Last friday I had the chance to do my first indoor available light shooting. The small event was not really a happy one, as this was a farewell lunch for a couple of co-workers that joined the 500 employees that were laid-off last week by the Co. I work for. Anyway I tried to capture some shots as a way for them to remember some of us. I tried half of the shots without flash. The light was really dim with light comming from some spotlights. I expected to use ISO 800 but end up using mostly 1600 (even some 3200). Just want to tell you guys what I did and collect some valuable tips if possible (all shots with my *istDS):
1) I used an FA35/2 wide open, which turn to be acceptable sharp in the centre (I mean, given the fact I used it wide open) 2) Manual mode, spot "metered" the subject, adjusted ISO, autofocus, switch to manual focus and then burst-shot sets of 3 frames in a row hoping to use the one in the middle (I don't trust my eyes, the autofocus didn't hunt that much, I switched to manual focus so the camera wouldn't try to autofocus between shots) 3) I shot raw to have more "latitude" in the postprocessing and set white balance to "tungsten" just to have a reference when processing the raw files 4) End-up using mostly ISO 1600 5) Processed in Capture One usually "pushing" with the exposure compensation dial between +0.65 to +1.15 6) Adjusted contrast, brightness 7) Saved as TIFF 16 bits 8) Used Neat Image (default parametes) to clean up the noise and save as .jpg 9) Added some sharpening in PSP This is an example shot: http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=4322083 large size: http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=4322083&size=lg Any ideas on how could I improve this next time (hopefully a birthday lunch not a farewell one...)? I liked shooting this way as ppl didn't get disturbed and I could capture some interesting face expressions that otherwise would've been impossible to capture. At the end, just in case, I got the obligatory posed shots (forgot the AF360 so didn't turn good) but I'm amazed with the outcome of the cleaned High ISO. Don't mind the composition as I was focused in the technicalities, hopefully next time I'll be more relaxed ;-) The rest of the shots (extra sharpened for the web) are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/sets/72057594091422991/
