Q: How do you take photos indoors with low lighting, without flash? The room is low-lit, but it does have a lamp that has a warm color to it. The lamp isn’t really lighting up what I want to take a picture of, (something across the room). I tried putting my ISO on 3200 but the picture is too grainy and I have my shutter speed at 100 but it seems a tad slow since my pictures end up blurry and I don’t have a tripod. My f-stop is at 3.5 (the smallest number on my camera) for this setting.
A: Unfortunately, there’s no getting around physics. Light will always be your best friend and your worst enemy. If you don’t have the option of bouncing a flash off the ceiling, than you’ll have to compensate with good shooting techniques and a little creativity. The following should help:
1. Make sure you have proper shooting technique. This means anchoring your left hand under the body of your camera, versus over the barrel of the lens. This will allow you to use your body as a much more stable shooting platform versus just using your hands with the camera suspended in mid-air. If you don’t have a tripod, try to turn yourself into one.
2. Use the timer on your camera. Most of the blur that you’re seeing is motion from your hand physically pushing the shutter button down. Using the timer should greatly reduce this. Depending on the type of camera you have, you should have the capability of setting your timer to 2 seconds. This is more than enough time to get a sharp shot.
Using these techniques allows me to confidently handhold down to 1/30 of a second without any issues. Try these and you should be able to shoot at ISO 800 at 1/60 of a second and still get your shot.
Question submitted by Penny C.
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One other thing that could help is a "string tripod". Find a bolt that will fit the tripod thread on the bottom of your camera and then attach some sort of string or chain that will not stretch too much and goes to the floor with some extra. Then get comfortable for your shot and step on the extra string on the floor then pull upward with the camera. This can often be very solid to avoid camera shake however it takes time to find a stance that avoids side to side rocking. With a little effort and practice it can work well.