Whats the best set up

[crazyhorse]

Hi firstly sorry if this is posted in the wrong section secondly sorry but i am very new to photography.
I've not had my camera for long its a pentax km I run a web site for my local scooter club and get to go along to special gigs for shots of which ever band is playing at the time. i have my camera set on auto and i use raw dng files but the shots i get are very grainy although it is in a dark room or at night the stage area is very well lit, what manual settings does anyone recommend to get better shots

Thanks in advance

[Trigger]

Depends on glass ware ,if you have a fast glass F/4 constant or faster you might not need to go to 1600ISO,as the faster glass with allow a higher shutter speed.If not B/W or mono has special meaning with grain


cheers

[Digidave]

Even though you think the stage is well lit, it really isn't that well lit for a camera sensor. Your eyes are much, much more sensitive than a camera's sensor. If you want to do it right, you really need to spend money on fast glass. A lens with an Aperture value of f/2.8 minimum. This will allow for a smaller ISO setting & less noise. Will you be able to get close to your subjects? If you have free range & are able to move around, I would recommend getting a 50mm f/1.8 lens. They are usually relatively cheap & very sharp. Then you can play around with your camera settings & get an idea of what it takes to do stage photography.

[DogHeadGod]

The grain you get is because the shots are underexposed.

While the guys above are correct about "glass" i.e. better lenses, the simplest thing to do when working in low light conditions is increase the ISO setting of your camera. This makes the sensor more sensitive to light and will help get better exposures with the small amount of light available to you. It can be changed in the camera's menu or by a button somewhere on the camera body, check your camera manual for how to do this.

There will still be grain, but it won't be as bad as the grain you get when trying to make an underexposed image brighter.

Check out the exposure tutorial here for an idea how the manual settings will affect the exposure of your images.

Welcome to the forum!

DHG