Interior Church Help ?

[Darkninja462]

I have been asked to photograph the new priest for our local church tomorrow, and was wondering if anyone could offer some advice ? fairly new to photographing, only had my camera since November, what tips/tricks would people give. It will take place during the service and then afterwards in a hall, already had a briefing on what I can and can't do in church

Thanks

Ninja

[Nicole]

What kind of gear will you be shooting with? And what's the light like in the church during the service? That will help people offer some advice.

[Darkninja462]

I knew I forgot something

I have a Sony A350 + 18-70:3.5-5.6 + 70-200:4-5.6 (not top of the line stuff)

and it will be ~18:00+ but it is usually quite bright in there, iso800 I guessed from my experience, correct me if I'm wrong.

Ninja

[i speak in math]

I did this one when no one was at the church. I had one shoot through umbrella for my lighting. If its during the service, you probably won't be able to do any sort of lighting. However, if these shots are for an assignment, make sure you get the shot, and don't let the quietness/spiritual nature of the church keep you in the back or in your seat. Do what you are assigned and get the shot; however you have to. If you can use artificial lighting, like bouncing a flash or something during the hall shots, you might get better results.

[Nicole]

It's ok, it's easy to forget the little things.

A good starting point is ISO 800, yes. You might need to go higher when you start taking the pictures (since our eyes tend to trick us into seeing things brighter than they are), but it's definitely a good place to start. I'll start with the total basics, so start reading when it hits your level of comfort

The first really basic advice is make sure you're using a fast enough shutter speed that your photos aren't turning out blurry from motion shake. So, that's usually 1/focal length. But you also have to make sure you're shooting fast enough that the person isn't moving in the frame (not too likely to be a problem, but if you were shooting at say, 1/20s the person might be moving during that time). If you aren't used to shooting in Manual mode, I'd probably start out with Shutter priority mode to get a fast enough shutter speed for the situation and then let the camera sort the rest. Otherwise I'd probably start with a shutter speed of around 1/100-1/125 just as a starting point and adjust from there with the aperture / ISO, but I figure the aperture would be pretty much wide open.

As far as which lens to use, it would depend on the church, but my first thought would probably be the 70-200mm lens during the service because odds are you won't be right there in front of the priest during that. I'd probably switch to the 18-70mm lens when you're shooting in the hall after because you might not have as much room there.

I'd shoot RAW so that you can adjust the white balance to get more accurate colours throughout. As far as colour I'd worry a bit about the possibility of different casts from different lights or even from windows mixing together. So rather than using a custom WB and trying to remember to change it from service to reception, I'd probably shoot RAW (but if you don't know what you're doing with that, go RAW + jpg if you can).

Those are my thoughts. Hope some of that helps! Good luck!

[Darkninja462]

Thank you for the advice, I always shoot in RAW now as I have been shown the benefits of it especially in post production, I will try out Shutter priority then, can always switch round if I don't get on with it ,
Thank you for the advice its clarified my thoughts and added some detail into them

Live saver

Ninja