No flash photography. Suggestions?

DeVore

I am taking photos in the World Series of Poker and they wont allow flash photography. Now my Canon e350D has a setting for "No Flash" (on the setting selector on the top) but I was wondering if there was anything else we would do to improve shot quality? Any suggestions welcome.

DeV.

melekalikimaka

pump up the iso and maybe use a tripod and make the shutter longer to get that bit more light in

qwertz

Max out the ISO and shoow RAW.

Shrimp

here here, why are you all saying max up the iso, far all we know the lighting will be sufficient for a low enough iso.. only up the iso if you're stuck, and by up the iso, i mean putting it at max.. max iso aint nice.

shoot raw tho..

Morlar

DeVore wrote:

I am taking photos in the World Series of Poker and they wont allow flash photography. Now my Canon e350D has a setting for "No Flash" (on the setting selector on the top) but I was wondering if there was anything else we would do to improve shot quality? Any suggestions welcome.

DeV.

I had that problem a few weeks ago doing a snooker comp and also a gymnastics final where flash wasnt allowed, steady hands and up the iso (the higher the iso the higher the grain), a fast lens will come in handy too. Definitely echo the comments on doing raw too.

mtracey

When you get there you might find that the lighting will allow you to hand hold just fine. After all there will be lights overhead the players etc...

Make sure you've got a bright lens, ie 1.8/2.8 or something. Let in as much light as possible. Shoot as open as you need to. Other than that it'll be about playing with the ISO settings.

Fajitas!

Well, if there's enough light, it's all good, best off sticking it on 'P' and use between 200 - 400iso. Maybe underexposing a teeny bit.

But then again, poker tourneys are not always the most brightly lit of places...

If it's not bright, stick the iso up to 1600, the 350D copes with it quite well. If it's still not enough, put the camera onto Aperture Priority, and bring the aperture down to the lowest (3.5 if you're using the kit lens).

Then finally, if you still need to, underexpose by up to a stop. Should be recoverably in photoshop!

311

A lens of about 1.8 or 2.0 max aperature would be great for that. If you've got a kit lens 18-55 ,you might struggle with it.
You can hire lenses out for a day at shops in town.

Best of luck

Fajitas!

Ah the kit lens isn't too bad for it.

Like, a 50mm lens is only 120ish in a bricks and mortar shop, cheaper online. Might be an idea.

To be honest though, I've shot the darkest, dankest pubs/metal gigs at f/5.6

rabbitinlights

Steady hand and the "No flash" setting should be fine, a tripod would be handy but you should be fine without it.

Im also with shrimp on this, keep the ISO as low as possible unless your not getting any shots at all.

Just mess around with it when your there, it will become obvious once you get used to the lighting!

S.

DeVore

Wooooah.... slow down! Camera n00b here, I barely know how to point and shoot

The light is fine, loads of it to be honest so I will leave the ISO alone. I'm not sure how to shoot raw but I will have a play with the camera and see if theres an obvious setting for it. (never done it before)

Thanks for the advice so far, if you want to see them, the pics we have taken so far are here:
http://devore.typepad.com/photos/wsop_06_day_1/

DeV.

il gatto

I agree with that. Avoid high ISO's where possible. You'll just get noise everywhere. Especially in the shadows. Bring a tripod and use a longer exposure. Doesn't need to be that long that movement causes blur. Having said that, my brother plays poker and I've a cousin in the states who's a professional player, and I don't think movement will be a major problem. It's not really action packed

Fajitas!

Right, since there's loads of light...and RAW is pretty much an artform of its own, shoot Jpeg!

Aperture basically is the amount of light a disk is letting hit your sensor. More light=good thing, shutter speed is how long you leave your shutter open. higher shutter speeds are what you're after!

Now...these do get pretty confusing, so bring your dial on the top of the 350 to P...easiest way to do it! Gives you creative control over the shot pretty much.

