Beginner Many questions!! (Dark pictures, blurry pictures, little sharpness)

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SushiRoll

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Hi everyone!

I'm new to the forum and photography and as expected I have a lot of questions that I thought would be better to ask in one thread rather than opening a lot at the same time. I have read a lot about the basics, aperture, shutter speed, ISO and their relationship but right now I'm struggling with the practice. I'm using a Canon 2000D with the 18-55 mm lens that comes with it.
Yesterday just to take a few practice shots I took a picture of random objects in my living room, the lighting is that of an usual living room, warm but bright enough, I set the aperture as low as it would go (3.5 or 5.6) and to keep things less grainy, I picked 200 ISO, my problem was that the fastest shutter speed that would allow me to get a decent exposure was 1 sec. Obviously, by increasing the ISO to 800 I could get faster shutter speeds, around 1/80 or so, so not really fast. What am I doing wrong? I've seen places like here ( photography life.com/iso-shutter-speed-and-aperture-for-beginners) that people are able to shoot, at 1/2000 using 450 ISO. If I would do that, I would get totally black pictures.
Another question is, I don't seem to be able to stay still while taking a picture and thus my pictures are blurry, even more if my shutter speed needs to be so slow! I have tried different standing techniques and pressing my elbows to the side of my body but I still fail, do you have any other recommendations?
Finally, I don't seem to manage to get a large area of focus, for example, if I take a picture of a person and I focus on the eyes, I can get decent sharpness there but it drops by the mouth, if there are two people in the scene, then one get a little less focus than the other. I have made my best effort to align everyone so that they're in the same focal plane and should not be affected by the aperture I choose, right?
I would love to upload some samples but I'm not at home right now, I'm shooting RAW by the way.

Any help or suggestion would be very much appreciated. Thanks, thanks, thanks!
 
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Hi and welcome to the forum - you've come to the right place. :)

Photography is a huge subject, so don't be too tough on yourself - it will improve as your understanding of light increases. The camera and lens is nowhere near as important as your understanding of this.

As a beginner, don't try and photograph anything at less than 1/125th - after a bit of practice you can drop to 1/60th, but faster will always be better to stop camera shake (your blurring). I try not to shoot anything at less than a 1/250th unless I really have to (older cameras using film) and I got my first camera in 1967.

To take pictures indoors without adding extra lighting/flash can be tricky and you will need a tripod, so don't do it until you've mastered shooting in good light.

With your aperture set wide, you're limiting your depth of field which is why you're having parts of the face (and other people) out of focus.

Take a look on YouTube for tutorial videos - there are lots and they are free. Mike Brown is one that comes to mind as being well thought of, but I'm sure other people will be along soon to recommend some more.

Good luck . . .
 
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Hi Sky,
Thank you very much for your welcome, help and tips :). I'll start shooting outside with good light and getting used to it. It's a good thing to know that what I tried to do is tricky for a beginner and not that I've messed up on something easy.
Regarding the aperture, I thought that if my subjects were aligned (Side by side) the depth of field shouldn't affect how the looked regarding the focus, I guess I was wrong :LOL:. I guess I'll start by closing my aperture a little, maybe f/8.
I have checked a lot of videos and blogs but I have a looooong way to go, I hope I'll be sharing lots of pictures in the future and contributing to the community!
 
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SushiRoll said:
Regarding the aperture, I thought that if my subjects were aligned (Side by side) the depth of field shouldn't affect how the looked regarding the focus, I guess I was wrong :LOL:.
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What you're referring to here is a 'focal plane' and you're correct in your understanding.

If two subjects are exactly level on a focal plane, they should both have a similar level of focus. There are other aspects to take into account though.

Your aperture (as you've noted) has a direct impact on the depth of your focal plane, however so does your distance to subject for example. The closer you get to a subject, the shallower your depth of field becomes.

As an extreme example of this, I shoot Macro and also landscapes.

With a macro shot I'm generally within centimetres of my subject, yet even at f/16, parts of the image are out of focus. If I shoot a landscape at dusk and my subject is a house 50 feet away, even at something super wide like f/1.4 the house and much of the rest of the image will be in focus.

Hopefully that makes some sense!
 
Try putting the mode dial to P and the ISO to auto and seeing what the camera suggests. You don't have to use it like that, but it will at least give you a feel for what is needed.

Also may be worth trying your middle finger on the shutter button, some people are better "squeezing instead of pushing" using their middle finger.
It also frees up your index finger for the front wheel, so no changing of position is needed.
Doesn't help for everybody, but for some it makes a big difference.
 
Hey all!

Sorry for the late reply and thanks for all the suggestions.

@Adam-G Thanks for the explanation, It's good to know I had at least part of the theory right. The distance to the subjects was something I hadn't considered.

@Suvv That's a great tool to complement what Adam said, thanks for giving me something to procrastinate!

@Sangoma I've been doing that and taking mental notes, still indoor photography seems to be a challenge for me, I guess it's just a matter of practice and understanding light, specially the fact that even if the room has a good lighting for my eyes, it's still "low light" for my camera.

By the way, I have been taking some outdoors shots and the result was quite acceptable for a newbie.

Thanks everyone once again!
 
SushiRoll said:
..
Yesterday just to take a few practice shots I took a picture of random objects in my living room, the lighting is that of an usual living room, warm but bright enough, ...
Click to expand...
Hi, and welcome
You've learned the first lesson of photography - our eyes and brain are amazing at handling different light levels - and it's easy to be fooled into thinking a scene is bright enough when, as far as the camera is concerned, it's too dark.
With a bit of practice you will learn how to retrain your brain to get a better feel for light levels.

As already suggested, shooting outside is easier initially (well, apart from the cold, wet winter weather we have at present :( ).
 
How dark is your living room? What may seem bright to you may not be so bright for somebody else or your camera. Remember that your eyes have the ability to adjust themselves very quickly to let in more light as and when required.

With a kit lens at f3.5 or f5.6 and ISO 200, a 1 second exposure seems about right.
A 1/2000s exposure is really only going to be achieved in bright sunlight.

As long as the exposure meter on your camera is centred then you need to learn to trust that the camera has the exposure technically correct and you are not doing anything wrong. As you learn you will find that the camera doesn't always get it perfect depending on the scene and you may override the cameras decision using exposure compensation but for the most part the camera will be correct within a stop or two.
 
Hey Jonathan!

Thanks for the welcome. Yes, lesson learned, I guess it's just a matter of practice now. Luckily (and surprisingly) winter is not as hard as it should be where I'm living right now so I can still enjoy outdoors photography
 
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