Advice for rather akward shots?

Sparks

The most common kind of photography I do is taking photos at target shooting competitions - meaning indoor shooting with poor lighting, no flash allowable, but usually static subjects. Or outdoors in all manner of lighting conditions, no flash, and again static subjects. There are some incidental photos of prizes being presented where I can use a flash and additional lighting, and the odd few portrait shots of shooters for use in a newsletter, where I can also use flash and additional lighting and backgrounds and pretty much control the shot much better. The photos get used for websites and for printed stuff - reports to the college (who fund the college club and like to see what we do with the cash), the college and local and national papers, and I'd like to be able to print a protrait-style photo up to about 8x10 in a few cases.

I do have an old SLR (a Pentax Spotmatic F - circa 1976 ) but it's in need of repair and so I've been forced to use a point-and-shoot 35mm compact, though I had a Canon MV-1 digital camcorder for a while that I was able to use. I'm in the middle of buying a Fuji S5000 with a few filters (UV, Neutral Density and Flourescent Lighting) and add-on lenses (wide-angle and telephoto adapters). These are the kind of shots I've been annoyed with recently and which I'm hoping to fix:



See, with the point-and-shoot I've had to use while the SLR is awaiting repairs, the exposure time without the flash under these lighting conditions means lots of blurring




And when there is enough light, it can often wash out the photo




Or the colours look very, very over-saturated (though for a website photo, that's not so bad IMO).



This kind of portrait gets done for all the shooters to build up a portfolio of photos to use for newspaper articles and the like. This one came out okay through blind luck more than anything else though.

Does anyone have any advice for improving these kind of shots? Or recommendations for books for this kind of photography?

RicardoSmith

Umm be interested in joing that club. Can you PM me some details?


I'm a bit rusty with my photography. But I think you'll beed to shoot with slower film and a bigger aperture. Which means you'll probably need a tripod and no fast moving subjects.


When I went shopping for a 35mm compact for snaps I realised that the best quality lense are on the models with fixed lenses. We picked up the Olympus compact only about €99 and its been really good quality wise. But its sensitive to movement so you have to make sure and really rock steady when you take the shot. If I was doing a lot of stuff like you I think I'd make a pole to steady the camera on so I would get crytal clear shots. I find you need to do this on a lot of the digitial cameras these days aswell.


The reviews of that Fujii are a bit mixed. http://www.digitalcamera-hq.com/fuji-finepix-s5000-reviews.html#professional_reviews

solaris

Sparks,

You need faster film if you want indoor shots without flash. Faster film will let you use a faster shutter speed, so less blur. The Fuji will also let you set a higher ISO speed, for the same effect. The compromise is there will be more noise visible in the images at the higher ISO settings.

Using a tripod or monopod will help if it doesn't get in the way. Post processing on the computer could also rescue some of the images. Try levels adjustment in any of the usual editors. Saturation problems can also be easily fixed.

Regarding your new camera, the ND filter may not be of use for this type of shot - it reduces the light entering the lens so you can use slower shutter speeds or larger apertures. This is useful for intentionally blurring movement like water flowing in waterfalls, or for reducing depth of field, but isn't that useful for indoor shots. The white-balance controls on the Fuji will sort out any problems with flourescent lighting, so you wont need a filter for that. The UV is a must though, to protect the lens.

Sparks

Originally posted by solaris
The white-balance controls on the Fuji will sort out any problems with flourescent lighting, so you wont need a filter for that.

Erm, there isn't a white-balance manual control on the S5000, or so I've read in the reviews... can it be handled in post-shot processing with the Gimp?

solaris

Originally posted by Sparks
Erm, there isn't a white-balance manual control on the S5000, or so I've read in the reviews... can it be handled in post-shot processing with the Gimp?

You don't need *manual* white-balance controls - there are preset controls for the various types of fluorescent lighting, as well as sunlight, cloudy, tungsten bulbs. Manual white-balance is something different, which lets you deal with more tricky situations. I have it on my Fuji 6900Z, but only need to use it if I use an external flash which would otherwise produce a blue colour cast. The automatic and preset options handle all other situations very well. If you are interested, the user manual for the S5000 is available here. See page 56 for the white-balance controls.

Sparks

Ah! Excellent
Thanks solaris...
(on a side note, the camera's due to ship today )

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by RicardoSmith
Umm be interested in joing that club. Can you PM me some details?


I'm a bit rusty with my photography. But I think you'll beed to shoot with slower film and a bigger aperture. Which means you'll probably need a tripod and no fast moving subjects.

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ah yes, faster film and slower shutter speed. I did say I was rusty...