Indoor Shoot

[Enbee]

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Hello,

 

My apologies in advance if this is a novice question but I would like learn and get better.

 

I had the opportunity to shoot at two events this past weekend. I am learning how to shoot indoors but I have had issues with lighting.

 

I have a 35mm/f2 lens and I shot at a dancing event in the evening so there was no natural light. Even though I understand the limitations of the rangefinder camera - I still had issues with shooting stills inside. Maybe the lighting was poor - so I updated the White Balance to Tungsten but that also didn't help. I put the settings to f-2 and film to color and sometimes vivid. I didn't change any other settings but the photographs sometimes had varied exposures. Ofcourse, I messed up the manual setting a few times but at other times I did not. I am at work but my photographs are at home I will attach one or two photographs when I get home.

 

For my other event - it was in the afternoon - and there was some natural light. I made the WB - auto (closer to windows and doors) and tungsten (away from door). The photographs were not sharp as I get them outside (btw outside shots during morning afternoon evening were beautiful).

 

I am wondering is it just the settings or should I consider getting a flash. Any thoughts or suggestions.

 

Thanks for your help in advance!

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[A Almulla]

Hopefully you are relying on RAW (DNG) images as all that Vivid and other film sim modes are JPG.

 

As for white balance, if you images are captured as RAW then correcting it would be easy although you could use a grey card to help you out.

[ShotCapture]

Hello,

 

My apologies in advance if this is a novice question but I would like learn and get better.

 

I had the opportunity to shoot at two events this past weekend. I am learning how to shoot indoors but I have had issues with lighting.

 

I have a 35mm/f2 lens and I shot at a dancing event in the evening so there was no natural light. Even though I understand the limitations of the rangefinder camera - I still had issues with shooting stills inside. Maybe the lighting was poor - so I updated the White Balance to Tungsten but that also didn't help. I put the settings to f-2 and film to color and sometimes vivid. I didn't change any other settings but the photographs sometimes had varied exposures. Of course, I messed up the manual setting a few times but at other times I did not. I am at work but my photographs are at home I will attach one or two photographs when I get home.

 

For my other event - it was in the afternoon - and there was some natural light. I made the WB - auto (closer to windows and doors) and tungsten (away from door). The photographs were not sharp as I get them outside (btw outside shots during morning afternoon evening were beautiful).

 

I am wondering is it just the settings or should I consider getting a flash. Any thoughts or suggestions.

 

Thanks for your help in advance!

For the issue of "not sharp", It sounds like you have to low a shutter speed to freeze the action. Try a higher number. For instance, with the 35 mm lens theoretically you can shoot at 1/50th of a second if you are pressing the shutter slowly, bracing your arms against your body, taking a breath in, letting it out and squeezing the shutter gently. Some can shoot 1/8th of a second this way. HOWEVER, this takes a lot of practice, AND with a moving target you may get a blur from the action anyway. Either way you may need to take the picture at 1/125th or even 1/200 of a second to stop the action. To do this you may need to increase your ISO until it is high enough to get the photo you want.

For pleasing color, I agree with shooting Raw not jpeg. (Then process your photos with Lightroom (preferred), Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements). (click the white balance eye droper on a neutral area). Then usually the M 240 does a good job with auto white balance, but manual white balance is easy with a WhiBal card.

Thorsten Overgaard has instructions on his website, (and a lot of other really good M 240 advice). Click this link and scroll half way down:

leica.overgaard.dk - Thorsten Overgaard's Leica Pages - Page 31 - Leica M Type 240 Digital Rangefinder Camera - Review - Sample Photos - Light Metering - Colors White Balance

[algrove]

You did not say what ISO you were using, but inside in the first example you give, you probably should have tried ISO 800. If no good then go to 1250 etc. Grain will start to creep in, but that is better than no acceptable shot at all.

 

Remember all those vivid ciontrast etc settings are for jpg only-not RAW. If you do not shoot in RAW you should start doing it now or at least raw+jpg fine. I stopped messing with raw and save my SD card space for raw.

[JohnJWhite]

You should definitely consider a flash for indoor use, particularly in low light. Just keep in mind that the exposure will vary with distance. Closer objects will be brighter than more distant objects, at the same exposure. So don't expect to expose two people properly with a single flash on the camera if one is 6 feet away and the other is 20 feet away.

 

Also, consider getting a monopod. That will enable you to shoot in available light using longer shutter times, and be much more flexible in use than a tripod. The monopod lets you move about easily, and raising or lowering the height is a simple process compared with doing the same on a tripod.

[Enbee]

Thank You for all great advice. I am learning to be better with it. I have moved on shooting just RAW - that made a huge difference. Thank You for referring to the ISO and Overgaard site. I am reading through the material and practicing my skills as well. I feel there are two important aspects - be technically sound and then - be sound with your visualization of the subject/view etc. I think I am slowly getting the hang of technical but it will take more time. I may try some more before considering getting a flash and monopod but before that I want to ensure that I do have the technical stuff. Thank You again for all your help!

