In need of tips for low light!

[BadgirlIROC]

Hello all!
I am greatly enjoying my Rebel XT and nifty 50....but I am having a devil of a time getting good "natural" lighting pics. Is the lens not capable or is it just a must to have the flash up? I am in search of the right lens so I can take pics from farther away (torn between 24-70 and 24-105). Sometimes I will get a nice shot in the house with the low light and other times it's very red. I've played with the settings and tend to get my best pics from the TV setting and higher ISO.....

Please give suggestions! These were taken in raw and converted to jpg. They are both resized but the one of the kitty was touched up a tad but was already close to how the lighting is in the room, and the one of the Griffon has only been cropped a little.
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w77/badgirliroc1/rebelxt/set2_0013.jpg
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w77/badgirliroc1/rebelxt/set2_0014.jpg

[jakks]

Hi Robin, have you got photoshop? You don't have editing ok enabled, but I did play around with the photo of your cat and it brightens up really well with a bit of fiddling with the levels. Jackie

[René Damkot]

If you shot Raw, set 'exposure' a bit higher in the Raw processor.
Read up a bit on light metering, how the camera's light meter can be fooled, and how to compensate. Get to know your camera.

Nice kitty. ;)

[John_B]

BadgirlIROC,
It looks like you have a dark room, with an ISO of 800 and f/1.8 and ISO 1600 f/2 So I would say either longer exposures or use your flash, that should brighten up your photos.

Can't tell what type of metering you used but you could override what the camera sees by using exposure compensation. Which looks like would help in those photos.

Also the white balance looks a bit off, which can easily be fixed in software or in camera with custom white balance :)

Do they get along with each other? ???

[BadgirlIROC]

Haha -yep everyone gets along great. The cat is like some models- beautiful to look at but mean otherwise.... LOL

I do have PS and am good with it but didn't do anything with Bishop's pic just to show how funky the lighting is. I have messed around with the custom white balance on the camera- back and forth- all the way to green even, and it still comes out red. I guess I was thinking it was an issue where if the settings were right, that it would come out right to begin with. I can PS stuff all day long. And I definitely don't understand how to get the white balance right on my camera yet.......

[PhotosGuy]

Setting white balance: Post #13 (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=328842)

[BadgirlIROC]

Thanks so much, I will be checking out the white balance post when I get home tonight.

I am still torn between the 24-70 and 24-105. I see it's such a toss up over which one people prefer. My need is to have a lens where I can zoom in on the dogs out in the yard or do cool shots of the cars and some landscape shots at the lake.

[poloman]

I have the 24-105 and love it. It is almost glued to my camera. I have a nifty 50 but find I use the 24-105 more. I tend to use a flash and flash bracket quite a bit these days.