# How to take good photos inside dark church?



## scamel (Sep 5, 2006)

I have a compact Canon camera with manual functions. If I use a tripod will I get results? what else can I do? thanks.


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## Johnboy2978 (Sep 5, 2006)

What exactly are you taking pictures of?  Are you taking pics of the interior of the church itself or something like a wedding?  
In either case, you will want to use a tripod.  If you are taking interior shots, you might want to try HDR (high dynamic range imaging) where you set the aperture, then take about 5 shots at various shutter speeds, so that you get 5 shots at different levels of exposure (e.g., -2, -1, 0, +1, +2).  From there, you can put them all together in Photoshop and it will merge them so that each aspect of the pic is properly exposed.  I think you must be able to shoot in RAW for this though.  

If you are doing some wedding shots (or similar) I would say up adjust your settings until you can maintain at least a shutter speed of 1/125.  That will involve a combination of going to the wider apertures and higher film speeds.  The trade off is that you will get some digital grain, but you could remove that with some NR software like neat image.  An external strobe flash would help loads if permitted. 

Maybe make your question a little more specific.


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## usayit (Sep 5, 2006)

If you mean just pictures of the church itself, yes... tripod will get you results.  The results itself will be determined by you... the same techniques for night time photography apply.


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## ksmattfish (Sep 5, 2006)

And use a cable release or the timer function with the tripod.  You want to avoid moving the camera when pressing the shutter button.


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## scamel (Sep 5, 2006)

sorry, I meant for a wedding. I don't think I can put a cable release on my camera??


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## ksmattfish (Sep 6, 2006)

There are cable release adapters that strap around the camera body with velcro.  You just position it above the shutter button (so I suppose there are cameras it wouldn't work with because of shutter button location).  

There may be a remote shutter release available for your camera.

Even without a release the tripod will probably help, but to get maximum sharpness in a longer exposure you want to avoid touching/shaking the camera at all.


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