[wda]

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Enbee, welcome to the forum!

 

Shooting indoors is tricky but the Leica can excel. Auto ISO, full aperture, 1/60th second shutter speed and PRACTISE - practise - Practise! Practise at home after dark with varying levels of normal artificial light. Notice how light falls on object or humans if you have any in your home.

 

Practise with noise reduction in Lightroom or your choice of plug-in.

 

Use a greycard if possible for the best starting point, then fine-tune in LR.

[k-hawinkler]

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m9-forum/292708-m9-colors-night-best-way-shoot.html

[LocalHero1953]

Shooting indoor events where various artificial lighting contributes to the mix, each source with its own colour, can be a nightmare; in colour, you may never get it right. Even if you aim just to get face skin tones right, you can have problems of fluorescent lighting one side of the face and daylight the other side. In the end you have choices:

- flood the scene with your own high-powered flash. This may not be popular with participants.

- shoot in B&W.

- spend a lot of time doing localised colour adjustment in Photoshop: a pain!

- accept the colour variation and exploit it for artistic effect.

[FlashGordonPhotography]

Dance photography needs more than a simple 1/focal length for freezing action. It's going to need a shuttr speed anywhere between 1/60 and 1/500th to really stop the action. I'd probably set a manual exposure of 1/250 and f2.8 and auto ISO. Shoot raw so you can push in post.

 

Of course you can use deliberate blur. You can also shoot dance lines, whee the dancers momentarily stop, rather than motion. But both are trick techniques to get spot on.

 

Gordon

[chris_tribble]

1. Don't be afraid of high ISO - the M is fine at 1600, 2400 and higher.

2. Use MANUAL settings on camera. Set an aperture that will capture highlights and don't worry about the shadows

3. if you're using a 35 or 28 lens, GET CLOSER!

4. COLOUR - I use auto ISO - but shoot RAW. Essential. Process in lightroom to get a reasonable compromise. You're never going to get neutral colour in mixed and changing artificial light.

Examples below are from a fast moving dance sequence in a recent production of the Marriage of Figaro shot in London. The M240 is GREAT for this kind of work.

5. Practice makes perfect

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[wattsy]

In the end you have choices:

- flood the scene with your own high-powered flash. This may not be popular with participants.

- shoot in B&W.

- spend a lot of time doing localised colour adjustment in Photoshop: a pain!

- accept the colour variation and exploit it for artistic effect.

 

No need to "flood the scene". Judicial use of fill flash can work wonders in many indoor scenarios. Just remember to gel the flash to the predominant ambient temperature to avoid the (often) ugly mixed lighting problem.

[Enbee]

Thank You all for your suggestions again. I played with the camera last night at 1/45-1/250 with f 2 and auto ISO. The results were much better than last time. I am slowly learning as I go along. I want to do the best I can without a flash and once I know the camera is not capable of what I want, may consider flash. Right now, I feel that there a lot of moving pieces, just with the camera, evf2 - with the flash I feel it will add another dimension. If I do have to consider a flash - can you recommend which one should I look at?

[chris_tribble]

For most performance situations where you're working with artificial light, I'd personally never use flash (and in most venues I wouldn't be allowed to!). I'd also say that if the lighting team have done their jobs, then you don't NEED flash - a lot of the art is in catching the scene as it is, and how it unfolds. For me, flash would kill this.

[Enbee]

Thanks Chris - I hope that's always true for me as well!

[Nr90]

I'm a novice as well, but I enjoy indoor shooting during the night so I'll share my experience.

 

Are you shooting with the ISO and shutter speed set to auto?

The camera will try to get images that are lit like a daytime image. I often find that an image taken in the evening does not need to be as bright as an image taken during the day. I want it to be clear that it was taken in the evening.

I either set everything manually to get the lighting I need. If that is not an option I tend to set the EV to -1 2/3 or even lower.

Both options give me a much faster shutter speed then if I had used the auto settings. If you do want a brighter image it is easy to push the exposure in PP.

You can recover an underexposed image in PP, a blurry image because the shutter speed is too slow is gone IMO.

[Enbee]

Thanks Nr90 - I have been trying to play around with Shutter speed, ISO and aperture settings for the evening shoots. Now, I do one extra thing before I take a shot - I look in the view finder how the image exposure will come and then focus. This has been helping me improve. Most of my images have about 60-80% correct exposure. I haven't done much with EV will need to check that out. Where do you find EV settings and what does it do? The issue with higher ISO is the blurriness that I encounter, so I try to keep ISO as low as possible, but that's difficult at night as earlier responders have noted and decrease the shutter speed and f to around 2 or 2.5. I tried a flash today - but that took the fun out of shooting. But for everything that is under or overexposed - you are correct PP is always around! God Bless Adobe!