I was taking pics of a birthday party in a gym (bad lighting) this past weekend and when i got home to p.p. the pics, almost all of them were blurry, they looked good on the lcd when taking them. I started out using my sb600 flash but didn't like the look of the subject lit up and the background very dark, so i took the flash off and used auto iso(d80) up to 1600, also the lens i was using was tamron 17-50 2.8, so long story short,in p mode 75% of the pics were at 1/30th sec. and 2.8 iso 1600 at 50mm, if i used s mode at 1/60th sec. they were underexposed.
My questions are:
would a 18-200mm vr solve this problem, or a prime(30 1.4 or 50 1.8) at 2.8 be sharper with the same shutter speed 1/30th sec.
any other suggestions and or technique, let me know, thanks for your help.
David
Ciao David,
this is what I can tell you:
with the equipment you already have, try setting the shooting mode to M.
Since you have a 50mm as focal lenght, you should at least get a 1/75 (1/100)s to obtain steady shots.
With an aperture of 2.8, try to set a time of 1/125 and let your SB600 doing the rest, choose by yourself the better aperture. It will tell you it's underexposed but probably it isn't really, unless you are very far from the subject. Do some tests to become comfortable with this technique. Shoot in M, not A/S/P; it's better.
If you still need other equipment:
1) try to understand if depth of field can be a problem. If you are too close to the subject, you should be forced to set a smaller (F5.6, for example) aperture and this would force you to get the 18/200 that works very well with slow times from 1/5s to 1/60s (depending on the focal lenght);
2) if it isn't a problem, maybe a faster and motorized lens can be the solution: cheaper and better quality than 18/200 VR. Of course, if you go down to F1.4 don't expect greatest sharpness, which can be usually achieved from f2 or higher. In this case, avoid shooting wide open if you are closer than 4-5m to your subject, otherwise you may get a perfect portrait but nothing really useful.
3) If neither that solves, get a more powerful flash
4) if you are here and didn't solve your problem... go and be blessed by the closest priest!!!! :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: