Drag to set position!
kbsai:imo, stick with the 17-50 and add a flash if you have it, if not, learn how to "tame" the popup flash to prevent it from being too harsh.
17-50, VC or non-VC won't matter if your subjects are moving. You need a shutter speed fast enough (for me, 1/60 is the minimum).
Still, for most indoor events, I will require flash to get a good shutter speed at decent ISO
kbsai:I personally dislike the popup flash because of the harsh light it produces. What I meant about "Taming it" means to diffuse it by other means of diffuser or other creative methods.
If you have a external speedlite, you may want to try it and see if it works, since you have never attached it to your camera. It can be used to bounce off the ceilings (if it's not too high) for diffused light.
I won't be wanting to play with off camera flash in an event/party where time (and timing) is of the essence. Simply too much hassle for me. hand holding it may potentially affect your ability to get a shot without handshake. (since you will be holding the camera setup in one hand, flash on the other hand), if you are using a light stand, you will be spending time on getting the light stand to position or such stuffs.
kbsai:typically 3rd party flash won't spoil your camera... I've been using Nissin and Yongnuo speedlites on my camera 500d and 5d since the day I bought my flashes.
When I meant that VC won't matter is because of the shutter speed you will likely be shooting at. For such shutter speed to freeze movement in your frame during a party, it will likely be around 1/80 to 1/160s. For those shutter speed, it's hard for me to get any handshake... YMMV.
If it's indoor and lighting is not likely to change, I'll keep it to manual. As far as I'm concerned, I don't feel that my past shots are lacking in sharpness even when shooting wide open. You may want to find out where your tolerance of sharpness is.
DOF is another matter itself, I will adjust this accordingly, personally, I stuck mine to f4 to f5.6 if I'm going to fast paced shooting to get enough depth (I won't want to be blurring a face or an ear). If you have the luxury to be tweaking with effects, you can set any aperture value you want to get "optimized" image quality...
For whatever shutter speed, keep it below 200 (or 250). Because anything faster than that, you may see "lines" caused by florescent lighting. (Consider reading up : "photography fluorescent light flickering" from Google search.)
kbsai:If you are going to be shooting from some distance AND you want sharp image throughout the frame (I'm assuming you meant, everything in focus), you may want to take consideration of the focal length, aperture and focusing distance.... www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
e.g. at 100mm, f5.6, subject at 5m away, you will only get a 50cm depth of field. anything beyond that range will not be in focus. (It will be a good time to learn about the DOF if you have not heard of it)
For close ups, it also depends on the DOF.. being too close and using f2.8 might result in losing focus in some areas.
If you are using auto focusing points, stop using that and start selecting your own focusing points. leaving it to the camera to decide often leads to focusing disasters.
kbsai:To put it short, if you want all subjects in focus, use a wide angle (18-35) and go in and shoot. When using a wider focal length, you don't need to stop down as much to get all things in focus.
If you are going to want EVERYTHING in focus at a telephoto focal length (>100mm), be prepared to fire a blindingly powerful flash to compensate for the lack of light at f15 (? 16 you mean?). I doubt it will come to that. Because, you won't have the space/clearance to get that kind of shot with your guests around. I would say, your max distance would be 2-3m at furthest.
Also, in the event you do have that space, To be very honest, I won't bother about getting those telephoto shots (since you will only be getting like maximum 1-3 person in the frame only AND maybe only 1-10 shots of the 300s you will be shooting that day).
For close-ups, the theory is the same as macro. The nearer you are, the lesser the DOF. No defying physics. even f22 have it's limits with how much DOF you have. I personally think you will NOT want to have EVERYTHING in focus when going close up. As that shot will be particularly messy with nothing to focus your eyes on.
I tend not to change lens unnecessarily. Changing lens for just 1-2 shots and changing back is time lost (opportunity lost). From how you have been phrasing your questions, I believe you are very inexperience in such situations (and also about your equipment).
My suggestion is to stick to 1 lens for the whole event. You won't go wrong sticking with 17-50 and a flash on it. You are overly concerned about things you should not be concerning yourself with.
*IF you are referring to just getting a group photo of the whole room, you will be using a wide angle focal length at ~17mm, even f5.6 will do fine, heck, I shoot at f3.5*
kbsai: I agree with SkyStrike's suggestion to use the Program (P) mode if you're not sure of the correct exposure parameters to use.Your camera's P mode supports Program Shift by turning the command wheel (next to the shutter button), which offers you several shutter and aperture combinations that will still give you the correct exposure. However you'll have to determine whether the shutter speed that's suggested by your dSLR is too slow for the shooting conditions - if it's too slow for your liking, just turn the command wheel and your camera will change the shutter speed and match the aperture value accordingly.
Actually, there's nothing wrong with using Programmed AE. In the early 70s, Canon's 35mm film SLRs offered only manual exposure, until the famous AE-1 came out in 1977.
