What setup should I have used?

[johneric8]

I will keep this short. I was photgraphing my daughters play last night and I was using my 20D with the 18-55 kit lens and I was shooting at 800 ISO in AV priority abviously keeping the aperture as open as possible. I was about 8 feet from the stage and it was pretty well lit. I wasnt shooting with a flash. My question is, should I have shot with a flash? I have a pro flash that I didnt use.. there were quite a few shadows on certain kids. In this situation should I have went ahead since I was so close and used the flash? Here is a link to the attached pictures.
look for the pictures with the kids on the stage if you dont mind. I'm trying to learn what is the best I could have done given my equipment. You can see below what kind of lenses I have. Thanks for your time my fellow shutterbugs

http://client.webshots.com/user/johneric8 (http://client.webshots.com/user/johneric8)

[CanonAndy]

John -
I would have used your flash to eliminate the shadows, but I wouldn't be too disappointed with the images you have. What flash do you have? I've taken school concert photos before, and I usually try to get a mix of flash and non-flash images.

Its easy to flip off the flash for a few shots (if you don't mind the weight of the flash for the duration of the concert...)

CanonAndy

[tim]

I don't know how much they'd like the flash while they're performing, it can put people off. A faster lens might have given you better results, the Tamron 28-75 I has is generally highly regarded, or you could have tried the 50mm perhaps?

[snibbetsj]

The 20D gives excellent results at ISO 1600, so that would help some. Also, try to get the $70 50mm f1.8. Flash would also help fill in some of the shadows that will occur no matter what speed or aperture you use.

:)

[steven]

Have you tried post photo corrections?

If you have PSCS then using Shadows/Highlights will help.

[johneric8]

The 20D gives excellent results at ISO 1600, so that would help some. Also, try to get the $70 50mm f1.8. Flash would also help fill in some of the shadows that will occur no matter what speed or aperture you use.

:)


I do have the 50mm 1.8 actually and love it. I guess I wantet to try with the kit lens because of the wide angle. I know it's not that great of a lens. I probably would have gotten better sharper shots if I would have gone to the 50mm at 800. My shutter speeds were getting on the slow side for hand held picture taking. A few of the shots got down to 1/20th of a second. Oh well, live and learn. I'm not dissapoitned just want to improve..

[davidwegs]

Shooting raw and reducing the shadow slider in PSCS will help. Then there is the shadow/highlight adjustment.

I believe the post processing is lacking a little work here. The shot seems sharp enough (for the type of shot) as far as no blurred subjects. Fill would be good to help lift the shadows but hardly a good idea in the situation.

[eljustino]

I think the photos you have are pretty good. It's very hard to get this kind of thing right, and the available light will usually look better than flash. Plus you'll want a bit of depth of field generally, so a "fast" lens won't help that much except maybe for close-ups. I'd say go for a mix of 3 styles: flash, fill flash and available light - and you haven't done badly anyway.

If you are lucky enough to get a white ceiling or wall for bounce flash, that's a bonus!

[lime]

I think you did pretty good, considering the shutter speed.
If you can't use flash, then you're options are up the iso or a fast lens and with some situations both!
I don't like using flash for certain things, so I tend to use a fast lens & high ISO.
http://www.pbase.com/eflime/image/40420785.jpg