Newbie help ?

[dazraz]

Hi im new to photography and i have a nikon coolpix 5700.
i have been using the auto settings but i am having difficulties taking shots of inside a school hall with flourecent lighting with moving children. the shots are coming out with the movement being fuzzy and the lighting quite dark.Could anyone give me some manual settings or advice on what to change on the camera, i am have a little knowledge on how the lens and aperture works

Many thanks

[ziphron]

well my advice is, the camera has alot of 'presets' that you can use for various situations, sports, indoors, sunny landscape, night landscape, macro, etc. I would use the indoors one as it would use the flash to add light to your scene. Just try a few of those and see what happens...it's always worked for me. However, if you do want to use it in manual...set your ISO for about 200, your shutter speed for 1/60 but no less than 1/30, and put your aperture to about 3.x (x=being anything around 3) or maybe 2. Oh, and just make sure your flash fires! lol

But the reason you are getting blurr is probably your camera isn't using the flash so it's causing the shutter to open/close at a slower speed (to compensate for low light) resulting in a large amount of blurr. Then, your aperture isn't opening wide enough to let enough light to hit the sensors, giving you a dark image. These settings aren't bad...if you're shooting a still-life in low lighting! lol So, just quicken your shutter and open your aperature a little more (note: smaller aperture numbers means a larger opening) and that should do the trick!

Let me know of your results!! Good luck!

-Eric

[dazraz]

Many thanks for your advice

[ziphron]

your welcome and thanks for the comments on my portrait! ...you're right, it DOES kinda look like a tattoo, never seen it that way! lol =) If you have any questions in the future, just feel free to message me and I'll be glad to help! =)

-Eric