Digital Camera pointers for conferences

I’m not typically a big picture taker at ALA. However, many of my conference friends like to take pictures at conference. The problem with pictures at ALA (and other conferences) is that often the rooms that presentations take place in are dark. This creates a whole host of problems for taking pictures. You can use the flash but personally, as a speaker I find this distracting. As a result, I try not to take pictures with the flash during conference sessions. Also, depending on the power of your flash and the distance to what you are taking a picture of (a speaker on the stage for instance) a flash just won’t help you.

So what is a conference goer to do if they want to get good pictures (ie. Not blurry with trails) in low light? Here are a few tips that I learned from my friend Amanda (librarian and photographer extraordinaire) about taking good pictures by going manual. Digital cameras are not all that different from film cameras there are corresponding manual setting on the digital camera to a film camera.

1. ISO (film speed with the film camera) – The higher you set the ISO on your camera the lower the lighting can be. One issue with this is the higher you set the ISO the more “noise” you get in the photo. The grainer the picture is. Also, different cameras have different ISOs that you can set. Many point and shoot cameras only allow you to set the ISO as high as 400, while higher end SLRs will let you set the ISO at 800 or 1600 as well. (This has to do with the size of the sensor in the camera.)
2. Aperture (How far the shutter opens) – The larger shutter open is the more light will come in and you can take pictures at lower light. The downside is that changing the aperture can affect how much of a photo is in focus when the camera is focused on the main subject. So what you are taking the picture of might be in focus but the thing around it in the foreground of background may not. Macro-pictures of flowers are like this.
3. Shutter speed (how long the shutter says open) – if you set the shutter speed longer then the camera will take in more light and thus you can get better pictures in a dark setting. The problem is that if you leave the shutter open for longer the greater the chance is that the object you are photographing will move and you will get motion blur.

On many cameras you can change one, two or all three of these depending on what dial you set. So for example the “P” setting on most digital cameras will let you set the ISO manually but nothing else. Some cameras have settings on the dial that allow you to “prioritize” the shutter speed or aperture. So if you “prioritize” the shutter speed then you set the shutter speed and the camera will set the aperture to get the correct exposure. If you “prioritize” the aperture the reverse is true. You can also go completely manual and set all of these (the ISO, aperture and shutter speed) by hand. However, this is not for the faint of heart and I almost never do this.
Ultimately, the trick to getting a good picture is trial and error with these settings. Practice and learn what works in different settings and what doesn’t. With a digital camera you can experiment and delete the “bad” photos. I would suggest you play with one of these settings at a time so you can get a sense of how changing them affects the picture. Playing will give you a better sense of how your camera operates and what you need to do to get the best pictures.
For more information check out the advanced camera settings tutorial at Digicam Help which talks abou these settings and more.