I have to take photos or Board Proceedings but the lighting in there is soft and fairly low. I am not allowed to use a flash because it disturbs the Board members and the entire procedding is video recorded.
I have an Olympus E-620 DSLR.
How can I get good photos without motion blur from them moving and not have any grain?
Unfortunately, it's a company camera and the lens it came with only go down to a 4.6 f stop. How well.
Picture Taker
Favorite Answer
Tough situation. You do the best you can and hope that your camera is up to task. The smaller sensor on the Olympus might be problematic. I have several "low light" images on Flickr and there are some on the first page that seem to match your situation - meetings in dark rooms. Some are actually with the lights out. Click on the thumbnails that looks appropriate and see what settings I used.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/tags/lowlight
The real answer for you is probably get a fast prime lens, like f/1.4 or f/2.0. I don't know the Olympus line, or I'd be more specific.
You might be able to use a tripod to allow longer shutter times also. Most of the time, people at meetings are not so animated that you can't get away with 1/15-ish shutter speeds. Some of mine were taken by sitting the camera on a table top and using live view, because I did not have a tripod with me. If you don't have live view, you can experiment and keep checking the LCD to see how you mayhave to re-aim your camera before trying again.
?
Use a fast lens. that would be your best shot. I shoot with a Canon Ef-s 17-55mm f/2.8 lens. the f/2.8 is where the money is at for low lighting. I can shoot in very dim lighting without any motion blur as long as my lens is opened up. a fast, zoom lens won't be cheap though, as mine cost about $1000 usd but if you do a lot of indoor(available light) photography, it is definately worth it.
The lower the f number, the more light the lens lets in. so an f/2.8 lets in more light than a f/4
Also be aware that in low light situations make sure your IS(image stabilization or whatever olympus calls it) is turned on. It will prevent blur from your shaky hands!!!
Anonymous
Put the camera on a tripod and set it to bulb exposure, this leaves the shutter open for as long as you need it providing that you have the facility on your camera, take a few shots using different timings 2 seconds, four seconds, 8 seconds and so on you can look at each result as you take them, otherwise Photoshop can be very useful in creating these images, if you know how to use it.
Eric Lefebvre
Explain to your boss that as much as you would like, you can't crush coal into diamonds with your bare hands.
They need to do one (or more) of the following:
- turn up the lighting.
- get you better lenses
- allow you to use off camera lighting
- get you a camera that has better ISO performance
One thing you need to do is shoot in RAW and underexpose by 1 to 1.5 stops. Then in Photoshop or whatever RAW conversion tool Olympus supplies you with, increase the exposure. This isn't ideal but it should allow you to shoot a bit faster.
Also, crank up the ISO to 800.
Also get a noise reduction tool like Noise Ninja.
chilling_charlie
If you can't change your gear, or increase lighting, I really doubt you can get the shots. the camera and the lens are entry level gear and really cant do much in your situation. Of course getting a monopod and increasing iso may help, but you may want to hire a wider lens (f/1.2 to f/1.8)