Pictures inside a restuarant?

[icdapoakr]

I'm taking pictures of this company Christmas dinner inside of Cheddars tomorrow night and I was wondering if anybody had any tips?

Little things even like ISO would help me out. I don't want to mess up because that would be embarrassinggggg.

[CaptainTom]

bone up on "dragging the shutter" and you'll be a stand out.

If you are using flash (duh!) keep the flash as far away from the camera as you can.
IF this doesn't make sense, try to stay away from on camera flash.

[texxter]

Originally Posted by icdapoakr

I'm taking pictures of this company Christmas dinner inside of Cheddars tomorrow night and I was wondering if anybody had any tips?

Little things even like ISO would help me out. I don't want to mess up because that would be embarrassinggggg.

I assume that you want to take pictures of the guests, wander around the tables and get some nice snapshots, yes? Also that you'll be working by yourself, and not with an assistant to hold flashes for you, correct?

This calls for hand-held, flash-assisted photography. The easiest way to get decent results is use an on-camera flash with a bounce, like a piece of white paper attached to the flash so that the light is diffused. This gives you more control than bouncing the flash. I would sync the flash to the slowest speed that allows you to get crisp, sharp pictures, hand-help. Depending on the lens, and whether you have image stabilization (VR for Nikon) you may go as low as 1/30 or 1/60, but don't push it because blurred pictures are going to be more embarrasing that crisp pictures with a dark background. Depending on your equipment, you may want to add a fill flash somewhere in the background, perhaps bouncing it off some white wall, to get some light in the background. I am familiar with Nikon only - you can do multiple flashes, all remotely controlled by the camera very easily.

Good luck!

Edit - ISO is not very important if you're using flash, but if you want to capture as much of the background as possible without a remote fill flash, use IS400 with a wide aperture. Some cameras produce very noisy images at high ISOs. If you have a Nikon D3 you don't need a flash, just shoot ISO 3200

[icdapoakr]

I think my old photography teacher might have picked up a D3. I'm pretty sure he's not going to let me borrow it. haha

thanks for the great advice. seriously. I had no idea about the ISO 400 and wide aperture trick.

I'm using a Canon XT with a 420ex speedlite. I made a little paper softbox for it and it diffuses the light pretty nice. I think i'm going to try and make another one for my pop-up flash and use the 420ex to fill in the background some. I have the IR transmitter also.

The lenses I'm going to use are the Sigma 15-30mm f/3.5-(i forgot) and 50mm f/1.8.