68 DIGITAL CAMERA^ FEBRUARY 2022 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com
Indoor close-up tips
You won’t go wrong if you...
1
Experiment with the aperture:
Wide apertures such as f/2.8, f/1.8
and f/1.4 might reduce the depth
of field to a sliver of sharpness when you’re
shooting at close distances, but the effect
this has on background details – particularly
dots of light – can be mesmerising.4
Use a tripod: You’ll often have to
deal with longer exposure times
when you’re working indoors.
If the room you’re shooting in is carpeted,
consider putting a weighty book or similar
object under each tripod foot, in order
to reduce carpet ‘bounce’.5
Focus manually: A camera’s
autofocus system can end up
hunting back and forth when
you’re shooting in low light. Switch to
manual focus and use the magnified image
on the Live View display (or in the EVF of
a mirrorless camera) to focus accurately.2
Add more light: From a simple white
reflector to flash bounced off the
ceiling or diffused through a softbox,
there are many ways that you can embellish
the ambient light when you shoot indoors.
If you’re using flash, consider adding a
colour-correction lighting gel to bring the
colour of the flash closer to that of the
existing lights, for a more natural result.3
Set a white balance preset: If the
subject is lit by ‘warm’ or coloured
LED lights, Auto White Balance may
end up trying to neutralise the colour in the
light that you’re trying to capture.used to show the subject in a
different light, too. Lighting a subject from
behind to create a silhouette is a useful trick
when the object has perhaps seen better
days. You might need to overrule the
camera’s choice of exposure in this
instance, as it may increase the brightness
in order to show detail in the subject.
To remedy this, dial in some negative
exposure compensation to make the
subject dark and take another shot.
Alternatively, use Manual mode and
set the exposure yourself, using the
brightness histogram as a guide.How about shooting a time-lapse sequence,
where still images are shot at regular
intervals and then combined in a short
video clip? A chocolate figure or a shape
made of ice, melted in stages with the help
of hairdryer, makes an easy and controllable
subject, and your camera may have an
intervalometer or even a time-lapse
movie mode to make things easy.
How about trying one of the techniques
we’ve covered in recent issues, such as
painting a still-life setup with a torch or
trying a multiple exposure? The sky (or
rather, the ceiling) is the limit!There are plenty of
easy techniques that
can be used to show
the subject in a
different lightCutting out a custom
aperture is a useful trick
to add a unique quality
to indoor shots.SPONSORED BY