Skeleton Crew
© Rick Wright
Sitting down for a couple drinks with friends can be fun and merry, edifying and spirited. Nothing, however, spoils the mood more than popping up your FLASH and “incinerating” everyone′s dilated eyeballs in dimly lit rooms. At one of my favorite dive bars in Philadelphia, I was sitting in with two friends. In such LOW LIGHT situations,
FLASH is just one solution and really not the best. ISO comes to your rescue! ISO (International Standards Organization) is a series of numbers that reflect how sensitive your sensor is to light. The higher the number, the less light you need to make an exposure. [ISO really should rename itself to I.ndicator of S.ensitibity O.rdinal.] Moving your ISO setting up from 100 (good for daylight) up to 800, 1600, or even 3200 will let you make a picture WITHOUT FLASH under poor lighting. All the natural nuances are preserved and your happy band of friends won′t seethe at your flashing. You′ll get better expressions and good decisive moments too. The downsides of higher ISO settings? Well, you′ll see more noise in your image. But, “frankly”, that is just the look and feeling I was hoping for in this moody, black & white, gritty-and-grainy scene. As a small bonus, my friend at left moved her head very suddenly and created