Would a large aperture lens help against low light subjects being blurry?

Question

I want to get nice shots with ambient light (meaning the natural light in the room of restaurants, living room with x-mas tree lights only...) so I can catch the glow of light on people’s faces as they are illuminated.

All I have is the kit lens for the Nikon d7000 for now... looking to get a 2nd lens to help with this after I can figure out what lens that will be. This is the cornerstone of my question.

The problem I see with my current shooting is that when I shoot the shutter takes so long that picture is blurred because the subjects (people) move.

With my basic understanding of photography, I get that there needs to be sufficient light and with low light the shutter will stay open longer, especially since my aperture is not large at all with the kit lens - 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-S DX VR ED Nikkor.

Am I missing something here?

Or am I correct in looking for a lens with larger aperture to get sharp low light images of moving subjects?

Please let me know if I am off base, and if I should require a new lens, please also suggest the lens and reason to me (so I can grow my knowledge as well).

Thanks all

Answer

Unless your subjects are sitting still, slow shutter speeds are just going to have blur. As a general rule of thumb that I use, I tend to be 1/150 of a second or faster for normally moving people, but in indoor ambient light this usually means quite high ISO. Fortunately for you, the D7000 is excellent at high ISO, so the normal concerns with noise is substantially reduced. Because of that, I would suggest setting your camera to shutter priority (Tv), select a shutter speed, and let the camera pick aperture and ISO.

Check more discussion of this question.