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Need help about shooting mode

newsense52
Rising Star

What is the photographer's choice of a shooting mode in a situation described:

Indoor flash photography, lighted room, 20 mp camera, for portrait photo and why .

Auto mode is good outdoor but I dont like indoor, give your views.

 

 

11 REPLIES 11

Waddizzle
Legend
Legend

I'm sorry, but your question is far too vague for the specific answer that you seek.  So, on that note, the best answer to your question, is to stick with full auto mode.

Without knowing which camera or type of flash, and more info about the indoor lighting scenario, there is no specific answer to your question.

--------------------------------------------------------
"The right mouse button is your friend."

TCampbell
Elite
Elite

"Auto" mode will basically treat the camera like a point & shoot.  It'll work... but you'll probably never really get particularly creative results.  

 

Your best bet is to invest some time in learning the fundamentals of "exposure"... and how changing the settings will completely change the look of the shot.  

 

A few books you might add to your reading list:

 

- "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson

or

- Scott Kelby's "Digital Photography" series

 

Also

 

- "Speedliter's Handbook" by Syl Arena - this book, in particular, is all about the Canon Speedlite flash system.

 

There are others... but usually when I shoot portraits I want a moderately shallow depth of field -- so I'm likely shooting at f/4 (if this is just a single subject - groups would require a higher f-stop) and I want to create some soft broad lighting from an off-camera source.   That means probably I'm wanting to use a soft-box.

 

 

Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da

It looks like apperture value is adjusted that is fitted to the situation to create a best result?  Would you suggest Av mode?

 

What I am concern is the color when flash is used - it magnified the  true color of the object focused  like yellow becomes white and yellowish becomes orange...etc. ( under flourescent light ). Outdoor has no problem of color under the natural light when using auto mode.

 

About clarity or sharpness of object focused ( exposure ) is depending on quality of camera sensor or resolution?


@newsense52 wrote:

It looks like apperture value is adjusted that is fitted to the situation to create a best result?  Would you suggest Av mode?

 

What I am concern is the color when flash is used - it magnified the  true color of the object focused  like yellow becomes white and yellowish becomes orange...etc. ( under flourescent light ). Outdoor has no problem of color under the natural light when using auto mode.

 

About clarity or sharpness of object focused ( exposure ) is depending on quality of camera sensor or resolution?


This is a "white balance" problem -- not an exposure problem.  More specifically, you're having an issue with "mixed" lighting (by "mixed" I mean the light sources are not creating identical color temperature lights).

 

 

 

Light can cast a color tint on your subjects (as you've discovered) but it's actually possible to correct for this either in camera or using software on the computer.

 

The easiest tool to do this accurately is called a "gray card" and it is as the name implies... a card... and it's gray.  But it's not just any gray, it's a perfectly "neutral" gray -- meaning this shade of gray doesn't favor any color.   If you took a photo of this card in perfectly neutral "white" light, then inspect the RGB color values of the pixels, those pixels should report an equal level of "red", "green", and "blue" for each pixel.  If one value is a higher than the others (suppose the "green" value is higher then the red or blue for your pixels) then it means your light source is pumping out more "green" and less "red" or "blue".

 

For any typical subject, you might not know precisely what color it should be.  But if you have a gray card, you DO know precisely what color it should be (and so does the camera).  So it analyzes the pixels, determines how much color cast your light is creating, and then the camera corrects for that lighting (and you can do this on the comptuer too... it doesn't have to be done in-camera.)

 

 

But where it really gets tricky is when you have different lights and they provide different color cast.  If there's just one light and it's too green, then the computer can dial back the "green" on every pixels.    

 

What if you have one light and it's pumping out a slight "orange" color cast... and another light is pumping out a slight "blue" color cast.  When you try to correct for the blue cast, the orange cast gets EVEN MORE orange (fixing one makes the other worse.)

 

This is basically what happens when you use "flash" (daylight color balance) in a room with florescent lights (which might be have a slight green color cast or a slight pink color cast - depending on the specific bulbs).  

 

But you can put a colored "gel" on the front of the flash to tint the light so that it matches the color of the florescent light.  You might think this is making things worse because you used to have one accurate light and one inaccurate light and now you have TWO inaccurate lights... but it turns out that once you make the lights CONSISTENT (the color temperatures agree) you can now use that gray card to fix the overall white balance.

 

So... if your florescent light is a pale green color cast and you wrap a pale-green gel on the flash, the whole image looks pale green.  But now you take a photo of the "gray" card and the computer realizes that every pixel is a bit too green.  So it subtracts a bit of green (in the correct amount based on what it measured using the gray card) and ... like magic the entire image now shows accurate color as if it were shot in "white" light.

