Shutter speed confusion in low light cost me 3 days of bad photos

I spent a whole weekend shooting indoor candids at a family reunion in Portland, and every single one came out soft. Turns out my camera was set to auto ISO and the shutter was dropping to 1/15th without me noticing. It took me until Monday morning to realize I needed to lock the shutter at 1/125 and raise the ISO instead, even if it got grainy. Has anyone else wasted a full event before checking their shutter speed in low light?

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harris.vera15d ago

My cousin's wedding last October taught me the same lesson. I swore by auto ISO for years, figured the camera knew better than me, but after 200 blurry dance floor pics I finally gave in and started locking my shutter at 1/125 like elizabethg14 said. Grainy shots I can fix, motion blur I can't, so I'm a believer now.

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elizabethg1415d ago

Kept making that same mistake for years until I stopped trusting auto ISO in dim rooms completely. Now I set a minimum shutter speed in the menu before I even walk in the door, usually 1/125 for people, and I just let the camera push ISO as high as it needs. Yeah the shots get noisy, but a grainy photo of grandma laughing beats a blurry smear every time. The other trick is just to raise your ISO ceiling way higher than feels comfortable, because modern cameras handle 6400 fine and you can clean up some of it later. Locking the shutter is the whole ballgame in low light, the rest is just noise you can live with.

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