help with office party settings

[liverlipsyyz]

hi,

we're throwing a birthday party for a colleague in the office tomorrow and i'm wondering about some good settings to use. my indoor photos always turn out horrible (lighting, washed out faces from the flash, colour casts). i have a nikon d40 and a nikon sb400 flash. i like to use aperture priority but can also use manual or shutter priority. what settings would you recommend to get some good shots? there are no windows and the lighting is regular office type florescent lighting with hoods over the lights. should i be using some sort of in-camera setting for my sb400 flash (there's no settings on the flash itself).

thanks!

[AustinSTI]

Originally Posted by liverlipsyyz

hi,

we're throwing a birthday party for a colleague in the office tomorrow and i'm wondering about some good settings to use. my indoor photos always turn out horrible (lighting, washed out faces from the flash, colour casts). i have a nikon d40 and a nikon sb400 flash. i like to use aperture priority but can also use manual or shutter priority. what settings would you recommend to get some good shots? there are no windows and the lighting is regular office type florescent lighting with hoods over the lights. should i be using some sort of in-camera setting for my sb400 flash (there's no settings on the flash itself).

thanks!

My first question would be what lens are you using indoors? When shooting indoors with my D60 I almost always use my 50mm F/1.4G lens and an SB600. If you are setting your flash to auto/ttl then it'll determine how powerful the flash should be based on your settings for apeture/iso/shutter.

Sometimes I'll use the tele but I just don't have another lens that opens up like the 50. Given the setting you have described and that your light source will only be flourescent I would recommend going that route. If you don't have a 50 a good starter is the f/1.8D though it won't auto focus with the D40 its less than $200 and a great lens for low light/indoors.

Given that you say your images are washed I'd wager your either working with a slower lens and the flash has to fire stronger or you are pointing the flash directly the subject rather then bouncing off the ceiling or wall.

[Chip]

As AustinSTI said, bouncing the flash off the ceiling should help a great deal.

Also, it's important to let in light from other sources so that the flash isn't the main/overpowering light source. Fast glass will help (aside from DOF issues), but it's not critically important.

Letting in enough light can be done in manual or shutter priority mode, where you can select a long enough shutter. Then, the TTL flash should (generally speaking) add enough light balance out the exposure. Coupled with bouncing the flash, you should get a more pleasing, balanced shot than you would in aperture mode (where the camera might pick too fast a shutter for you).

If you have a chance to practice ahead of time, that could help a lot. Maybe try some shot in manual, with no flash, to get a feel for how much (or little) ambient light is actually in the room, and for how slow a shutter you can use without camera shake. Then, try adding the flash on a test subject to see how it works out.

Also, for white balance, to my eye, using a bare flash tends to produce bluer/cooler images than without a flash. So you might need to adjust the WB once you turn on your flash.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Edit: Just noticed I was too late with my comments. My apoliges. How did it go?