The best lens for indoor photography without flash? Canon, Nikon and more.
The best lens for indoor photography without flash is a prime lens with a large aperture, this will help you get more light into your camera’s sensor and enable you to capture the images with more detail.
If you’re looking for the best lens for indoor photography without flash, then you’re in luck. We’ve rounded up a list of our favorite lenses, filters and related equipment that’ll help you take epic photos indoors without lugging around a lot of heavy gear.
It has a standard fixed focal length and aperture, and is designed for use with all of the cameras in the Canon APS-C mirrorless camera family.
Low light indoor photography settings
When it comes to indoor photography without flash, the best lens for indoor photography nikon is the Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM. It’s a very sharp prime that produces beautiful bokeh and great color in all types of light. Because it’s an 85mm focal length, this lens is also perfect for portraiture and getting closer to your subject. It’ll be especially good if you want your shots to really stand out because it has less distortion than its 75mm counterparts… The Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM is a great option for those who want a fast autofocus lens with excellent image quality built in (for under $600).
Best camera? I strongly agree that the best camera depends on what you do with it. Take sports, example. It makes much more sense to have a fixed lens if you’re out shooting action stills or video; then again, if you’re photographing kids or pets running around, it’s definitely better to have a zoom lens available. As for the best indoor photography lens for any camera, there are several factors that play into this decision. Good lenses are expensive and not everyone can afford them but sometimes the cheapest isn’t necessarily the best choice either.
Best lens for indoor photography without flash
How to Shoot Indoor Portraits Without Using a Flash
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When we plan for an indoor portrait shoot, we usually think about big studio lights, different light modifiers, backdrops, reflectors, and complicated lighting setup. There is no doubt that this setup is a must to create high-end portraits but you can shoot indoor portraits without these lights or even without flash. Many professional photographers don’t use any artificial light in the shoot, they just use natural light and create stunning portraits.
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In this article, we’ll learn about clicking indoor portraits without using flash or studio light. We are going to use natural light or lamps which are available in every home.
What you need:
First, you need a room with a large window. We’ll use this window as our light source, it’ll give the same look as a softbox. If you have a choice of multiple rooms, choose the room where sunlight is not coming directly. If you use direct sunlight, it’ll create harsh shadows on your model which will not look good. If you have only a single room with direct sunlight, there are two solutions to this problem. First, avoid the time when direct sunlight is coming in the room and second hang a white cloth on the window to soften the light.
One thing is very important that there should be no bright color wall outside the window. Otherwise, the light will reflect from that colored wall and all your photos will have a color cast which you have to correct in post-processing.
Next, you need a backdrop, you can use the walls of the room as a backdrop but if you want some different background, you may hang a bed sheet or curtain and use it as a backdrop.
You also need a reflector to fill the shadows. You can use a white paper sheet or a Thermocol (Styrofoam) sheet to bounce some light on the model.
You need a camera and lens. If you have a fast lens like 50mm f/1.8, it would be great. A wide aperture allows more light to enter in camera and you don’t need to raise ISO very high. Also, you’ll get a shallow depth of field which is good for portraits. If you don’t have a fast lens, it’s better to use a tripod.
Last but not least, you need a model for the shoot.
Camera settings:
We’ll shoot in aperture priority mode so that we can control the depth of field. So set your camera to aperture priority mode. Set your aperture to f/1.8 or the widest possible for your lens. Set your ISO to 400. Now ask your model to stand near the window and take a shot. If your shutter speed is 1/100 seconds or higher, you are all set. If it’s lower than 1/100, you need to use a tripod. In any condition, your shutter speed should not go less than 1/60 seconds or you’ll start getting motion blur.
As a general rule of thumb, the shutter speed should be 1/focal length. If you are shooting at 100 mm, the shutter speed should be at least 1/100 seconds.
If you are getting very low shutter speed, increase the ISO. If you are using a crop sensor camera, don’t go beyond 800 ISO, going above will create noise in the picture. If you have a full frame body, you may go up to 1600. Always shoot in RAW so you can remove noise and also bring all the details in post-processing.
At last set your white balance to daylight. It’ll give you perfect skin tones. If you want warmer skin tones, change white balance settings to cloudy. If you are shooting in RAW, you don’t need to worry about it as you can change it later.
How to shoot:
So everything is ready, let’s start shooting. Ask your model to stand near the window in a way that light will fall on her at 60-90 degree angle. 90 degree means your model is looking directly at you and 60 degree means the model is looking away from your toward the window. Take a shot and see if the light is soft or harsh. If the light is harsh, hang a white cloth over the window. If you have a white shower curtain, it’ll work best.
Putting something on the window will reduce some light entering the room but your camera is on aperture priority mode, it will change the setting accordingly. Make sure your shutter speed is not below the level we discussed earlier.
