low natural light settings

[lilpamely]

In a low light setting, I want to take a picture using the natural lighting. The problem is that I want a sharp picture, little or no noise plus no blurs. I'm shooting with a Canon 5D mark ii and a 50mm f1.8.

I set the camera in AV but the shutter speed drops to 1/8 or 1/15. When I take a picture of my son, he comes out of focus. If I set it to Manual with an aperture of f/1.8 and shutter speed of 60+ (80 or 100) and the iso to 800. The image comes out to dark and with some noise. The higher the iso, the more noise I'm getting. I don't want to use a flash, I want to capture the natural setting. Any suggestions.

[texxter]

You may try a tripod and asking your subject to stay still. BTW, using a flash can still preserve the mood that natural lighting provides, assuming you reflect it or diffuse it or both.

[dryicerx]

Unfortunately this is nasty situation to be in, and you seem to have tried the options, and those options have the nasty side effects of causing high ISO or blur due to longer shutter...

I can suggest you try using a tripod or making sure the camera is at least still as possible.

Bounce the flash?

[lilpamely]

I have bounced the flash but I'm not getting the same effect. I can and have used a tripod but my little boy moves and the image is not sharp like I want it.

lilpamely added 7 Minutes and 50 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

I guess I can use the bounce the flash and lower the expose level. I was really trying to stay away from using the flash. For no particular reason. I just really didn't want to use it.
Thanks for all your help

[PhotoByLeal]

Originally Posted by lilpamely

In a low light setting, I want to take a picture using the natural lighting. The problem is that I want a sharp picture, little or no noise plus no blurs. I'm shooting with a Canon 5D mark ii and a 50mm f1.8.

I set the camera in AV but the shutter speed drops to 1/8 or 1/15. When I take a picture of my son, he comes out of focus. If I set it to Manual with an aperture of f/1.8 and shutter speed of 60+ (80 or 100) and the iso to 800. The image comes out to dark and with some noise. The higher the iso, the more noise I'm getting. I don't want to use a flash, I want to capture the natural setting. Any suggestions.

That 5D MK II should be able to go to 3200 ISO with out noise!
I have a D7oo and it does awesome @ 3200!

Why don't you post a picture @ ISO 8oo and another @ ISO 32oo....

later,
angel m. leal jr.

[texxter]

The tripod only helps with camera shake and not subject movement, obviously. If you have low light and a moving subject, you don't want high ISO, and you're shooting at f/1.8, I am afraid that the only solution is to add light. To achieve a natural effect you can place the flash outside the house by a window, diffuse it as it goes thru the window, with rip nylon for example, and that will closely emulate window light. Bouncing off the ceiling will not give the same effect, but bouncing it off a white wall may get closer. Flash is your friend if you use it properly. It will allow you to get high shutter speeds, which are needed to freeze a moving boy.

Here are two images taken with flash. Hopefully you cannot tell they were done with flash.

[THE NiKoNiAn]

The second shot is excellent! Would you mind sharing your flash use and settings?

[lilpamely]

I love the first picture, that is what I'm looking for. What settings did you have on the first picture? How was your flash set if you don't mind me asking.

[texxter]

Pamela, most natural looking pictures you see on location are done with a combination of flash and ambient light, like the two above. Both images used a single SB-800 portable flash inside a Photoflex X-small softbox. For these shots I used the built-in Nikon CLS remote flash triggering system, but I'll show you another image below where the flash was controlled manually. I think I used a CTO 1/4 or 1/2 filter to add some warmth to the scene.

Image #1
I placed the softbox to my daughter's right, to achieve "short lighting" - the lens on the D700 was a 35mm f/2 fully open at 1/60s, ISO 200.

Image #2
The softbox is placed on a stand slightly to the left of the camera, pointing down to my daughter. D700 with 85mm f/1.4, ISO 200, 1/60s and f/2 to keep a shallow depth of field. With the CLS system I trigger the flash wirelessly from the camera without having to set the power manually. The camera did it for me.

There was very little ambient light for an exposure at f/2, 1/60 - the warmth you see was actually produced by flash light with the color shifted to (mild) tungsten via a CTO gel.

In the image below I had enough ambient to do a correct exposure for the window, 1/80s at f/5, but this would have rendered the subject dark. So I placed the same small softbox to camera left, as you can see below. I set the flash manually to give a correct exposure at f/5 and I took this test. The second photo was done with those settings, but with the flash moved to the other side, to camera right, to achieve short lighting.

I highly recommend learning off-camera flash - http://strobist.com is a good resource.

Good luck!
-Paco

[texxter]

Pamela, here are two more examples.

Image #1 - 1/6s @ f/5.6. Two flashes were used, one mounted with an umbrella to camera right with a full CTO gel, and another behind the frosted glass to make the background blue when the WB was set to tungsten. Note that the shutter speed is very low to capture whatever ambient light existed, which wasn't much. Hopefully the use of flash is not obvious.

Image #2 - in a small area in Carol's house - there is a portable flash shot thu an umbrella. f/3.5, i/60s, CTO gel. I used TTL/CLS to set the flash.

[Yama]

I like the lighting of image 2 with the guy reading.. looks very natural.

And the strobist website is great. He has short clip of his strobist dvd set on the website if you want to watch him set up a shot.

[toverman]

Paco's examples of achieving natural-looking light are fantastic.

If you still want to use only ambient light, you've just got to find a time of day or location with more of it. I know that sounds kind of silly to say, but that's the truth. Your camera should produce noise-free images at very high ISOs, but only if the images are properly exposed to begin with. As simple as turning on a few (non-overhead) lights and setting your white balance to take out any offending tints, you can get good results.

[luis_relampago]

Mixing available lighting with strobes is not an easy task but Paquito's examples are very nice and proof that it can be done if you do it correctly. My question why are you only using ISO 800 in your 5DMKII? I shoot at 3200 and 6400 all the time on my 5DMII/50 1.4 combo and the results are great.

[lilpamely]

I tried 1600 and 3200 but I'm getting a grainy effect and noise lines. I need to give it another try with my tripod and see if it makes a difference(again my little boy and girl do move which gives me the blur effect). I keep hearing that you don't get noise at 1600 or 3200 but I keep seeing it. I wonder if its my lens. I'm using the Canon 50mm f1.8 with its not very fast but I like the results with perfect lighting conditions. I just order a 24-70 f/2.8 and I can't decided on either 85mm f1.2 or 135mm f/2.0

Thanks again for everyones help. Its been very useful

[ldelacruz]

Originally Posted by lilpamely

I tried 1600 and 3200 but I'm getting a grainy effect and noise lines. I need to give it another try with my tripod and see if it makes a difference(again my little boy and girl do move which gives me the blur effect). I keep hearing that you don't get noise at 1600 or 3200 but I keep seeing it. I wonder if its my lens. I'm using the Canon 50mm f1.8 with its not very fast but I like the results with perfect lighting conditions. I just order a 24-70 f/2.8 and I can't decided on either 85mm f1.2 or 135mm f/2.0

Thanks again for everyones help. Its been very useful

You should really post a picture to get the best help. I am sure your noise issue is from extremely low light also you should set your WB. You can get acceptable results from 1600 and 3200 in decent light but if there is only dim light then even ISO 800 will have noise.

P.S. A tripod will not help the noise.