Lecture Room Photographs

OK, so you go to a conference, and the speaker has valuable information to share, but you didn't take a class in court stenography beforehand. What to do? Use your point and shoot camera to take pictures of their Powerpoint or Keynote presentation. But before you do so, here's the important tip to make sure you get good results.

Because the room is dark, your camera, in auto or program mode will most likely try to use the onboard flash. The problem, though, is that the flash actually washes out the screen so it is harder to see the material.



The solution is to change your ISO to the highest number your camera is capable of (400-1600), and turn off the flash. Now set your camera to aperture priority mode, and set the aperture to it's widest opening (ƒ4 to ƒ5.1 is common), and shoot the photograph. Because you may be shooting at a lower shutter speed, be careful to hold the camera steady. The result will be an image that is much easier to read.