A Question of Light

[blinkblink]

I took this picture this morning. It was taken in a bright, naturally lit room. The only way I could get the picture to be properly exposed was by setting the ISO to 1600 and opening the aperture quite wide. I was quite disappointed with the result. Am I missing something here? Shouldn't I get better results?

The first shot is the image straight out of the camera and cropped to the fit the image on a screen. The second picture is the same image but just resized. I did not do any post processing. The EXIF follows.

I'd appreciate any help I can get.
Chris






ExposureTime - 1/80 seconds
FNumber - 3.50
ExposureProgram - Shutter priority
MaxApertureValue - F 3.48
MeteringMode - Multi-segment
LightSource - Auto
Flash - Not fired
FocalLength - 19.00 mm
ColorSpace - sRGB
ExposureMode - Auto
WhiteBalance - Auto
DigitalZoomRatio - 1 x
FocalLengthIn35mmFilm - 28 mm
SceneCaptureType - Standard
GainControl - Low gain up
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - Normal
Sharpness - Normal
ISO Setting - 1600
Image Quality - FINE
White Balance - AUTO
Image Sharpening - AUTO
Focus Mode - AF-A
Flash Setting - NORMAL
Flash Mode -
White Balance Adjustment -
Exposure Adjustment - ÷

Flash Compensation - þ

ISO 2 - @
Tone Compensation - AUTO
AF Focus Position - Center
Bracketing -
Color Mode - MODE3a
Light Type - NATURAL
Noise Reduction - OFF
Optimization - NORMAL

[blinkblink]

Soory, forgot to mention that the camera is a D50 with the kit lens. I bought it the day before yesterday. So I have no real idea what I'm doing.


Chris

[MattC]

Chris,

It looks like you hit the limits of aperture for your shutter speed (shutter priority?) for the available light. The only thing left for you was to bump the ISO or to use extra lighting (internal or external speedlight). You chose ISO, I probably would have gone for the speedlight on this shot. Lowering your shutter speed to around 1/10s would have also got you there at ISO200 but that is outside reasonable handheld range. ISO800 F3.5 and 1/40s would be more reasonable.

[pippin88]

Our eyes are great at adjusting to lower or higher levels of light. If you leave a house that looks reasonably lit, and go outside, everything might be too bright, but you'll soon adjust.

Cameras don't really adjust. To expose a darker scene they have to use longer shutter speeds, and / or wider apertures. ISO adjusts the sensitivity to light, so upping the ISO (as you've obviously worked out) lets you take photos where you couldn't normally.

So in escence, its often the case that what looks like a reasonable amount of light actually isn't - for a camera.

[blinkblink]

Ahh, I learn more.

I just went upstairs and took that same shot (minus the dogs) with my 5 year old Olympus P&S. The EXIF on that said that it used an aperture of 2.8 and shutter speed of 1/30. The ISO was 250. It was still kind of grainy. It's focal length was 5.6mm.

I then tried the same again with the D50. If I used a focal length of 18mm, I could set the aperture to Ff3.5, shutter to 1/30 and ISO to 800 and took a reasonable shot. Probably still needs a flash.

Thank you, at least it's me and not the camera.

Chris

[Zeeke]

dont know if it'll help you.. but it might, but i shoot fotos for the length of the lense.. if its a 18-50.. id be using 1/40 or 1/50... slows it down a bit.. but should increase the brightness a bit more

Tim