Tricky lighting

cheyneyk

Hello. I have the Cheat Sheets for this camera. I am a researcher and I need to know the best/closest cheat sheet to use for my situation. Most of the time I am photographing in elementary school classrooms with florescent lights. I have the kit lens and the Nikkor 35 mm 1:1.8 lens. I use both as sometimes I'm getting candids and other times I'm looking for more portrait style images. What's my best cheat sheet to use for each?

bruto

I imagine Moose would know better, but my guess would be for a family group indoors.

One thing I'd recommend in addition is that you shoot in NEF (Raw) file form if you can, so that you can adjust the white balance without penalties, as the color temperature may be quite variable depending on the the type of lights and how much they contribute to the overall.

I see from the cheat sheet for the D3200, which I imagine is quite similar, that manual exposure is recommended, along with a set ISO, both of which make sense. Once you have the subject correctly exposed, the camera's meter will not be tricked by window highlights or odd dark backgrounds. The unwanted highlights might still be blown out, so I'd recommend if possible keeping windows out of the frame as much as possible. Manual exposure's immunity to stray highlights is lost if you forget to turn off Auto ISO, though, so remember to do this, or the meter will reset ISO without telling you, and may end up underexposing the subjects.

Try to keep the light source facing people's faces. If it's all from above, it will tend to shadow their eyes. The more diffuse it is the better. IN extreme cases you could try fill flash (leave the exposure alone, and the camera will automatically set the flash to fill), but because the on-camera flash tends to make harsh shadows, it's better if you can do without.

cheyneyk

This helps a lot! Thank you