taking pics of musicals

[megt14]

okay so my daughter is in her school's musical. it's coming up and i need tips on taking pictures. there is not going to be very good lighting except on the stage and we won't be aloud to use flash. please help!

[zona5101]

hi and welcome.
Do you have a fast lens?
If your fastest lens is something like a 50mm...Can you get a seat in the first few row or so?
Can you watch a production rehearsal so you know when the best lighting occurs? (Or would they let you shoot flash during the rehearsal?)

[SusanH1970]

What equipment do you have?

[RichardTaylor]

Fast (F2), possibly long (depending on where you are sitting), and high ISO (1600+) depending on the lighting.

[inkista]

+1 on the fast lens. When you can't use a flash, it's all about the maximum aperture of the lens, and using a higher ISO setting.

DO NOT FEAR THE HIGH ISO.

Most folks coming from a P&S camera tend to be incredibly paranoid about setting the iso above 400, because their P&S cameras tended to look like dogmeat at settings that high. A dSLR's larger sensor can handle settings like 800 and 1600 far more gracefully. And what's worse for noise than increasing the ISO setting is underexposing an image and then increasing the exposure in post.

There's also the fact that in post-processing, it's a heckuva lot easier to process for noise reduction than it is to process for motion blur reduction.

If you can, I'd say rent an EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS USM II or EF 135mm f/2L USM, or think about purchasing a 50mm f/1.8 II ($100) or EF 85mm f/1.8 USM or EF 100mm f/2 USM (in the $400-$500 range). And bear in mind that if you're handholding, you want your shutter speed to be 1/focal_length or faster if you don't have IS or a monopod/tripod with you. Also check that you know how to hold your camera.

Also, if you can, practice shooting in similar situations before the event if you can. Metering can sometimes be tricky, in lower light situations like this, and knowing how you'll want to bias the metering when the camera's autoexposure system gets it wrong is going to stand you in good stead. Get used to checking the LCD and histogram and adjusting.

If you're used to shooting in green-box Auto mode, I'd highly recommend shifting to P mode and playing about with exposure compensation.

Shooting RAW so you can white balance in post-processing isn't a bad idea either, but if that's too intimidating, just make sure you check your white balance is where you want it at the beginning of the shoot.