Now take another shot and check the shadows on the other side of the face. If it’s too much, you need to use a reflector to bounce back some light. Have someone to hold a Styrofoam sheet or white paper sheet or just put it on a chair. Sometime if the opposite wall is white, it works as a natural reflector and fills the shadows. If you want to shoot high contrast portraits, you may skip the reflector.
Now you are good to go, just start and click some amazing portraits.
Using lamps instead of windows:
If you don’t want to use windows, you may use household lamps. You need only one lamp and a reflector to create wonderful portraits. The benefits of using lamp are that you are not dependent on the sun and you can shoot anytime even at night. The only thing to take care of is that different lamps have different color temperature and you need to set the white balance according to that.
The position of the lamp is one side of the model and a little bit above the face so it gives the same look like a studio light. Use a reflector on the other side. A reflector is a must with the lamp because it’s a smaller light source so it’ll create more shadows on the other side of the face. You may use a white shower curtain in front of the lamp to make the light softer but it’ll reduce the light drastically and you need to use higher ISO.
So invite one of your friends and take some fabulous photos and show your photography skills to the world.
Best Camera Settings for Indoor Photography No Flash
Items purchased through links help us. By doing so, we make a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn More.It’s hard to find a complete guide online that explains how to take better pictures inside without using your flash.
The biggest problem is that most articles are not specifically tailored for indoor photography. As a result, they often focus on the wrong things when taking photos in low-light situations.
This article covers everything you need to know, from camera settings like aperture, iso, shutter speed, focal length, and more! We’ll also explain why these settings matter so much and ultimately answering the question, what’s the best camera settings for indoor photography without a flash.Contentsshow
Before We Get Started
Throughout this article, there will be references to shutter speed, iso, and aperture.
I don’t dive too deep into those aspects, but I have dedicated articles just for them. So after you’re done reading here – you can head over to the topic you need help with and fill in some of the finer details.
- Aperture
- Shutter Speed
- ISO
Let’s get at it!
Exposure Meter And Its Importance
All modern DSLR or mirrorless cameras have an exposure meter built-in. This is a tool to help you get the best picture possible by giving you an idea of what shutter speed, aperture, and ISO will give the correct brightness level in your photo.The problem with that is most indoor photography situations are not well lit so it’s hard for this feature to work properly when indoors – especially if there isn’t any natural light coming from windows or lamps nearby.
The good thing about these meters, though, is they can be calibrated: meaning once you have found out which settings work best for one situation (bright room), make sure those settings stay consistent throughout all future pictures taken in similar low lit conditions (so same shutter speed, iso, and aperture).
The Exposure Triangle And How It Works With Indoor Photography
We photographers often mention the exposure triangle, but it’s a good idea to know how it works.
It’s simply the three different settings that you can change on your camera to get the perfect picture:
- ISO
- Shutter speed
- Aperture
All of these affect one another (known as reciprocity), which means if you increase one setting, then all other related settings will need to be increased too, so everything balances out again.
For example, if I set my ISO higher for indoor photography without flash, my shutter speed and aperture may also need adjusting.
Keep this in mind as we go further in this discussion.
Which Indoor Photography Settings Are The Most Important?
When talking about settings and the exposure triangle (which you balance when taking any photo), I wouldn’t say that there’s one that trumps the other. It really comes down to the type of photography you’re taking and what the subject is.
For example, if I’m shooting a dance performance or event, my shutter speed will need to be faster than when photographing family indoors in low light without flash. The same can be said for aperture.
Your aperture would need to be higher if you want less background blur – you’d then lower your shutter and increase ISO.Don’t worry, we’ll cover them all as it pertains to indoor photography – but, I’d say it’s best to take note of all three as they all work together when creating exposure on any given photo.
I Recommend Taking Notes
If something confuses you, take notes as you’re reading. If it’s something small, put a question mark by that section and continue to the next piece of content/section.
If you’re stuck on a certain section, take note of it and continue reading. Your question may be answered within a different section of the article. If not, be sure to leave those down below in the comments or shoot us an email at support@jnrphotovideo.com.
Aperture And Its Importance When Photographing Indoors Without A Flash
Aperture is the size of the hole in your lens. It can be adjusted to control how much light is allowed into the camera, and therefore what the exposure will look like on any given photo.
Aperture blades control the size of the hole and can be adjusted manually on some types of lenses. If not, they’re controlled by a mechanical mechanism inside the lens itself that opens and closes to adjust how much light is allowed in.
Which Indoor Photography Settings Are The Most Important?
If you’re a beginner and usually shoot in automatic mode, stop.
Automatic mode is great for certain situations (although very few) – you will want to learn how to shoot in manual mode (we will have an article soon that covers this). Why am I saying this? It’s simple, flexibility and knowing that your settings will get your desired effect.
