taking pictures in a cathedral (ie hooge space)

[raptor]

hi guys,

i'm doing a 6 week scheme or work for history/ re and art based on lincoln cathedral.

the thing is i need some digital photo's for the kids to use during this time, now i went the other day with my digital camera (7mp HP jobby) i wanted pictures of the eves (resembles noah's ark) and the stainglass windows and items of symbology etc.

all my pictures (expect the close up ones) came out rubbish, with the flash it made the picture dark, without the flash the shot came out blurry unless i steadied it on the floor.

whats the best technique do i need a remote flash or summats?

thanks in advance,

josh

 

[bozzy]

The flash on your compact will not reach to the eaves. If I were you I would find/loan a tripod or a small gorrilapod (small adjustable tripod) and choose a slow shutter speed to use any natural light you have. With a slow shutter you must find a way to steady the shot- even using the shutter timer mode if it has one.

 

[vtec]

what kinda camera do you have? if you can adjust the shutter speed then you should be able to get some decent pics., as said above you need to have a longer shutter speed and keep the camera still., this may be a problem is you are taking pics of people as the movment the make will blur the photo.,

 

[raptor]

ahh yeah a tripod would be good, i have a small one what used to allow an old shoddy camera to double up as a webcam, that wuld steady it enough.

and yes i can change the shutter speed.

should i still use the flash or is it no flash with increased exposure?

(thanks for the help guys!)

 

[raptor]

i mean the cathedral is a thing of beauty from the inside, but the mixture of artifical and natural light just makes it hard to judge the settings.

the natural light that finds tiself in the cathedral comes through beautiful (a recently refurbed) stainglass so the few shots i took with no flash looked really good - to the amateur anyway! will post one if i can later on

 

[vtec]

dont use the flash, just leave the hutter open as long as possible and from there if its too bright you can work your way down to a lower shutter speed.,

 

[faster4_tec]

don't use the flashatal.

set the camera to dark setting, or manual mode if possible (or 'S' mode if it has it). you want to get the exposure as long as possible and as lower ISO setting as possible (100 is about right, and usually as low as you can get on a compact).

then work down to faster shutter speeds.

also make use of the 2second timer (or 10 if it doesn't have a short one) as you waste your time with a tripod if you then move the camera atall when tripping the shutter :bang:

try to avoid hi contrast shots, or make do with th fact the window section is gonna be white with no detail, and a black bit everywhere else!

another technique to try is HDR image merging, it often works well in churchs due to their hi contrast situations. HDR is essentially merging a picture thats too dark, a picture that spot on and a picutre thats way overexposed together, to give you 1 picture with supurb detail. however you can't move the camera atall between shots! not even a wobble

gonna get a scan of a photo I recently took of an a disused mental asylum chapel, tis in B&W and I edited it during enlarging, by burning parts and not others to get the roof to show, normal englarging would prodce a black roof with no detail. its amazign how much detail there is on a film, even when the naked eye can't see it, its possible to extract it. wheras with digital, if its too dark or too bright, it simply doesn't record it

 

[arc]

its amazign how much detail there is on a film, even when the naked eye can't see it, its possible to extract it. wheras with digital, if its too dark or too bright, it simply doesn't record it

not too true, if you shoot in RAW and then play with the levels you can pick out detail where it looks like it has been lost.. and it cheating before anyone says it cos its the same as playing in dark room with the image

 

[faster4_tec]

not always, only if its a bit underexposed, if its complelty black you'll just get lighter shades of grayscale.

film WILL do the same thing, but you can eek out the extremes a bit more than digital can be. unless you have a 1ds ,or a d5

 

[CinquePunto]

if you use the flash on a long exposure (especially with people) you can get some interesting effects, a motion trail with a perfect picture of the person in the foreground.

 

[raptor]

cheers guys i'm popping in tomoz after the service, i have small tripod.

the problem is gonna be with the high contrast images. for the art side of the scheme of work i wanted to do stain glass windows (telling stories through pictures as the minions couldn't read)

any settings that are really gonna help me?

i ahve a choice of 2 budget camera's:

my nikon coolpix (2.2mp) i know my way round this with settings etc.
the gf's HP (7mp)

i've heard that the size of the mp is irrelevant if the camera cannot actually deal with that number ie the lens can receive that amount but the camera can not process it. is this right?

but which camera?

this is my attempt with the hp: