Daughters Dance

[frankbals]

Hi all : Please take a look at this picture, and advise where I went wrong. I bought the 50mm 1.8 lense just for this occasion, and I just couldn't get it to focus right ! It seemed while watching my meter, that all should be fine, of course except the obvios (white balance) I tried using AV and setting my apeture at 2.0....which seemed to give me enough shutter. Then tried TV and set my shutter at 125, which also seemed to give me enough apeture. What was really driving me nuts is the red focus points, I even tried manual focus, but either my eyes are off, or the camera was focusing elswhere. Please let me know how to improve.

Thank you,
Frank

[Mike H]

Frank,

Can you give a little more information? Which camera were you using? Were you using servo tracking or one-shot AF? Were you shooting RAW or JPGs?

Mike H

[frankbals]

I was shooting JPG's Large with the 300d Rebel that I just got. So I am just learning, I don't think the rebel is capable of servo tracking in anything else but the sport mode. Also this morning after posting this, I found in the manual where I could manually pick the focus point to use, maybe that would of helped.

Thanks for the response

[Mike H]

The manual is a good place to start. I'm not really familiar with that camera, so I'll restrict my comments to issues unrelated to its operation.

I would definitely consider shooting RAW files instead of JPG files. The RAW files give you greater flexibility in altering exposure, an important plus in tricky lighting like stage lighting. Also, you'll have more ability to change the color balance with RAW files. If you don't have one, you'll need a program to take the camera's RAW files and convert them to TIF or JPG files. It's during the conversion process that you get to set white balance and exposure. There are several vendors that make good software for this, including Capture One DSLR (the program that I use) and Adobe Camera Raw, which comes as part of Photoshop CS.

As with any new camera and/or shooting situation, there's a learning curve. In 2 or 3 shoots you'll be doing this like a champ, so don't be discouraged if you weren't happy with the first results.

Mike H

[SkipD]

Frank - if you had shot in RAW mode, you could easily have changed the white balance on your computer, just as if you were doing it up front before taking the shots. That's one of the best reasons to shoot in RAW mode, but there are a lot more.

[frankbals]

Thanks Skip. I do want to shoot in Raw and have been playing a little with it. I was just afraid to try it, during this competition. And I realize that I could of adjusted the white balance. But that wouldn't help the out of focus problem.....would it ?

[SkipD]

No, RAW mode wouldn't do anything for focus problems.

With my 20D, I have found that there are situations where the auto focus has troubles. Note that I use the center focus point only.

First and foremost, when there are no edges for the camera to "see" it won't focus automatically at all.

Second, sometimes I need to rotate the camera a bit to change the angle of an edge for the camera to react to it.

Third, sometimes the camera wants to focus on a background vs the foreground object of interest. This is most easily taken care of by using only the center focus point. Unfortunately, I don't know the 300D and don't know if there's a similar selection like the 20D center focus point only selection. My son has a 300D, but I've been getting familiar with the 20D, not the 300D.

[pcasciola]

Trying viewing the images with the Canon software so you can superimpose your focus point over the image and see where it was trying to focus, because it looks like the banner in the background is in perfect focus, and that seems to be the center of the frame as well. f/2 is not going to give you much depth of field, and you are shooting in low light so it's probably best to stick with the center focus point like Skip said. I would try and get the center focus point on your main subject, press the shutter halfway so it can focus there and hold it, compose your shot and then press the shutter all the way to take the shot.

[gasrocks]

If the red (focus points) are bothering you - you can turn (the red) off. See manual. I'll bet you had all focus points turned on and it didn't know which one was your daughter. (I can't tell myself from the pix.) Use 1 focus point (center is probably best for beginners.) Lock onto her with it, hold shutter button down (if necessary - for composition, recompose,) and shoot.

[snibbetsj]

I don't believe the camera mis-focused. I found that I needed a minimum shutter speed of 1/320, preferable 400, to achieve a sharp focus in these situations. (I shot several cheerleading competitions and it took me a while to find this out). Believe or not, the kids are moving fast enough that 1/125 just isn't good enough for a great capture.


Have fun.

[Dante King]

I recommend the hack for the 300D. I had the undutchables hack on mine. It helps in one major way that I loved with my 300D. That was being able to shoot raw in any mode. One thing i also do, is use my off camera flash to help with focus in dark sits like that. Dont nessicarily have it fire, but I find that the AF beam it emits is a great help to focus in low light.

[pcasciola]

I don't believe the camera mis-focused.The shot is clearly mis-focused, because the banner is in focus and the kids are barely moving. It also appears a little overexposed. For a dance recital, 1/125 is plenty at 50mm. Here's a shot from yesterday I took at 1/125th at 300mm, 6 times the focal length of the 50mm, not to mention he's moving quite a bit faster than those kids on the stage were.

