though but only in the hands of someone very good with something like Photoshop to correct all the issues created.

[Marko]

Thx MA.