Photo Tip: Indoor Natural Light Photography

It's possible with the sensitivity of new digital cameras to take indoor or night pictures using natural light. Natural light is much less harsh than flash. The picture above was taken in a restaurant during a family party. In order to make sure your image will be in focus, set the ISO (film sensitivity) to a high number like ISO 2000. It is also best to have a lens with a wide aperture. I've found that an aperture setting of 2.8 is a must if your subject is moving. Once you capture the image, be sure to check the digital display. If your camera allows you to zoom in, you can choose an area, like the eye or hair to see if you can see detail.

One issue to using an ISO above say ISO 2000 or ISO 3200 is that the higher the number, the more "grainy" the image will appear when it is enlarged. A little practice will help you find the perfect setting. Natural light will add character and a softness to your subject.

One last tip, be sure to double check your White Balance. If you are shooting under fluorescent lights, you can get a greenish cast to your images. If you have a nicer digital camera, you should be able to set the white balance or use the "Scene" choice option to ensure the right color balance.

Photography Tip

Add a new and interesting perspective to your images. Simply choose a lens or lens setting of 20mm or less (ideally less than 16mm). The resulting image will be one with a unique perspective. The image above was taken with a Nikon D 200 and DX AF 10.5 mm lens.

Note, it's okay to get in the water with the subject.

Of Interest: I've seen research that the focal length of the human eye is equivalent to between 17mm and 25mm camera lens. More commonly, it is thought that the human eye really sees the equivalent of 22mm to 25mm.

Digital Photography and Video

From childhood I have been interested in photography. I remember the first camera I owned, a Kodak Instamatic and the anticipation between the time I looked through the plastic viewfinder to dropping off the film at the store to opening the envelop that contained the prints. Blurred Black and White Images greeted my expectations and they were great!

My Dad was in the Navy before I was born and while he was in Japan, he bought a 35mm Nikon camera. I was fascinated by the camera. My grandfather too loved to travel the west and photograph people and places. His brother was an avid photographer, owning a Hasselblad (the one they took to the moon) with lots of lenses. Uncle Dee even had a darkroom in his house and during his active years captured hundreds of thousands of images.

In college, I studied film. Film, different from photography, captures not a single moment in time, but a "slice" of time. In those days, it was a very, very expensive pursuit to create a film. Not only was the equipment expensive, but the film, developing, effects and prints were tens of thousand of dollars. Not only did we make and edit films, we also studied Film History and Theory.

One of the classes I took was in the School of Architecture. In that class, the major assignment was to take a 35mm camera and tell a story with still images. This was probably the most challenging assignment I received. How do you tell a story with a still camera?

Film making has a structure. Storytelling has a structure. The easiest way to define it is to think about a story. Stories have a beginning, middle and an end. Lots of great filmmakers will tell you that they are just good storytellers. Stories without structure are confusing or boring to those who view them. More on storytelling later.

Movies also use techniques like "contrast and compare" to tell you about a character. Making movies, contrary to the current thinking, is about more than owning a video camera and nice editing software. The fact that so few films see theatrical release is a testament to this.

Fast forward the Digital Age. When the digital age came along, I have to admit I was not impressed. Low image quality and printing on a home printer were horrible. My first digital camera was a Sony Mavica MVC-FD7. It stored images on a 3.5" floppy drive of all things.

I avoided any more digital experience until about 2002 when I bought a Nikon D1 (don't ask, it fit a lot of Lenses I owned with my F100) Now I own a Nikon D3. I think that Nikon has finally figured it out. Lenses that match the sensor and compliment each other.

In late 2002 I got really interested in multimedia and researched scrapbooking because it provided a template of how an industry was born. Original Photo Albums were a $100 million dollar business but over a decade, scrapbooking took the industry to new levels and and estimated $3 billion in annual sales. I studied this for more than a year, noting what people did, what they valued and how the word got out.

Next: Multimedia and the Chart of Many Bubbles