This will also help you adjust your settings based on the current situation and not rely solely on automatic mode.Priority modes are great, but I rarely use them. If I were to use one for indoor photography without a flash – it would be aperture priority. This would ensure that my aperture stays wide open (for the most light provided within the environment). This will ensure that your ISO wouldn’t have to be too high (causes digital noise) – and your shutter too low (causes motion blur if set too low during fast action).
Again, every situation/type of photography is different, so this could change, which puts even more emphasis on learning/using manual mode.
Indoor Photography, Aperture, And Low Light
Generally speaking, indoor lighting is not ideal and usually low (compared to outdoors, of course). This means your aperture needs to be adjusted accordingly – and as stated before, aperture controls the amount of light coming in.
You’ll want to open the aperture as wide as it can go – depending on your lens. Some open as far as f/1.2, others open to f/2.8 or f/4 (the lower the number, the more ‘open’ the lens is). When we refer to a ‘fast lens,’ that’s referencing a lens that opens up (stops down) very wide – generally speaking, f/1.8, f/1.4, f/1.2. Anything at or below f/2.0.
You’ll have to check the lens you’re using (we will go over a few recommendations here shortly) – but generally speaking, you want to keep the aperture open as wide as possible in indoor low light situations.
How Shutter Speed Affects Your Indoor Photos
Remember, we aren’t using a flash here – so you’ll want to absorb as much natural or artificial light within the environment as possible. All light (regardless of quality) is better than increasing ISO to amplify what’s already there.
To do this, you’ll want to slow your shutter speed.
Set your camera to manual or aperture priority mode to get the slowest shutter possible without a tripod. This will allow you to change both ISO and shutter speed at once – essentially telling the camera what is more important at that moment (light sensitivity vs. motion blur).
You’ll need to gauge what you’re shooting versus your shutter speed. Fast action (dancing, boxing, performances) generally requires a faster shutter. The higher the shutter speed, the faster the camera can ‘freeze’ the motion.Shutter speed introduces blur or dragging. This can be more apparent the slower your shutter is versus the motion.
Generally speaking, I shoot between 1/125th and 1/500th. However, I’m only at or close to 1/500th during dance performances, and there is a lot of fast motion and good lighting (spinning in dresses, jumping, rolling, etc.)
I will then adjust my ISO accordingly.
ISO Should Be Used Sparingly
3200 is when image quality starts dropping significantly on modern cameras. You’ll want to maintain a good balance between aperture and shutter speed to reduce this number as much as you can to avoid noise.
Different manufacturers cameras handle high ISO and noise much better than others. Sony (and their A7iii) are known for their great low light performance (and high ISO) – while Nikon on the other hand, doesn’t perform as well.
Simply put, ISO affects how much light the camera sensor can pick up at a given time. The lower the ISO, the less sensitive to light it is and vice versa:
If you’re shooting in low-light conditions or your shutter isn’t fast enough for scenery shots (forest with moving leaves), then using a higher ISO may help.
However, if you use too high an ISO – this will introduce more noise into your photos which looks like speckles of color on top of what should be cleanly white snow or grey buildings.
White Balance Settings For Indoor Photography Without A Flash
There are two ways to approach white balance. You can either set it manually (which I suggest) or leave it on auto. If you choose to use the camera’s auto-white balance, then make sure you take several shots and pick the best one – otherwise, your images will be inconsistent.
There is nothing wrong with leaving this setting at automatic for most occasions as long as there aren’t drastic color shifts when shooting in light of different temperatures, such as going from fluorescent to window light.
Also, white-balanced can be changed post-processing if you’re shooting in RAW (which I also highly recommend). But, it’s always better to get it somewhat correct in camera first, so you aren’t adding a bunch of work for yourself during the post-processing phase.
Manual White Balance And Color Temperature Consistency
This is the biggest benefit of shooting manual – and it’s also the biggest roadblock for most people. When shooting in auto, you’re hoping that your camera gets the white balance correctly.
But what happens when it doesn’t? You end up with different colors per photo or, worse yet, a color cast over all of them, depending on how extreme the problem is. This could be due to many factors, such as window light coming into contact with fluorescent lighting, but if you shoot manually, then there are no surprises!
It might take some time to get used to set these settings right, but once mastered, you’ll be sure every photo has consistency regardless of where they were taken or exposure variations.
Let’s Recap What We’ve Gone Over So Far
Aperture, shutter speed, and ISO all work together to create the perfect balance for a photo.
- Aperture allows in more or less light depending on how wide it is open
- Shutter speed controls how long the camera will be exposed to that light
- ISO determines how sensitive your digital sensor is to available light.
If you’re shooting indoors without a flash, then there’s really no way of overcoming low natural lighting, so all three settings will need to work together with one another as well as any other additional ways you might have of bringing up those shadows (window lighting, etc.).
