Christian Photographers Community

I've been asked to take some candid photographs at a volunteer appreciation dinner this Friday night.  The venue is an old castle (dark wood walls) in the evening 6pm and on, and many of the volunteers are of an Africian American or Hispanic decent.   I need help figuring how best to take these pictures in low light.   I shoot with a Nikon D80 and have the Speedlight 600 flash, but I know flash is not always that appealing a result. 

Your advice?

A tough one here,especially for me. I don't use flash a lot so I'm probably not going to be much help. When I shoot my grandsons ballgames that are at night with limited light I always jack my iso up as high as it will go and shoot with the lens wide open. Shutter speed most of the time is still slower than I like. The high iso produces images that are noisy so I run them through a noise reducing program to remove noise.   

Maybe someone will come along with more advice on that flash. Sorry I can't be more help about your flash.

Flash is your best lighting aid in dark indoor shots. What I do in that situation is I use the TTL setting of the flash using Aperture priority in the camera. But I prefer using diffuser and bounce techniques to make the shots look natural. I also use strobe bracket to keep the flash on top of the camera in either horizontal or vertical shots. Good Luck!