Indoors

[mxg-w]

This coming weekend me and my brother are DJing a party at our house. Lots of dim lights, probably a strobe and some other special effects lights, lots of people and lots of dancing. I have a Nikon D40x (kit lens) to work with that night and was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on how to get some good shots throughout the night. We've done parties like this before and I have never been satisfied with my pictures. Any help?

[wulf]

What have you been dissatisfied with? If you can pin it down a bit more, that might suggest ideas that would give better results.

For example, if everything is blurry and noisy, you might want to find a tripod or other way of keeping the camera still for a long exposure at a low ISO setting. Or perhaps you find that autofocus just doesn't cut it on low light conditions - you might want to set the focus so that you know objects a fixed distance from the camera will be sharp and then move around to get the focus on what you want.

The way to improve is to put some thought in, converting your experience into ideas.

Wulf

[mxg-w]

Well, the real thing is, I am going ot be using a much better camera this time around (I had a Kodak point and shoot something or other back before) and when I used flash, they were... alright. Just washed out, red-eyed and noisy party pictures. Not using flash, well that just wasn't an option as I couldn't get anything but blur, camera shake and noise. Since I will be using a different camera, one that I havn't used before I really just need some more general tips for this type of situation. I don't want the washed out pictures that I have from previous parties.

[wulf]

You could try "rear curtain" flash - it fires just at the end of the exposure. Combined with other lights going off in the room, you might get some interesting blur effects while still keeping the subject fairly clear.

Above all, take lots of pictures and keep at least a mental note of the things you tried. You will probably still end up with a lot of duds but hopefully you will get something useful and build your knowledge for the next time.

Wulf

[ELAY]

Your options are a bit limited with onboard flash. As you probably know, you can control flash intensity on your D40x, so experimenting there might help.

Also you could try to diffuse the flash a bit -- there are any number of creative ways to do this ranging from tissue paper, to bits of transparent colour paper, to clear film canisters. Google something like "homemade diffuser onboard flash" and you'll find lots of ideas.

And I agree that you could try to experiment with the rear curtain -- though it has never really worked for me.

EL

[Kiwijack]

How did your photos turn out?

You definitely need a better flash, like the SB600, then you can rotate it and bounce the light!