Last month’s photo giveaway feature on Living the Swell Life included a short q&a section, with questions from Jessica’s readers.  I (Jeff) had a ton of fun with this, so we thought it would be great to include a recurring q&a feature on this blog.  So if you’ve got any photography questions, shoot them our way.  First up, this great question from Bethany:

“How does one make the most of poor lighting situations (like when you’re stuck working with dreadful indoor lighting)? Are there any tips you can give that will help get that naturally-lit glow, despite a complete lack of sunshine?”

Ah, one of the age-old questions.  As old as photography itself.  In other words, Bethany, you’re trying to avoid this?:

Bleh.  Agreed.  Direct on-camera flash gets the job done, no doubt, but only if you don’t mind your subjects looking flat and pasty.  Don’t get me wrong, snapshots aren’t meant to be works of art, so there’s nothing wrong with direct flash for everyday quickies.  But if and when you’re trying to transcend the quick snapshot, stay away from direct flash.  Far, far away!

Now granted, if you’re using a compact point-and-shoot, there’s usually not a whole lot you can do other than just give in and use the on-camera flash.  But if you have access to SLR equipment (or are thinking of buying such equipment, which is getting more affordable by the day), your range of options opens up considerably.  SLR in hand, the single best investment you can make to improve your indoor photography is a mountable strobe unit:

The biggest advantage of a strobe (such as the Nikon SB-600 used here) is that it allows for indirect flash.  By pointing the head of the strobe toward a wall or ceiling, you get soft, warm bounce light.  The rough shadows are lifted, the harsh glare is eliminated, and your subject looks all around much more appealing.  Of course, though, it’s not perfect–or rather, maybe it’s a little too perfect.  Far preferable to direct flash, but it can still look a bit unnatural.  Oftentimes it’ll be your best bet, and there are tons of tricks (if you have the time to set up your shot) that can allow you to get a less homogeneous look.  My favorite plan of attack, though, is to seek out and take full advantage of soft, ambient, non-overhead light, such as from a small table lamp:

As you can see, however, oftentimes this ambient light is a little too soft (or dim, rather).  Or at least in this particular case, it was too dim for our “little” camera, the Nikon D80.  In order to get the exposure, I had to max out the camera’s ISO (light sensitivity setting).  This allowed for a bright enough exposure, but it also introduced a ton of digital noise into the picture, so much so that it becomes really distracting (at least in my opinion).

If you have a lens with great low-light capabilities (such as the relatively inexpensive Nikon 50mm f1.8 that Graham is playing with–don’t try this at home!), you can widen your aperture (the size of the lens opening, which allows more light to enter the camera, thus brightening your exposure) and reduce your ISO proportionately, thus reducing the amount of digital noise.

Or, for a glimpse at the future of photography, here’s the same photo taken with our “big” camera, the Nikon D700.  [I say "future" because although this new camera technology is clearly already available, it will be a little while yet before it's widely affordable]:

As you can see, I used the same high ISO setting as I did with the D80, but here the digital noise is much softer and less pronounced.  I even think soft noise such as this is a nice aesthetic touch–for this photo in particular, and for journalistic photography in general.

Comparing the quality of light of this last photo to that of the others, this one is infinitely preferable to the direct-flash photo, and it has way more life and dimension than the bounce-flash photo.  Here’s the side-by-side comparison:

Moral of the story: seek ye first soft ambient light!

PS – As always, thanks to Graham for being a willing model (not that he’s ever had a choice), and in this case, thanks also to Graham for not dismembering our lens.