Digital Flash Photography

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Question about digital photography?

I want to take a picture of a candle in a dark room (no flash)
problem is i get alot of flare from the flame
how can I prevent the flare???

the camera will be about 2 to 3 feet directly infront of the candle

You need to give more information. What kind of camera do you have? Is it just a small "point and shoot" digital camera, or do you have manual exposure control?

In order to take pictures indoors WITHOUT a flash, then you need to either do a long exposure, or at the very least you will need a slow shutter speed. So you really need to have a camera with completely manual shutter speed and aperture controls. If you only have a point and shoot camera, then you have very little manual control and you're probably not going to be able to take the picture you want.

The overall exposure of a picture depends on the lighting conditions, the ISO rating, the aperture, and the shutter speed. I haven't done long exposures with digital camera, but I have done it many times with film. And the principles are the same.

As a matter of fact, I HAVE taken pictures of candles. With 100 ISO film, I set the aperture at f/8 and did a 6 second exposure. That worked well. Of course, with a digital camera you can also change the ISO setting of the sensor. So try 100 ISO, set the aperture to f/8, and try a 5-10 second exposure and see how that works.

You need to also keep in mind that if you use a slow shutter speed or a long exposure, you HAVE to mount the camera on a tripod. With a slow shutter speed, the camera will pick up any movement and if it isn't absolutely steady, the picture will be blurry.

All this is IF you have a camera that has manual exposure control. If you just have a P&S camera, then you're out of luck. Point and shoot cameras are pretty much entirely automatic and you don't have that much control. They're just made for snapshots. You might be able to use a "night photo" option to take pictures in lower light, but it will probably end up looking very noisy and pixelated.

By the way, I think 2 feet is probably too close. 3 feet is going to be the minimum distance where you'll be able to get the candle in focus.

Flashes Part 5: Fill Flash - Photography with Imre - Episode 17


digital flash photography5
digital flash photography5