Indoor photography presents its own set of challenges, such as blurry, washed-out or underexposed images. This happens because there isn’t sufficient lighting or the camera settings aren’t properly calibrated. Let’s see how you can avoid blurred, dull and underexposed images when shooting inside.

Light is the most crucial element with any kind of photography and it’s especially the case when shooting indoors. Sunlight is curtailed and this usually results in underexposed images. Or there might be too much sunlight coming from a window and it’s throwing off the lighting balance. You could use the built-in flash, but that also has its disadvantages — including glare, reflected light or harsh cast shadows on walls behind your subject and bleached skin tones. I recommend avoiding the built-in flash while shooting indoors and if you absolutely have to, then use a diffuser. This device reduces the flash output and softens the shadows, but still provides sufficient light to illuminate your subject in a flattering way. Diffusers, which attach directly to the flash, either bounce the light or reduce it through a semi-opaque material. Using an off-camera cabled flash to bounce the light from the wall or ceiling, will get the best results with a flash.

You can also look for the natural light and re-position your subject or your camera to creatively exploit the sunlight. But typically you’ll want to use artificial light to increase or balance your exposure value. Remember though, sunlight and artificial light don’t record as the same color. So if you’re looking to use an artificial light source, such as a table lamp, a light box, a soft box, a flashlight or candles, you must adjust your white balance so that you can effectively use these artificial light sources. You might find it artistic or creative to use the warm tone of artificial lighting in your photography as it contrasts with the cooler tone of natural lighting. Also, some artificial indoor light sources have a greenish tint to them, like fluorescents. Light is the supreme tool of the photographer because it alters everything, so mastering the type of light source and its color output is paramount.

When shooting indoors, you should look to use the widest aperture (f-stop number) as possible. What you must also take into account is that the wider the aperture, the shallower the depth of field. Maintaining critical focus is crucial to achieving sharp photos in low-light environments.

Something else that you can do if you know in advance that you’ll be shooting indoors is to bring a tripod and disable the built-in flash. You’ll have to use a slower shutter speed and wider aperture, which increases the likelihood of motion blur and camera shake, but you’ll get more pleasing pictures. You just have to ask your subject to remain still (if it’s a person) a little longer than they’re used to or hope that your subject stays still if you can’t convince it other wise (like your sleeping dog, don’t let him wake up).

As a last resort you can set the ISO rating higher, but you’ll be increasing the amount of noise within the photo. Sometimes you just have to live with that, because if you’re shooting a sporting event or a concert, you need as much exposure as possible so you can use faster shutter speeds to capture the action. The higher the ISO the greater the amount of grain is visible in the final photo. Grain might not be so bad when shooting on film, but grain in a digital photo results in a myriad of colored dots scattered throughout the entire image. Grain is most visible  in the underexposed areas.

So there are several factors that you can control to achieve high quality indoor photos and it requires some experimentation to be able to make the proper decision for the best results. The biggest challenge with any photograph is getting the proper exposure. Once you know what your options are to get it right, you can quickly make those adjustments and get on to releasing the shutter!