Help! what settings should I be using?!?!?

[janinepags]

[Frog]

what camera? what lens?
Just a guess but it looks like you're punching that shutter button too hard. Take a breath, breathe out slowly, slow firm pressure on shutter. Just like it a rifle trigger.

[photobugd80]

Can you post your camera type along with your lens and camera settings?

The camera settings are needed to help you. Without knowing what those settings were it is almost impossible to help you. Obviously your shutter speed was way too slow.

First things that comes to mind is that you need a shutter speed of at least 80 to 100 to pull off indoor shots without using a flash. What was your ISO set to? What was your shutter speed and what was your aperture set to? What mode were you shooting in? and please tell me that you did have auto focus on.

These things will help to answer your question.

[ken1953]

As Frog and Bug intimated, it is almost impossible to help you without more info. However, here are some tips.

1. When shooting indoors, try to get as much light as possible. It is almost impossible to hold a camera still enough if your shutter speed drops below 60. If you can't get much light, make sure to use a steady tripod or table or other stable object to hold your camera and use the self timer. This will cut down on camera shake.

2. If your camera has an "anti-shake" function, use it if trying to shoot handheld.

3. The higher the ISO 800/1600/3200, the faster shutter speed you'll be able to attain in low light, However, you will begin to get "noise" in your shot. This can be corrected in many programs like "Noise Ninja" and others, if you want to invest the time and money.

On your first shot of the little girl, you could have used a faster shutter speed. This would have prevented some of the motion blur and also some of the over exposure. The biggest problem with this shot for a photographer of course is the white tshirt. and with the blond hair, you need to be careful of blowout. as is what happened here. Expose on the white a little more and not the face, and I think a lot of the over exposure may take care of itself. Many cameras allow you to adjust for over/under exposure. If shooting this again, try exposing about -2 steps if your camera is capable.

Shot 2....TRIPOD!!!!! and a little practice.

Shot 3...appears to be slightly out of focus to me. As with all of these shots, practice and better knowledge of your camera will produce much better results.

You show great promise. Practice, practice, practice and I think you will begin to see great results real soon. I think you could really take your photography places, you seem to have a good eye.

Please post your camera and settings as requested above so we can try to help further.

Good luck.

[freygr]

There is not any useful EXIF data in the posted photo. Other than guessing I can't tell you much.

But it looks like the flash was not used. Saying that the shutter speed of the camera would be slow causing the photo not to look in focus due to camera or subject movement. There are adjustments but we would need to know what camera your using and the settings that you where using.

[janinepags]

I used a nikon f100 with tamron sp 24-135mm lens. I was just messing around with different settings so I don't know the exact settings for each picture. I mainly practice in the aperture mode and if i had to guess for these pictures it was most likely at f 8.

[janinepags]

Thanks for responding. I used a nikon f100 with tamron sp 24-135mm lens. I was just messing around with different settings so I don't know the exact settings for each picture. I mainly practice in the aperture mode and if i had to guess for these pictures it was most likely at f 8. Thanks

[mn shutterbug]

If you're shooting indoors without flash, in aperture priority, you need to open the lens to the largest opening, ( smallest number). This will allow more light in and therefore choose a faster shutter speed.