We’ll cover some examples below but first, let’s go over the most important thing: what type of photography do we want our photos portraying? This question leads us into understanding where we should set these various items
Using Natural Light When Photographing Indoors
In photography (and life in general) – light is everything. It’s how we see; it shapes everything around us – above anything in photography, light is most important.
So what are some ways to get better indoor photos? Using existing light to your advantage.
The Best Way To Do This Is With Natural Light.
For example, let’s say you’re photographing someone in their home – the easiest and most likely place for that would be a window! If it’s an event or happening outside of your home, finding a spot where windows are facing towards what you’re shooting will also work well (you’ll want to have people turn so they’re not looking directly at the window).
This will allow one side of them to face into the room, giving some depth to their features and making colors pop more than if all images were taken against a dark background.
Types Of Photography Determine Your Settings For Indoor Photos Without A Flash
This is very typical for indoor events – the lighting is hardly ever good for photos. So we as photographers have to improvise. Here are settings you can start with, then adjust accordingly.
- Open your lens all the way. The aperture should be at its lowest setting to allow in the most light.
- Seeing as this is a casual event – keep the shutter low (around 1/125th) to allow the sensor to absorb as much light as it can. The slow shutter is ok in this situation; it’s casual and has not much movement.
- Now, adjust your ISO accordingly. Increase it until your exposure meter balances, and then look at the ISO value. Suppose it’s at or below 3200, great. If not, lower it to 3200 and take a shot. You can bring those details back in post-processing and avoid the high ISO noise. If it’s far below 1 stop (at 3200 ISO), increase it to where you need it, and take the photo. But be warned, you’ll probably not use it – meaning the photo wasn’t worth taking in the first place.
Fast Action With Onstage Lighting
This is very common during indoor photography. This is many of our indoor shoots, and it’s a lot easier than you’d expect.
- Open your lens all the way. This will allow you to increase your shutter speed to capture the action. The faster the lens, the better, the lower the f-number).
- Seeing as there is stage lighting, you shouldn’t have an issue increasing the shutter speed to at least 1/250th (to be safe, try 1/500th – if it’s too dark, back off a bit).
- It would help if you didn’t have to mess with ISO because there is stage lighting again. Stage lighting is normally balanced and bright.
The only time you would ever have to adjust ISO and have slower shutter speeds in this situation is when you don’t have a high-speed lens.
Remember, the faster the lens
- The more light that’s allowed in
- The faster your shutter speed can be
- The lower your ISO can be
Indoor Photos With Very Low Light
These are the toughest of them all. You’re taking pictures of people, in the evening or at night, indoors. The lighting is bad, and you know the pictures aren’t going to come out great. What do you do?
You find any and every way to light the scene. Forget about the quality of light at this point. Any light is better than none.
This could be ceiling light, lamplight, etc. If it’s dark enough, turn them all on! I have even asked a homeowner if I could borrow their flashlight. They handed me a mag-light style flashlight. Bright for sure.
Do you know what I did? I turned it on and bounced it off the white ceiling above them. I would take a few shots like that – and then move the light around the room. Angling it off the ceiling too. Never shine it on them. This is using reflective light to light the scene.
Trust me – it’s much better than not doing anything at all.
You’ll want the widest aperture, slowest shutter speed, and lowest ISO values to capture something like this. You may need a tripod if you need to go below 1/60th of a second. Keeping the ISO low is critical in keeping the image crisp and free of noise.
The Types Of Lenses For Indoor Photography No Flash
There are two types of lenses. Primes and Zooms.
- Prime lenses do not zoom. They are a fixed focal length and have a greater depth of field. They’re also faster than zooms. These are the lenses that can stop down to f/1.8, f/1.4, and f/1.2. Obviously, these lenses allow in more light and are better in low-light situations.
- Zoom lenses do just that – zoom. They’re slower than primes and only stop down to f/2.8 (except for zooms stopping lower). This can equate to half to 3x less light than a prime. The advantage is more focal lengths in a single lens. It’s also cheaper than buy 3-5 prime lenses that fall within the same focal range of zoom.
The choice is ultimately up to you regarding what works best in your environment/setting and results. Determining which one works best before the shoot will make everything easier going forward.
That About Wraps It Up!
And you now know that there isn’t an end-all-be-all setting for property indoor photography.
A few things to take away from this article
- Use manual mode (and manual white balance) to maintain consistent images.
- Use as much of the natural/ambient light within the scene as possible. This will make for better-quality photos.
- Keep the exposure triangle in mind at all times. Make sure your settings reflect what you’re shooting (fast action=faster shutter, etc.)
- We really hope we have helped you figure out the best setting for indoor photography without a flash! Leave questions and anything else you might have in the comments below!Until next time folks, be safe and keep creating!
