Nikon 40DX Help

[DarthSimon]

hey guys,
I have had a Nikon 40-DX SLR for a few months now... Has been taking good pics thus far.. I went to the Camden Nj Aquarium last week, and the pics were bad... It was very dark in most cases.. So I turned the flash off and on to experiment.. Problem was, I would hold the focus button, and pull to take a shot, and it would take my camera like 5-10 seconds to get a pic.... What am I doing wrong?? Are tehre settings for indoor dark shots like an Aquarium that would enable my camera to take fast shots like it normally does??

Any Help appriciated...
Thanks in Advance,

 

[gregr]

The hard lesson of photography... it's a game of compromise. Unfortunately low light is very difficult to deal with effectively because the compromises are: use a tripod (not an option at a public aquarium), use very high iso's (pics will be grainy), use a combination of high iso and fast lens and large apertures like f2.8... and you still get grainy pictures with narrow depth of field.
When I go to public aquariums I generally stick with the tanks that are well lit and the dark ones- I enjoy those without the camera

 

[KurtsReef]

Steve, for proper exposure you have a set Aperture (size opening letting light in), shutter speed (time the shutter is open to allow light too pass) and ISO setting which is basically how fast your film is.

Lets assume you had your Nikon set to ISO 100 at f/5.6 for flash and camera was syncing at 1/60th second. When you turned the camera off, assuming you had the camera in aperture priority you now needed several "Stops" more of light to expose the shot correctly which means at least one of those numbers needs to change.

For indoors, at least ISO 400...generally speaking. As Greg mentioned you then want to go to the widest hole possible which will depend on your lens but lets say you cannot get a larger opening than 5.6 so the last thing is length of time the shutter is open.

There is a book "Understanding Exposure" thats around $20. that is very good.

 

[DarthSimon]

Thanks for the response Kurt. I have alot to learn....