For indoor or party scenes, you want to look at what you’re taking a picture of and think about how you want the picture to come out, meaning do you want to use the flash or the do you want to avoid using the flash to allow things like the Candle lights on a birthday cake to really come through?

So if you are using the flash, go ahead and press the flash button here. Remember, we’re using the program mode on your mode dial. This will allow you to set the ISO and the white balance while the camera sets the proper shutter speed and aperture for your well exposed picture. I’m assuming there is a whole lot of light so you may want to increase the ISO. Remember, that even if you’re using the flash, it’s really only good for about 15 feet. So if you’re taking the picture, let’s say as a long table with a lot of people sitting down, you don’t want the ISO at 100 using the flash because everybody on the foreground will be well lit, but everybody in the background will be very, very dark. You want everything properly balanced. So to do that, press the ISO button here on the front with your index finger and go down to choose a higher ISO, go ahead and press set.

Now with 400, I’m allowing the camera to be more sensitive to the areas of the picture where the flash doesn’t reach and the flash will still get the people in the front. If you want it completely natural, no flash looking image, very simple, just close the flash and you’re basically dependent on ISO. Remember, people are moving, you may not have a tripod with you, so you want to maintain the shutter speed faster than 1/60 of second. So press the shutter button half way, just go ahead and point the camera in a general direction of the picture. If your shutter speed is faster than 1/60 of a second as is mine, then it should be fine. You can hand hold that without a problem. If it’s not, then you’re going to want to increase the ISO.

Again, if you’re taking a picture of a long table with a lot of people, you want everybody to be on focus. So you also have to take the aperture into consideration. Right now, mine is set to F8 and that should be really fine. If yours is set to something much larger than that, like a F5.6. You don’t really have to do much, all you need to do is release the shutter button and move the dial. So if I move the dial, all these figures are still on the screen. I can change those values, both will change simultaneously maintaining a well exposed image.

So I want to choose my aperture at F11. You can do all these while you’re still looking through the view finder. You don’t need to use the screen. You’ll see these figures at the bottom in green. Press the shutter button halfway, now that my aperture is properly set, my shutter speed is still over 1/60 of a second, so I know I'm okay with ISO 400. Make sure your white balance is properly set, we’re not using the flash so you need to set your white balance to the lighting source inside. I’ll just press the WB button and move over to tungsten, press set, press the shutter button again. You’ll notice that my aperture went back to F9 so I’ll just move the dial. F10 is fine. You can also go at F13 because the shutter speed is still above 1/60 of a second. And now I’m ready to take my picture. Remember, our focusing point is right on the middle, so put that center dot over your subject, if it’s a long table full of people and you want to focus somewhere in the center. Press the shutter button halfway, the focusing point in the center will blink red indicating that it has lot focus and then just go ahead and press the shutter button the rest of the way to take the picture.

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