Yes I am a Noob

Hey Everybody,

I'm new to photogrpahy and this forum and was wondering if I could get some assistance. I'm using a Sony DSC-P200 Cybershot. I take a lot of pics indoors at night as I work ina club and want to get really good pictures without a humungous amount of flash (as a lot of flash looks horrible in nightclub pics..as it should look more natural and a touch darker). Feel free to talk down to me and explain things in detail as I'm quite the novice. Want to get nice looking, not totally flashed out pictures. Thanks

Clubs can be really tough - light levels are extremely low, and intelligent lights being as cheap as they are now, they're everywhere. They look cool (when set up correctly) but are a real hassle for a photographer especially in a small place.

If you wanted to do this without flash, you'd probably need about ISO3200 and a really fast prime lens (like about f1.4) to get any decent results. Canon DSLR's have done really well at high ISO's but you're talking about a pretty big investment too. Smaller cameras have smaller sensors and slower lenses - and just aren't going to do this. Using a little bit of fill flash might help and also let you use a lower ISO and/or slightly slower lens. Photographing moving people under really low levels of very contrasty light is very difficult.

I guess what I meant was...for portraits of people in a club and not moving objects are there settings in which I can capture them with a little bit of flash without lighting up the background like all the lights were on inside the club...which is what I'm really trying to avoid. Specific directions regarding my exact camera would be appreciated as I'm not down with general photographic lingo and how it would apply to my camera.