1/125 @300mm
http://www.casciola.com/pics/nick125.jpg

[snibbetsj]

Here's a shot from yesterday I took at 1/125th at 300mm, 6 times the focal length of the 50mm, not to mention he's moving quite a bit faster than those kids on the stage were.

1/125 @300mm
http://www.casciola.com/pics/nick125.jpg

That's quite a nice shot. :) I think, JMHO, that I'm going to have to agree with you. I checked my DOF charts and realize that the DOF, for the 50 f1.8 at 20-25 ft away & f2, is probably only about 4-5 ft which indicates that the camera probably focused on the background instead of the performers. Although, with my limited sports photo experience, there is no way I could take cheerleader shots without at least 1/320 shutter speed (with my 85 f1.:cool:. You obviously have a lot of experience and knowledge which makes the difference. The difference between the two above shots,neglecting any WB consideration, shows, at least to me, the difference between an experience sports photo professional and someone just starting out.
:)

[frankbals]

That's a great shot Philip ! Thanks for all the responses. I have played a little more today and found, where I can choose what red point to focus with. Like I said I am a beginner with this camera, and these kind of shots, but I took at least 50 pics before my daughter got on stage, to try and get it figured out before the money shot. And out of 50 .....50 are out of focus. For some reason the camera kept focusing in on the backround, and I was trying to keep my eye on which red point was honing in. I did notice the photographer behind me, who had a monopod, and an "L" lense, who was charging $25.00 a print, who's pictures where coming out great. I just want to start off good, and work my way up. Thanks to this board...hopefully it will happen sooner.

Frank

[pcasciola]

That's quite a nice shot. :) I think, JMHO, that I'm going to have to agree with you. I checked my DOF charts and realize that the DOF, for the 50 f1.8 at 20-25 ft away & f2, is probably only about 4-5 ft which indicates that the camera probably focused on the background instead of the performers. Although, with my limited sports photo experience, there is no way I could take cheerleader shots without at least 1/320 shutter speed (with my 85 f1.:cool:. You obviously have a lot of experience and knowledge which makes the difference. The difference between the two above shots,neglecting any WB consideration, shows, at least to me, the difference between an experience sports photo professional and someone just starting out.
:)I was actually thinking the DOF was even less than that, but you are correct, I just looked it up too. :)

But, ooops, I just double checked the EXIF on my shot, and it was actually at 1/160, not 1/125 like I said before. :o Still pretty slow for a moving subject at 300mm, but it was late in the day and I had to shoot ISO 800 just to get that.

Cheerleading is generally pretty fast, and I could see needing the higher shutter speeds for that, but those shutter speeds are nearly impossible at a dance recital with the available light, and very hard at many gyms for basketball, so we have to make due with 1/125 - 1/200 a lot of the time.

BTW, I'm not that experienced. I think I'm finally just starting to get some shots that I am not completely embarrased about, and that's only because of the knowledge I've gained from all the experienced photographers here on POTN who are generous enough to share.

[ron chappel]

I use the center focus point almost exclusively! Letting the camera decide where to focus is a recipe for dissapointment

Of course this means i have to do the focus-and-recompose jig for many shots
This leads to some shots being too dark or too light but that is irrelevant compared to having useless out of focus pics

[accord]

I just bought a 50mm F/1.4. This was my first try similar to your situation. This picture was among the best I had shoot. Some of them turned out like yours.

I used 20D, one shoot focus, with ISO400, f/2.2 and 1/80.

People in the stage are of different moving pattern than in the sport field where the motions are mostly predictable.

For the prefomers in this picture, most parts of the body were relatively stationary. That why I caould have better result.

[jgbeam]

I shoot dance with a Rebel and a 24-70f/2.8L with no focus problems so I can't comment on the 50 f/1.8 issues but here are my usual settings:

Large jpegs. RAW doesn't work for dance because you miss too much action waiting for those large files to write to the card. Even with L jpegs you will miss a lot.

ISO 800, 1600 when absolutely necessary in low light.

Tv mode, riding the shutter speed to keep it as high as possible in low light. 1/125 works for most action but you may get a blurry hand once in a while.

Auto or Tungsten white balance. Lighting can vary greatly from dance to dance. You need to try both.

Set exposure compensation down (- one full stop usually works)to avoid blown highlights. I use evaluative metering, which "intelligently" averages exposure readings but, unfortunately, allows some areas to overexpose unlesss you compensate. You need to get friendly with the histogram to master this issue. I also shoot with a 1D MkII which has spot metering and is easier to control highlights.

Keep at it. It's worth the effort. :)

Jim