Its just not working for me

[bonjen3]

Hi, I've got a 40D with the 17-85 lens that came with it. I've been taking indoor party shots at home and all of them have turned out blurred. I experimented with the iso levels, even putting it as high as 800+ and still the shots were dire. I changed over to the 50 lens and eventually got some shots but due to the frame size (?) I can't get a wide enough shot.

I know I should be able to get better shots than I am at the moment but as Christmas is coming up I was thinking of asking Santa to buy me a shiney new lens to make life a little easier.
So to summarize , the shots I take are mainly of children playing indoors, general family / holiday shots

[TCav]

Can you post some examples of the shots you're not pleased with? I'd be especially interested in a 100% crop or two.

[Hards80]

to be honest, if you are shooting indoor party scenes, use your flash. better yet, get a dedicated flash and bounce it off the ceiling. this will do more for improving your indoor shots than any new lens will. and with practice and proper flash usage they will look great and natural, especially bounced with a diffuser.

u may consider asking santa for a canon 430 ex ii flash

[peripatetic]

Ditto for the flash option.

Much better in most cases than a fast lens.

[bonjen3]

sorry, I should of said, I was using an speedlight canon flash, and they were still awful. I'll see if I can work out how to upload a picture

[JohnG]

Originally Posted by bonjen3

sorry, I should of said, I was using an speedlight canon flash, and they were still awful. I'll see if I can work out how to upload a picture

Out of curiosity, when you take your party shots with flash- what exposure mode do you have the camera in (aperture priority, shutter priority, green box, etc...)

[bonjen3]

Sorry It took me a bit to get back, here are a few pictures

[TCav]

These were shot with shutter speeds of 1/6", 1/6", and 1/5". Surprisingly, the one with the least motion blur due to camera shake was the one you shot at 1/5"! But the animate subjects were all moving during these long exposures, causing significat motion blur.

They were shot with ISOs of 640, 500, and 640, and there's no info on aperture. You're shooting in manual mode.

You need to get faster shutter speeds, and you might want to use another exposure mode.

[bonjen3]

I just picked some random shots, I know I took others at a higher ISO and they were still too blurred. So here is my understanding - basic I know but keen to improve.
I set my camera to manual, set my f stop to around 5 if its one person Im shooting F stop 8 if its more than one person. I then turn my dial so that the exposure is in the middle. If the shutter speed took too long I then increased my ISO, now obviously this is not working. What sort of shutter speeds should I be looking at ?

[TCav]

You're trying manual exposure, but you've got the flash going off too. I suggest you try using one of the autoexposure modes first. P Mode would be a good place to start.