D3100 Question or three

A friend of mine is shooting an '80s Gala' tomorrow with a borrowed Nikon D3100. Not sure what lens she has. She's asked me on some 'pointers'.

So, I told her to make sure she gets the following:
1) Camera body/lens
2) Memory card and a spare if possible
3) Battery in the camera and spare if possible
4) Battery charger
5) Find out if she needs to do post - (nope, just shoot and give the camera to them)

So........

I'm thinking since this is an evening event, that little flash unit is going to get a workout. I was going to:

1) Set the camera on AUTO mode to make it easy for her. Point&Shoot.
2) Set the ISO on 200
3) Show her how to popup the flash
4) Set resolution on .jpg/high
5) Show her how to review images, delete from the body
6) Show her how to work the shutter/focus


The big question is, am I missing something? It's just second nature for me, but having to think this high level is actually hard.

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If this is a low-light thing - get her a speedlight. Any on-camera flash won't recycle fast enough and will drain the in-camera battery too quickly (not to mention flash-produced shadows, red-eye and other nasties from on-camera flash). Then, add some (any) sort of bounce card or diffuser to the flash, and explain that you can't bounce off a ceiling when your outside.

Oh, and sRGB colorspace, auto-white balance unless you think it'll be majority flash-lit and can pre-set that.

Yeah, Auto WB and I'll see about getting her one of my SB700's. Not sure I want to give her my 900.

Scott, we don't really know where her knowledge level is - I'm assuming pretty rudimentary. If that's the case, I agree with everything in your check list except ISO; I'd set that on auto. That's what all those cool auto features are there for. And I'd personally opt for the onboard pop-flash simply because - unless the attachable flash is 100% automatic, it could cause her more problems that it fixes. If the flash is totally auto, that's a different story. My $00.02.

You might want to give her a few pointers on composition.The camera can carry the technical load, but the photographer still needs to do the rest. You might help her to think through the composition of her picture. Is the picture centered? Balanced? Are heads chopped off? Is it interesting? Are feet in or out of the picture, and is that what she wants?

Also, she should be sure to take a mix. Take several wide shots (and don't be embarrassed to stand up on a chair to improve the lens perspective). But also take lots of zoom-ins. Get faces, corsages, details on clothes, place settings, center pieces. Also, look for long shots with foreground contrast - IE a picture across a big room, but with a potted plant up close to frame the picture and create a nice depth-of-field.

As long as she takes candid shots, she can take her time & do what she wants. But if she's going to ask people to pose, be quick. Set up, pop off two or three shots ASAP, say thank you, move on.

But that 900 just KNOWS!!

Thx guys. I knew I could count on you.

Sounds to me like she doesn't have any DSLR experience and the Gala isn't expecting much for the pictures. I wouldn't even worry about the speelight if I was you. No one seems to be expecting much out of the results, she most likely isn't used to carrying something like that around, on top of the potential for something to happen to your speedlight. Just my thoughts. Sounds like you have the basics covered in your original post.

The speedlights aren't cheap, so I'm a bit reluctant to let it go to a party of unknown proportions. Then again, a guy I never met on a bowhunter forum I'm part of gave me his SB900 to shoot a wedding years ago. I've not forgotten that....

And yes, very little knowledge going on here, and little expectation in the end product. In fact, it's a "here's the camera, shoot the event and give us back the camera" kind of deal.

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Let her use the pop up with the high tech film tube diffuser

Tourmeister said:

Let her use the pop up with the high tech film tube diffuser

Click to expand...

Now THAT's an idea.....

And yeah, the 900 "just knows". It's like - magic.


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Does she know anything about photography? If not, could you spend maybe 15-20 minutes with her just going over some real basic stuff, like fill flash, DOF, min shutter speed, etc,...?

Oh, I'll be doing all that for sure....

She's had experience with film years ago so she knows a little bit.

M38A1 said:

The speedlights aren't cheap, so I'm a bit reluctant to let it go to a party of unknown proportions. Then again, a guy I never met on a bowhunter forum I'm part of gave me his SB900 to shoot a wedding years ago. I've not forgotten that....

And yes, very little knowledge going on here, and little expectation in the end product. In fact, it's a "here's the camera, shoot the event and give us back the camera" kind of deal.

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Click to expand...

I understand that. But, I'd feel more confident letting you, a person I've never met other than on a forum, borrow my SB-700 than a friend who's never handled a DSLR. Any who, I think the homemade diffuser is a great suggestion.

She got a little primer last night with the SB700 on top and I think she'll do fine. Just got a text from her saying lots of people there and the gear was working perfectly. I just hope she followed through on my advice to buy some extra batteries......

Sitrep. All went just fine according to her. She had to put new batts in about 30 min prior to the conclusion of the event. I hope I'll get to see some of the results...

So you decided to let her roll with the SB700. That's very nice of you! Good karma points

She's a good friend and she was asking the right questions so I dropped back to my "why not?" mode remembering my bowhunter forum friend and what he did for me. I had never met him until I picked it up.

The funny part was, when I asked how it worked and how the images were, she just said "It just KNOWS"!.

Hoping to get a link to results at some point.

Yep. TTL is a wonderful thing.


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