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What to do in poorly lit rooms?
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Sep 18, 2021 16:57:54   #
Johanna Loc: Albuquerque, NM
 
I love taking pictures of haflas or belly dances. At one of the venues the lighting is fine for dinning but lousy for picture taking! Where have we heard that before? Anyway the last picture shows most of the room lighting. At least is fairly uniform but mixed colors. I use a D850 with an f2:8 and 24 to 70mm lens. I’ve set the camera to self-determine color temperature, F2:8, 1/200 shutter speed to more or less stop action but still show some and let camera determine iso. That runs from about 4000 to over 8000!. I also use continues focusing.
I’ve tried back button focusing but I prefer using the normal take it button holding it half way to hold focus. The time available between takes to refocus is nil. I will also take bursts of up to ten exposures.
For editing I use ACDSee then first crop/rotate, adjust exposure, reduce noise then sharpen and store as jpeg. I could wish for better sharpening but then the image is not always that good.

Image caught as she was twirling!
Image caught as she was twirling!...
(Download)

They are not sharp but they are heavy.
They are not sharp but they are heavy....
(Download)

Please notice the ceiling lights for the room.
Please notice the ceiling lights for the room....
(Download)

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Sep 18, 2021 17:47:46   #
joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA
 
Johanna wrote:
I love taking pictures of haflas or belly dances. At one of the venues the lighting is fine for dinning but lousy for picture taking! Where have we heard that before? Anyway the last picture shows most of the room lighting. At least is fairly uniform but mixed colors. I use a D850 with an f2:8 and 24 to 70mm lens. I’ve set the camera to self-determine color temperature, F2:8, 1/200 shutter speed to more or less stop action but still show some and let camera determine iso. That runs from about 4000 to over 8000!. I also use continues focusing.
I’ve tried back button focusing but I prefer using the normal take it button holding it half way to hold focus. The time available between takes to refocus is nil. I will also take bursts of up to ten exposures.
For editing I use ACDSee then first crop/rotate, adjust exposure, reduce noise then sharpen and store as jpeg. I could wish for better sharpening but then the image is not always that good.
I love taking pictures of haflas or belly dances. ... (show quote)

Eye-catchingly colorful 💛💚❤️🧡💜💙

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Sep 18, 2021 18:19:38   #
cahale Loc: San Angelo, TX
 
joecichjr wrote:
Eye-catchingly colorful 💛💚❤️🧡💜💙


So that's why they call it "Belly" dancing.

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Sep 18, 2021 18:57:06   #
Mr. SONY Loc: LI, NY
 
cahale wrote:
So that's why they call it "Belly" dancing.



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Sep 18, 2021 19:03:13   #
TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC
 
You’ve got an excellent FF camera and a good fairly fast zoom - High ISOs are part of the game of indoor low light shooting when you can’t use a flash. The only place to go from here is a fast prime - 50 f1.4 or 85 f1.8 wide open of just stoped down to f2. you’ll need to pay attention to getting your focus spot on because the DOF will be very thin. The only other alternative is a D5.

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Sep 18, 2021 20:08:15   #
Chicago312 Loc: Western suburb, Chicago
 
Beautiful photos! Your settings are fine on my opinion. The best change you could make would be to use a faster prime as TriX suggested, though I would recommend a 24 or 28 mm prime given that you are indoors and with a FF camera you can always crop the image. Slightly slower shutter speed would risk more motion blur depending on the dancer. High ISO isn’t much of an issue with FF cameras like yours.

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Sep 18, 2021 20:24:14   #
JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco
 
If it's allowed, bouncing a flash off the ceiling would give you natural looking lighting, it would make motion blur less of a concern, you could use a smaller aperture for more DOF, and maybe you could avoid blowing out the ceiling lights.

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Sep 18, 2021 21:54:12   #
Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)
 
cahale wrote:
So that's why they call it "Belly" dancing.


Yes, skinny belly dancers are usually unemployed.

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Sep 18, 2021 22:08:46   #
User ID
 
TriX wrote:
You’ve got an excellent FF camera and a good fairly fast zoom - High ISOs are part of the game of indoor low light shooting when you can’t use a flash. The only place to go from here is a fast prime - 50 f1.4 or 85 f1.8 wide open of just stoped down to f2. you’ll need to pay attention to getting your focus spot on because the DOF will be very thin. The only other alternative is a D5.

