help on shooting indoor

[thinkharder]

hello I have a canon 20d with canon 28-135 IS Len
I would like to take pics of my kids in a music concert
Can anyone tell me what the best setting to shoot in side a concert hall at a high school?
I had set to the dial that had flash is off and If I set it to auto the flash will go off.
I had try to shoot with flash but the pics come out bad too much lighting and when shooting without flash the pics come out little dark.

thanks

[jacobsen1]

jack up the ISO (1600+)
shoot raw
buy noise ninja
shoot in Av with it set to the lowest possible aperture for your lens
consider buying a fast prime (50mm 1.8 would be a good start and probably a good length for that on a cropper)

[Icediamond]

highest f stop that you can go (f/2.8 or f/3.5 or whatever you lens can go) and high ISO.. with the 20D, you should be able to get up to ISO800 without too much noise hopefully.
Forget about the onboard flash, it's too much trouble.

[L1TTLEgreenMAN]

agreed, you are going to raise the ISO as high as possible to get a decent shutter speed with that lens. look into getting a fast prime like the 85 f1.8 or 50 f1.8

[thinkharder]

Thanks for the help

I will shoot in RAW and set the ISO highest
do I leave it in manual mode and what about the shutter speed and aperture mode? do I need to mess around with that?

[L1TTLEgreenMAN]

you can leave it on AV mode. just set the aperture to the fastest fstop you can get away with.

[HaroldC3]

I would set it in Tv mode at 1/50s , ISO1600 and see if that is fast enough. You might have some under-exposed images initially but you can correct that if you shoot in Raw (but you will get more noise).

[elader]

hello I have a canon 20d with canon 28-135 IS Len
I would like to take pics of my kids in a music concert
Can anyone tell me what the best setting to shoot in side a concert hall at a high school?
I had set to the dial that had flash is off and If I set it to auto the flash will go off.
I had try to shoot with flash but the pics come out bad too much lighting and when shooting without flash the pics come out little dark.

thanks


ok, one more thing, besides shooting in Av and ISO1600, - consider buying an EF85 f/1.8 or a EF100 f/2 lens. Get it here at POTN used. Buy a cheap monopod. It will allow you to shoot at several times the shutter speed that your zoom will allow, helping you to freeze any movement on stage.

[jacobsen1]

do I leave it in manual mode and what about the shutter speed and aperture mode? do I need to mess around with that?

Av with the aperture set to the smallest # (zoom to 28 and dial it as low as it will go, that way when you zoom, it'll stay as wide open as it can and match a working shutter speed to it).

The issue you're going to have is you're not going to have enough light, even at 1600 and wide open with a 28-135 unless it's a very bright venue. This will mean your shutter speeds will be pretty slow. IS will help you keep the lens still, but if people are moving, you'll get their motion as a blur. That's where faster lenses come into play. Their larger aperture (hole, smaller number) allows for faster shutter speeds.

[guntoter]

jack up the ISO (1600+)
shoot raw
buy noise ninja
shoot in Av with it set to the lowest possible aperture for your lens
consider buying a fast prime (50mm 1.8 would be a good start and probably a good length for that on a cropper)

All of these are great recommendations. I own the 50mm f1.8. It is great for low light (only cost about $79 on B&H). The focus can be a little slow in low light, but you aren't shooting sports which can require fast focus.

There is something I tried at an event last summer which was a banquet, and they thought they needed to turn the lights down low. I switched to manual, widest aperture, highest ISO, and I forced flash. Then I played with the shutter speed until I got a picture that looked fairly good. Takes a few minutes, but when I finished tuning in the shutter speed, the amount of flash from my pop-up flash on my XTi did a good job of lighting up the subjects without causing the background to be dark. It surprised me. Below is an example of the pics I was getting. Of course, if you are too far away frorm the subject, this will not work (I know this sounds crazy, but look at the results).

[guntoter]

By the way, Here is an example of the pic I was getting with AV mode, f1.8, ISO-1600 prior to using the method I described above in previous post.

[Crossfire]

Artificial lighting can be tricky. My recommendations would be (and most of these have been covered):
1. Don't be afraid to bump up your ISO to 1600
2. Shoot wide open (if you can spring for a fast prime, great); in combination with the high ISO setting it will allow you to shoot at the fastest shutter speed
3. If you can, use a custom white balance setting to neutralise the colour tints you often get with artificial light

[yogestee]

It's a good idea when you post images is to leave the EXIF intact.. That way we can check out the data and analyse any problems..