indoor shooting with x100 help please

[THC_SsSsSnake]

it is my sisters 70th birthday on thurs and we are all going for a meal.
i want to take some photos of the occasion and being a novice I would very much welcome any help offered with regards to possible settings
on my x100.
eg.do i set flash on auto or leave it off and use a higher iso etc.
thankyou in advance for any suggestions.

 

[Mekrel]

It's generally not recommended to shoot with flash as it flattens the image and isn't vert flattering for portrait shots, unless you can either bounce the light off a wall/object or diffuse the light from the flash with some tape.

Your best bet is to shoot wide open (F1.8), I assume that the lens can only be that wide open at 28mm focal length. You'll need to balance the ISO and shutter speed dependant on how well lit the enviroment is and how active your subjects are. You want the slowest shutter speed possible that doesn't produce motion blur, allowing you to keep the ISO as low as possible.

Shooting as wide as F1.8 is going to give you a fairly shallow depth of field though, so shooting groups of people and keeping everyone in focus will prove difficult if they're not at the same distance across the focus pane.

 

[Mr.Stu]

You are in luck, the x100 handles low light, high iso very well.

Feel free to use upto ISO3200, it's better than having to use the flash.

Use aperture priority at F2 (its a little soft, but better than blur) or 2.8. Watch the shutter speed pre shot, anything slower than 1/40s is going to potentially blur your image.

For reference, I took this (handheld) at iso3200 with an x100 last year.

 

[THC_SsSsSnake]

Thankyou very much guys,will practice over the next 3 days. And nice pic Mr Stu