Low light conditions..Help?

[nicgrant]

I am very much a begniner, and now have a Cannon EOS 1000D. Learning how to use the settings still. I am taking photos for a gig which is indoors, very low light with laser lights, a stage and lots of people dancing. Have been practicing and am not sure how to keep the images sharp to capture the laser lights and also not get so much blur with people dancing. Is in a very large venue. Any tips would be of great help.

[tracemcd]

Originally Posted by nicgrant

I am very much a begniner, and now have a Cannon EOS 1000D. Learning how to use the settings still. I am taking photos for a gig which is indoors, very low light with laser lights, a stage and lots of people dancing. Have been practicing and am not sure how to keep the images sharp to capture the laser lights and also not get so much blur with people dancing. Is in a very large venue. Any tips would be of great help.

Well firstly it needs to be known that i am not by any means a pro at this - a beginner like a lot of us but here are a few things to consider :-

Blur = camera shake ; camera shake generally = long shutter speeds.
So watch your shutter speed, generally a higher ISO ie 600 will increase your shutter speed but you then need to be careful of Noise in your photograph - Are you using a flash ? If you are then that automatically increases your shutter speed. Try a couple of shots on a tripod - which will elimate camera shake but will allow you to have a longer shutter speed - you would then have some really interesting laser light photo's bearing in mind that whatever else is moving in your shot will be blurred.

A lower apiture will also allow a fast shutter speed ....
These are all the things I would look at and play with before your gig ... hopefully someone with more knowledge would be able to help more :-)

[vandergus]

A lens with a bigger aperture would help. I'm guessing that your are using the lens that came with your camera, correct me if I'm wrong. It's a fine lens but can be limiting in low light conditions since it's largest aperture is f/3.5. Lenses with larger apertures like f/1.4 or f/2 will let more light into the camera and allow you to shoot with faster shutter speeds. If you have a little money to spend, I would look at a 50mm f/1.8 or a 85mm f1.8. You'll notice that the fastest lenses (that's what they call lenses with large apertures) have a fixed focal length, so you won't be able to zoom. What you give up in convenience you gain in low light ability, size and sometimes image quality. Since the focal length is limited, though, you'll want to make sure you pick a length that will be useful for the type of shots you want to take. 50mm and 85mm are both good lengths for when you want to get tighter shots of the performers on stage.

Hope that helps

[Screwdriver]

You'll probably find that the Auto Focus will just hunt trying to find an edge to lock onto in the low light. This is where fast lenses help. The alternative is to pre focus the lens using the distance scale or focus before the auditorium lights go out and then turn auto focus off.

In low light gig shoots you have 4 options.

1) Use a tripod and accept the inevitable slow shutter speeds. The tripod will get rid of camera shake, but subject movement won't be improved.

2) Increase the ISO this will make your camera more sensitive to light, but you will get an increase in noise.

3) Use flash (if its allowed, increasingly 'Heath and Safety' aspects of the venues liability insurance won't allow it) If you can and your flash is powerful enough (unfortunately not the built in flash which a low power device) it solves all your problems as the flash will freeze the action and flood the scene with all the light you need to use any aperture and without having to increase the ISO.

4) May surprise you, but its the one most professionals use, and that is to use a telephoto lens, granted I use an f2.8 70 - 200mm zoom, but it does work with smaller maximum aperture lenses too. The thinking works like this, the auditorium is very dark, but the spotlight on the artist is quite bright. By using a long lens to crop out all the dark bits and filling the frame with the bright bits allows you to take normal exposures with a reasonable shutter speed. As your magnifying (which also magnifies camera movement) a tripod or monopod is required. Hand held is possible if your not too far away and your technique is good. Now you know why music magazines have a lot of close ups of the artists when shot at gigs.

Chris