We went to a birthday party on Sunday at the indoor action cricket and soccer center in Meyersdal. There were a bunch of 5, 6 and 7 year old boys and even a few brave girls and they had soooo much fun! What a brilliant idea for a party – it was wonderful for the mothers, we just sat upstairs and watched (okay I was on the field photographing most of the time) and the dad’s were on the field playing with the boys. The father’s even had game of soccer on their own (and runfortunately realised that they aren’t 20 anymore….)

Anyway, I had forgotten to charge my batteries for my flash and so I really battled to get some nice pics. So I decided I would write a post about indoor photography and give some tips on using flash and slow shutter speeds to get the required effects. Otherwise, you could end up with disastrous pics and will never be able to redo birthday photos again (well at least not until next year!)

Okay so first and foremost, when photographing indoors you need a flash (get the best one you can afford – the more the spend on the flash the better, it’s one of those things that is really worth spending money on). Secondly, you need charged batteries for the flash (the rechargeable ones are also a must). It sounds so obvious but it can be so frustrating when your batteries are slowing down and you need to capture some shots quickly. Thirdly, a tripod is needed in low light conditions which allows you to use slow shutter speeds (again a good tripod is recommended but not necessarily the best on the market).

Before taking any photographs, you need to decide whether you want to freeze movement or capture that feeling of movement (known as “panning”).

Both work well in different cases and both can be very tricky to master. Experimenting with these kind sof shots can be lots of fun. Okay, so to freeze movement, you need a fast shutter speed. the less time the shutter is open, the less the subject will move within the frame and the sharper it will appear. This is perfect for photographing speeding motorbikes, or children running or horses galloping. Photographing with flash also helps to freeze the movement.

Occassionally, there is some artistic merit in capturing the movement in a shot. The trick with panning is to try and capture the movement by blurring the background while still keeping the main subject in focus (otherwise the entire pic might be blurred and it just doesn’t work in most cases) Here you would use a slightly slower shutter speed and move your body and the camera across the frame following your subject as it passes you.  Panning is useful in sports photography, enabling you to capture subjects moving at speed across the frame with slower shutter speeds than would normally be advisable – letting you continue shooting in lower light. It allows you to blur the background even if you are not using a fast lens.

Finally, shooting the cake and the candles is often nice to photograph without flash as this gives you the ambient light of the candles (flash will wipe out the warmth of the candles giving it a cold sterile look) Ideally, you want to photograph this with a slow shutter speed to give you enough light. This is where your tripod comes in. Without it, your images will be blurred and out of focus. This works well but can be very tricky when photographing children (who never sit still). So my advice would be to capture the shots using flash and fast shutter speeds first and then go for the ambient feel with the slow shutter speed and the tripod – that way you are guaranteed of capturing that all important birthday!!!

Finally, make a wish and enjoy the birthday party!!