This will control the aperture and shutter speed by the camera. I'd say 200-400 iso will work grand from the photos you've already taken

The only other advice I'd give you without confusing you too much is...If you want to get rid of the orangey/yellowy cast, press the downwards button on the back of your camera, and move the dial on top about...it should change the AWB on the screen over your LCD display to a sun, to a house casting a shadow, to a cloud......to a lightbulb!!! That should do a bit for you! See what happens anyways, play around with it!

rabbitinlights

Fajitas! wrote:

press the downwards button on the back of your camera, and move the dial on top about...it should change the AWB on the screen over your LCD display to a sun, to a house casting a shadow, to a cloud......to a lightbulb!!! That should do a bit for you! See what happens anyways, play around with it!

Agreed, It will stop people looking like they have jaundice!

Sangre

Its been recorded for television so there will be plenty of light on the players.

darragh.delany

Fajitas! wrote:

The only other advice I'd give you without confusing you too much is...If you want to get rid of the orangey/yellowy cast, press the downwards button on the back of your camera, and move the dial on top about...it should change the AWB on the screen over your LCD display to a sun, to a house casting a shadow, to a cloud......to a lightbulb!!! That should do a bit for you! See what happens anyways, play around with it!

unless of course the light is flourescent in which case the tungsten setting is very bad! for white flourescent there should be an icon looking like a bar. personally if I was new to using an SLR I'd stick with auto white balance and maybe shoot RAW + JPEG (should be easy to find on the menu) and play with RAWs of good shots _if_ they needed adjusting
Of course for no flash the recipe should be
highest no noise ISO (I believe 400 is artefact free and 800 is pretty acceptable on the 350)
Fast lense at wide (ie low number) aperture (at least an f2.8 though a 1.x is much nicer) - select A on dial and adjust number to the lowest it will go
Steady shooting - in the end this is probably the most important and certainly the cheapest way to get better shots - learn to hold camera properly or use a tripod/monopod/stable surface, if you want to spend a little more get an IS (image stabilised) lense which uses gyroscopes to counteract some movement and allow s much better work in low light.

DjD

digitalbeginner

I agree with Daragh on the monopod. They're cheap and easily moved, in areas with lots of people tripods can be a hazard (and difficult to move quickly)

As a photographer the trick is to get as good a shot as possible in the camera, relying on software (if you know what to do) is all well and good but you add significantly to the amount of time you spend on each shot. One or 2 is fine but a hundred shots?

A monopod will help you gain a couple of stops, try to shoot more wide than telephoto as well, this helps with camera shake. Bear in mind the camera shake ready reckoner:

30mm on the lens needs 1/30th second or above to take out camera shake (as long as you keep the camera steady)
60mm needs 1/60th Second
125mm needs 1/125th second
250mm zoom needs 1/250th second
500mm zoom needs 1/500th second

You get the idea, wider angles can survive with slower shutter speeds. Good luck with the shoot!

Fionn

RAW format requires a good deal of processing after, considering the amount of shots that you seem to be taking it would eat into your time quite a lot.
I think the advice on a monopod is a good idea and select P on the dial and as Fajitas said adjust the AWB
heres what it says in the manual about that:

mervifwdc

I notice on the shots I looked at that your shooting very slow speeds, like 1/15 of a second (and doing a pretty good job of it!).

If you can speed it up, that would be great. Do this by opening up the aperature. you'r using F5, and even with a standard kit lens, you can go faster (F3.5) when you zoom out. you'll need to re-set this after each zoom out and back.

Try get the speeds up as described above.

Also, shoot raw + jpg. The jpg will get you your immediate resules, and the raw can be processed to get the colours right afterwards if you think they will be wanted. If you're not happy with RAW, shoot it anyway and I'll convert them for you.

Merv.

DotOrg

DeVore wrote:

I was wondering if there was anything else we would do to improve shot quality?

read up on the basics of how your camera works, how changing the shutter speed and the size of hole the light goes through (the aperture) will affect the pictures you take

some basic tutorials on photo.net

or ask someone who knows how to operate a camera like yours to come along and they can show you how to use your camera