Taking good indoor pics for Ebay auctions...

[Chad]

I prefer to take pictures outside, but the weather could be better and I'm not home a whole lot during daylight hours. Anyway, I've been trying to take some pics for Ebay auctions inside. Arrgghhhhh....frustrating.

I never realized what a seeming dungeon I live in. At my prior house, there were bright fluorescent lights in the basement and I was able to take decent pics. But here I don't really have any bright lights. It seems like I am battling with not getting enough light and the pics are turning out too dark. If I use my camera's flash, then I get unnatural blobs of light on the items I'm photographing.

Any tips? I'm wondering if I should go to a hardware store and get SOMETHING to get some bright light in here.....like a clamp shoplight sort of thing.

BTW, my camera is a Canon A610.

[danastas]

I have the same problem and only one thing works for me: turn off all the lights and take pictures in the dark. As long as you have the red spotlight on, so you can aim correctly, the pictures should come out crisp and clear. Not as good as outdoor pictures, but the best pictures for in the home.

[Number Of The Priest]

Adequate ambient light of a uniform grade. Either all tungsten bulbs of similar color temperature, fluorescent bulbs of similar color temperature, or sunlight only. Try not to mix.

Bump up your camera's exposure (EV).

Set up your camera on a sturdy surface or tripod.

Use your countdown timer mode if necessary so you don't touch the camera at the moment of snapping the photo.

I take 100% of my shots indoors. Everybody on the JCF has seen my guitar photos. And my camera has the reputation for being really, REALLY crappy at less-than-optimal light condition (non-outdoors) shots. I make this look GOOOOOD.

[VitaminG]

I've had reasonable success using a cheap halogen desk lamp pointed toward the guitar in addition to the room lighting. And disable the flash. I keep the room lighting on so that I'm not getting harsh shadows from the desk lamp.

[Kurtma]

The trick is to use a low aperture value (Referred as the "FX.X" in the cameras display whereas the X stands for a digit). Then, however, you need a tripod or something to steady it up because the exposure time will become so long that every pic you will take by hand will be blurry. (Unless you have a very steady hand)

So, low aperture value is the key so that so much natural lightning as possible gets exposed. One more thing: NEVER EVER use the camera's flash (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) if you want good pics.

This assuming that your camera has some manual setting capabilities, but I believe the A610 has that. Check for "AV" or something on your buttons!

Hope this helps you out.

[OnlineStageGear]

Yep, follow the advice given here.

[Chad]

I played around a bit late last night and it seemed that lengthening the shutter speed had more effect than bumping the aperture with my particular camera. With the lowest aperture setting, my camera maxed at a 1 second shutter speed. Manually, it can go as much as 15 seconds. With my limited time last night, a 5 second shutter speed seemed to be giving decent results.

What kind of shutter speed range do you fellas use?

Also, can anybody recommend a good photography book? I kinda got my interest peaked by playing around with the manual controls.....gotta learn more about shutter speed, aperture, exposure, etc......