In addition to M mode, the AE-1's selling point was its shutter priority feature (Tv mode) which allowed the photographer to lock in the desired shutter speed while the camera automatically chooses the right aperture for the correct exposure. Canon sold millions of the AE-1 and sports photographers loved this camera.
Sometime in 1978, Canon came out with the legendary flagship A-1 model - which was its first ever, multi-mode SLR. The A-1 not only had shutter priority exposure mode first introduced in the AE-1; it also had aperture priority (Av) and fully automatic Programmed AE (P) mode. Professional photographers loved the "P" mode because the camera gave them the freedom to concentrate and manually focus on the subject.
Sometime in late 1981, Canon improved on the popular AE-1 SLR and announced the AE-1 Program. It too became an instant hit amongst hobbyists - it was about 40% cheaper than the high-end A-1 and also offered the Programmed AE mode as an option. By the time Canon's first EOS camera - the EOS 650 came out in 1987, it had the same multi-mode exposure features the original A-1 had, plus auto-focusing.
Remember that not all professional photographers shoot on Manual exposure or Av all the time. What's more important that they use the right exposure mode depending on the situation. It doesn't mean by using the P mode their photography skills are poor. Photo journalists and newspaper photographers sometimes use the Program mode in fluid situations when they cannot afford to miss a shot while fiddling with the camera's settings. :o)
kbsai:Hi, due to my current lack of stable internet connection, I wasn't able to view the images. Will look at them once I've get it.
But some of the questions you asked. E.g. af not working.
You have to remember, af works using contrast detection (for older models at least), when there is little contrast, the af will not be able to lock on focus.
As for the rows of kids, my best guess without looking at the image is due to your depth of field.
Large aperture like f2.8 will result in shallow dof which translate into lesser things in focus when they are not on same focal pane.
As for the flash, I can only guess that it's probably because it's manual flash, so the exif wasn't captured. But my manual yongnuo flash is detected..
kbsai:There are actually four factors that affect DoF:
1. The aperture selected. The larger the aperture, the shallower the DoF.
2. The lens' focal length. The wider the lens' field-of-view, the deeper the DoF. This is why even at f/2.8, you're able to get the entire group of kids in the frame nicely in focus - because you shot it at 17mm.
3. The distance to the nearest subject. The closer you are to the subject, the shallower the DoF. The kids' faces at the back will look more in focus than the ones in front.
4. The imaging sensor size. The smaller the sensor, the deeper the DoF becomes. This is why with smartphones it's difficult to achieve shallow DoF because they are typically fitted with 1/3" sensors with a 4.1mm fixed lens. The combination of both tiny sensor and a very wide angle lens allows you to take selfies at arms' length and get even the background in near perfect focus.
You'll need to read up on depth-of-field here. Understanding DoF is part and parcel of learning photography, regardless of the camera and/or lens type used.
kbsai:The below are just my opinion. You don't have to agree with them... Neither am I a pro to judge anything...
*Compositions asides, below are my opinions*
It may sound like bull crap, but the main reason why this happened is because of how light travels. If you are going to fire a flash at a subject given a distance, the objects in front will be brighter than the object behind. And looking at the people behind, you have underexposed quite a fair bit. For this scenario, I would have metered for the people in the scene (thus blowing the highlights: outside the windows). *I would not have fired flash in this case*
The other 'possibility' is, I could have exposed for the window, and use a snoot on the flash to prevent the lighting up of the foreground element, but it may or may not work. depending on the scene....
In this case, you have overexposed. Caused by the flash if you have fired. Since some of the kids are near to the windows, they are being lighted up more than the kids on the left. Playing with the angle of the flash may be what I will do. (Meaning, turning my flash to hit the left side of the frame, lighting just the inside)
If you are saying that this shot does not have the DOF, it's because of the aperture you are using AND the subject distance.
Regards.
kbsai:Hi,
For the first photo. You NEED to know what is your main subject. In this case, the ONLY thing in focus is the 2 children with back facing you.
Metering for the people, what I meant is exposing your shot to make sure that the people are properly exposed. (You might want to refer to the manual as well as other online articles about metering modes and how to use them)
2nd shot, since the background of a reflective material, it's near impossible to prevent the overexposed bit when you are firing a light source (flash) at it.
DOF. it's all math. www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
If you want more depth (all in focus), you can only play with the aperture, distance between you and the subject. If you HAVE to get EVERYONE along that line in focus, I think you might have to step a couple of steps back and use a f8 or smaller aperture.
There are the basics that you need to know in order to answer the above questions. Aperture and how it affects the DOF and exposure. The flash part requires a number of reading as well.... which I myself am still learning.
While trying to digest the above paragraphs, I thought it might be beneficial for you to also start some reading on compositions.