Amen.

If you have any techie-geekie complaints about such results then your expectations are out of synch with the medium.

I know nothing about the D5 but the general rule is that any improvement would be incremental, hardly worth the extra expense.
.

What the medium could do 60 yrs ago
What the medium could do 60 yrs ago...
(Download)

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Sep 19, 2021 04:41:32   #
twosummers Loc: Melbourne Australia or Lincolnshire England
 
Yes - flash is the way to go. Bounce off ceiling or wall (white preferably) behind you. Flash will take care of colours and light. A bit of trial and error but (on or off camera) speedlight at 50% of so should do it. Maybe try around f8. Flash is so fast you can use fast shutter speed to freeze movement. Good job though.

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Sep 19, 2021 08:42:17   #
Hip Coyote
 
I recommend using a flash as mentioned above. The flash, if properly done,will help you freeze the movement (if that is your desire). Off camera flash would help a lot or bounce the flash if the walls and ceiling allow it. This will also allow you to reduce your iso. At the current ss you have some movement but not a lot. I would either make the photos sharper by using a faster ss or show more movement by using a slower ss...say around 60-100. Since you apparently shoot this often, you can experiment.

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Sep 19, 2021 10:37:54   #
Real Nikon Lover Loc: Simi Valley, CA
 
[quote=Johanna]I love taking pictures of haflas or belly dances. At one of the venues the lighting is fine for dinning but lousy for picture taking! Where have we heard that before? Anyway the last picture shows most of the room lighting. At least is fairly uniform but mixed colors.... quote]

Hope you don't mind... I dabbled with the lighting and eliminated a few distractions. My edits not perfect by any means. Perhaps you can try adjusting using your EV +/- You have a good lens so I would try and decrease ISO maybe to 800 and see what happens by adjusting with EV.



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Sep 19, 2021 13:28:29   #
rleonetti Loc: Portland, Oregon
 
I would continue to shoot with available light and opening your aperture wide to un-focus the background, leaving the subject mostly sharper. If you are unhappy with the color use Lightroom or most any editor to adjust the color temperature in post-processing.

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Sep 19, 2021 13:41:22   #
just.a.guy
 
Not making any criticism about this posting. Just some thoughts in general.
I want like to learn.

I just found this "room" and I assume it is different than images posted in the "Gallery".
I hope this is a place to learn from others. Where discussion can help add to each of our skills.
I just wonder, I am in the right place or is there another area just for (only) learning about composition
and editing?
----
I know there is no such thing as a right way to take photos. So suggestions, I expect, are all that are
offered. The subject is the image, composition and editing, never the person.

I prefer natural lighting. (my view point). I avoid flash - it changes the ambiance of what I am seeing.
Is there a way to take photos in dimly lit rooms without flash?

A lot of the photos I see today are over edited to make very impressive scenes.

Examples: replacing sky, or adding a near-by image that was not in the original shot, etc.
Certainly there is nothing wrong with cropping and straightening the image.

I assume the flash shots are original, without editing.
It is/would be nice if postings in this area include the original image in the post.
Or if the post is the original image (without editing) to state that fact.
To learn, I need to see the original and the edited versions.

Ugly Hedge Hog is a great place. I like the discussions. I just thought
it might be nice to have an area where new skills could be acquired,
that is just focused on the art of image composition and editing
( camera hardware has its place, but I hope it might be set aside in this part of the forum).

If this is not the right area let me know.

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Sep 19, 2021 14:31:27   #
TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC
 
just.a.guy wrote:
...Ugly Hedge Hog is a great place. I like the discussions. I just thought
it might be nice to have an area where new skills could be acquired,
that is just focused on the art of image composition and editing
( camera hardware has its place, but I hope it might be set aside in this part of the forum).

If this is not the right area let me know.


As you know, good images are a combination of the correct technology (equipment) and technique/vision. In this case, the issues the OP has asked for advice addressing are both, so it’s entirely appropriate to suggest different equipment or shooting technique in addition to editing and composition. The issues are high ISO/low light, background isolation, color balance and editing, and the majority of those are equipment/technique related.

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