<p>This looks pretty obvious to me - the camera focused on the wall instead of the women. As someone else recommended, you should use a different setting on the camera, instead of allowing the camera to choose focus points for you. You may want to consider locking the focus point to the center. This will allow you to focus on the closest person with a half-press of the shutter button, and then move the camera around to frame the shot as you prefer.<br>
Forget the noise from high ISOs. You have bigger problems than a shot being grainy. Get the focus right before anything else. Once you can reliably focus, then you need to think about exposure. In this photo, you have the ladies standing in front of windows. There is a lot of light coming in from the windows, and the women are lit from behind you, with indoor light. When the camera chooses an exposure for a shot like this, it gets fooled by the bright light behind the subjects. <br>
You have 3 ways to fix this problem. Note that when using a flash, the camera still has to meter the scene (in fact, it will now meter TWICE) and choose an exposure... so the flash would not solve this problem (but it may help it a bit):<br>
1) Exposure compensation. This tells the camera, "whatever you think you want to expose this scene at, make it lighter" or, "make it darker". This is usually a dial or a combination of a button and dial, that sets exposure comp. I'm a Canon/Fuji guy, I'm not familiar with how to do this on Nikon.<br>
2) Exposure lock. This is when you point the camera at something, and tell the camera "THIS is what I want you to expose for". This can help you because, in this example, you could find something else that is lit as dark or as light as the women, and lock the exposure. What you are effectively doing is telling the camera what exposure you want. This sounds complicated to beginners, but it is not. I typically aim the camera at a nearby wall or floor that is lit with interior lighting, away from the window. Then the next shot you take, will be exposed the same way. I can see on the D5200, there is an "AE-L" button for this.<br>
3) Shoot manual. This is not as hard as it sounds. The camera has a meter - you still use it, you just use it as a SUGGESTION. One easy way to do this is to move the camera mode dial to Aperture priority, aim the camera at the desired lighting (not necessarily the subject) and half-press the shutter. The camera will then give you a meter reading, i.e. f/2.8, 1/60th of a second, at ISO 1600. Then you move the mode dial to Manual, and set the camera for f/2.8, 1/60th of a second and ISO 1600. That's it! If it's too dark or too light, just adjust the ISO or shutter speed till you get something you like. If you move from one room to another, you'll have to adjust the settings again... any time the light changes.<br>
Overall though - your camera is fine. Your lens is good for this lighting (although the focal length is not ideal for how I choose to shoot indoors - it's a bit more of a telephoto than I like to work with), and the camera body is fine. Go ahead and shoot away at ISO 1600 or 3200. Sure it will get grainy but it's not as big a deal as you think, if the shots are sharp (properly focused) and you are managing camera shake (keep the shutter speeds high enough to compensate for this).<br>
For reference - I shoot events with the center focus point locked in, aperture priority (if not using a flash), and use the exposure lock button to get exposures I like. If I'm using a flash, I shoot in manual mode, and use Flash Exposure Lock, which is basically the same as exposure lock - but it takes into account the use of the flash.<br>
I STRONGLY encourage you to forget about noise, and concentrate on proper focus, proper exposure, and managing shutter speeds to eliminate camera shake.<br>
Thanks<br>
-Glenn</p>
