Small camera, large fluorescent-lit room.

November 27, 2007 9:21 PM

I’m no photographer, but a friend has asked me to use her Canon A610 camera to take a few photos of some kids, who’ll be wearing pageant costumes, in what she says is a large, high-ceilinged, windowless room lit by bright fluorescent lights. I can’t get to the room early and won’t have time to experiment once I’m there. What setting(s) should I use on this camera? (Assume I’ve considered and rejected the possibility of using a different camera or hiring a photographer.) I’d like to be able to give her decently-lit pictures with natural-looking color.

Am I wrong in assuming that the little built-in flash would do more harm than good? The obvious choices seem to be Auto, or SCN-Indoors (which claims to set the color balance automatically for tungsten or fluorescent, adjusting the ISO as necessary); but can I do better with custom pre-sets? The Canon has Automatic White Balance, but also offers “Fluorescent” and Fluorescent-H” settings, as well as the ability to set a fixed ISO up to 400. I’d be grateful for your suggestions.

posted by Dave 9 to media & arts (9 answers total)

My suggestion was going to be, with whatever settings you use, to shoot in RAW format, but from what I see, you won't be able to do that without a firmware hack and being that this is not your camera, it is probably out of the question.
posted by B(oYo)BIES at 9:34 PM on November 27, 2007

You should be able to set the white balance with a custom setting once you're actually in the room. On my SD870, you go to the white balance menu and pick the last option (custom) and then fill the frame with a white piece of paper and take a picture of it.

Apart from that, leave the ISO at 200-400, disable the flash, and bracket exposures ("AEB") if there's such a setting on the camera. Shoot in continuous drive and get 3-6 shots before you recompose. This way you'll have many, many shots capturing a wide range of exposures so that you're bound to hit a sweet spot and get great exposures.

(a custom WB, no flash, and full auto on the rest will probably suffice, but you might as well get technical since you can plan it out)

Also, for an easy way to get even lighting on the children's faces, use a piece of white posterboard to angle the ceiling lights onto their faces from below to even out shadows.
posted by cowbellemoo at 10:00 PM on November 27, 2007

You're only asking for camera settings, but we might as well cover basic picturetaking as well:

Find a background (wall) to shoot against that isn't 'busy'. A plain background brings the subject into contrast. Use a tripod if you can. Shoot from the chest level of your subjects (either crouch or have the kids get on something). If you're using a tripod or have steady hands, zoom to the middle of the zoom range and physically move forward and back to zoom (mid to long telephoto looks better than wide angle for portraits). Have the subject separated from the background by 6 feet or more, focusing on them will hopefully blur the bg. Take as many pictures as you possibly can and experiment with framing and poses as time allows.

(If these are goofy costumes, try a few with the child slumped over in a chair, staring sadly at the floor. Those are cliched and priceless.)
posted by cowbellemoo at 10:15 PM on November 27, 2007

That's the camera I have and I don't like the look of the flash myself. (In my opinion, you'll probably have to experiment a bit once you're there to get things right, but who knows.)
posted by salvia at 10:19 PM on November 27, 2007

99.9% of the time, auto white balance does a better job than I could ever hope to. Leave it on auto but take a couple test shots first. If WB is close to right, you can adjust it after the fact in Photoshop (or the like) anyway. I don't expect this will be an issue.

Using flash is often necessary indoors (especially with no windows), as much as I hate it... A few thoughts, though:

- The flash and the fluorescent lights are at two different color temperatures. Just pay attention to the LCD to make sure your results are good -- mixing light sources is where white balance may be an issue. (But I wouldn't proscribe flash for this reason alone.)

- My favorite flash trick: single sheet of white printer paper, held at 45 degrees or so right in front of the flash. Much of the flash light is bounced off the ceiling for a great diffused light, and a bit of the light comes through the paper for a fill. Do be aware that automatic cameras and high ceilings are the worst enemies of this idea, though, so it may not work for you. But it's not like there's substantial overhead in trying it.

Oh, and a final note -- when reviewing pictures, try zooming in to see if they're still sharp. It's all too easy to have a great picture on the LCD, but realize later that it was a 1/15-second exposure and it's got a subtle blur...

Above all else: don't overthink this photoshoot, and get some "safety" shots--if you take pictures with AND without flash, you can't go wrong regardless of how the flash looks. And even if you only have 5 minutes, that's still a lot of pictures you can take.
posted by fogster at 12:05 AM on November 28, 2007

Use a tripod. Do you have a tripod? In a pinch, a small bean bag on a table would work. I have the 620 which I understand has identical controls (apologies if this isn't true) and while the camera is capable of taking crisp pictures camera shake seems to affect it more than any other cam I have.

Suggested settings:
*program - one left click over from auto - which will let you do the things below
*iso 50 or 100 - graininess is visible at 200 in low-light
*custom white balance is a good way to go and takes two seconds
*drive mode on continous, AEB isn't available though
*effects off
*flash set to -1 which means half-strength
*make sure the size is set to what you want - largest should be superfine and L.

If you don't use a tripod then definitely use flash. But you might need to anyway. Program mode takes care of shutter speed and aperature for you but camera shake/blurriness won't always be obvious on the tiny LCD.

You say you won't be able to experiment once you get there, but do you have the camera to fiddle with now?

On preview: zooming in to review pics is an excellent idea (and will show you how icky pictures look at iso 400).
posted by moonshine at 12:08 AM on November 28, 2007

Even with a tripod, have you ever tried taking pictures of kids at slow shutter speeds? It's not just camera movement you have to worry about.

I think you're stuck with a flash in this situation; I know I haven't been able to get around it without either blurring and/or noise.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 7:29 AM on November 28, 2007

I've got a similar camera (A630) and I've been having some success using settings I originally came up with for night shots anytime I'm shooting indoors - Flash on, set ISO for the lowest setting (80 on the 630), use a sheet to set white balance, or choose the "flourescent" setting. I've found the Canon presets to be reasonably good, and much better than the "auto" setting.

I use the AV (or aperture priorty) mode and start with a middle value (4-6ish) and adjust as I go. Set the exposure to overexpose by 1 "point" (or four clicks to the left, not sure what the terminology is on this). The flash ensures you get something sharp in your pic, but the overexposure smooths out the harshness and gives some cool blur effects. The big caveat here is whether or not the person you're shooting for likes the effect, as it is a measure of personal taste.

Three examples (warning, self link and cute kids alert) here, here, and here. First one outdoors at night, the other two indoors at the in-laws, late morning with weak sun through the windows. Good luck!
posted by jalexei at 8:24 AM on November 28, 2007

Well, I got a few decent pictures. Flash looked bad, and the room was too big to bother w/ improvised bounce flash. ISO 400 is indeed very grainy. On the other hand, auto white balance was passable. Shots with tripod were clearest, of course, but I had to abandon it in order to move around the room. Shots w/o tripod were a little fuzzy on close examination but adequate as snapshots. Thanks all.
posted by Dave 9 at 7:04 AM on November 30, 2007