 

The two major vendors of these gels are Lee Filters and Rosco filters.  

 

They come in sheets of various sizes (or even rolls).  It's an acetate-like material but it's been color-tinted.  You cut a piece and wrap it on the front of your flash head (imagine taking kitchen food plastic wrap and wraping it on your flash - except this is more like an acetate and it doesn't "cling") and you use a rubber-band to secure it.

 

While many of their gels are for "creative" lighting, they also make filters designed for color correction of various types of light.

 

It can be a little confusing because there are two ways to solve the problem... one way is to gel the lights that have the wrong color temperature.  But if your at some venue and the whole room is full of florescent lighting, you can easily run around and gel the whole room.  That type of correction is intended for studio situations where you can control the lighting on the set.    The other option is to just gel your flash to match the room lighting.  It isn't important that the room lighting is "wrong" -- it's more important that the flash MATCH the ambient light and now the gray card can be used to correct the entire scene because every pixel needs the same amount of color correction.

 

Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da

Tim is exactly right; that is a white balance problem.  In this case there is a mix of lighting which compounds the problem. 

 

I'm chiming in to point out that white balance issues are a huge reason you should shoot RAW files instead of jpg.  

 

If you shoot jpg the camera commits to the look it decides is right for the image, and it throws a lot of the data out. A RAW file contains all the data and you must process it after you shoot it using software like Lightroom.  The good thing is in RAW you can go ahead and adjust the white balance after you shoot if you forget to get it right in camera. If you try to make a radical white balance adjustment on a jpg image it may not be possible to fully correct the problem, and trying to fix it may leave this image looking weird. 

Scott

Canon 5d mk 4, Canon 6D, EF 70-200mm L f/2.8 IS mk2; EF 16-35 f/2.8 L mk. III; Sigma 35mm f/1.4 "Art" EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro; EF 85mm f/1.8; EF 1.4x extender mk. 3; EF 24-105 f/4 L; EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS; 3x Phottix Mitros+ speedlites

Why do so many people say "FER-tographer"? Do they take "fertographs"?

Multi area white balance and  flash Ev is I think the problem.  Your gesture is nice but I am only a hobbyist and i want only to get the correct use of camera available features through manipulating manually.


@newsense52 wrote:

Multi area white balance and  flash Ev is I think the problem.  Your gesture is nice but I am only a hobbyist and i want only to get the correct use of camera available features through manipulating manually.


If you want a specific answer, then ask a specific quesion.  It would help if you provided some basic details: i.e.: what camera are you using.  Internal or external flash, and what model would help too.  For now, stick to using AUTO is my best advice.

--------------------------------------------------------
"The right mouse button is your friend."


@TCampbell wrote:

Your best bet is to invest some time in learning the fundamentals of "exposure"... and how changing the settings will completely change the look of the shot.  

 

A few books you might add to your reading list:

 

- "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson

or

- Scott Kelby's "Digital Photography" series

 

Also

 

- "Speedliter's Handbook" by Syl Arena - this book, in particular, is all about the Canon Speedlite flash system. 

 

 


This is excellent advice. I am currently going through "Understanding Exposure" for the second time and it is a great book that describes the exposure triangle in detail. I've learned much from it. Peterson insists that we start shooting in Manual mode, as this gives us great control over over our results. His book is geared to that. It is much easier than you might think. Get his book and try it!


@John_SD wrote:

@TCampbell wrote:

Your best bet is to invest some time in learning the fundamentals of "exposure"... and how changing the settings will completely change the look of the shot.  

 

A few books you might add to your reading list:

 

- "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson

or

- Scott Kelby's "Digital Photography" series

 

Also

 

- "Speedliter's Handbook" by Syl Arena - this book, in particular, is all about the Canon Speedlite flash system. 

 

 


This is excellent advice. I am currently going through "Understanding Exposure" for the second time and it is a great book that describes the exposure triangle in detail. I've learned much from it. Peterson insists that we start shooting in Manual mode, as this gives us great control over over our results. His book is geared to that. It is much easier than you might think. Get his book and try it!


..and it makes the buying the "nifty fifty", EF 50mm f/1.8 STM, a very good investment.  I think the "nifty fifty" is the best Canon lens I have ever bought.  

 

There is an entire world of difference between reading about it, and having something in your hands and actually doing it.  If you take a photography class, you will most likely need a fast lens, anyway.  

--------------------------------------------------------
"The right mouse button is your friend."
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