New User Night Time Shooting

I am new to this kind of camera, I have a Canon Rebel T3i. My cousin asked me to take some pictures of him proforming at a club. I have never used my camera at night or at a club. What should I set my camera settings on to get good shots with all the neon lights etc? I am also having trouble staying in focus, it looks like I am in focus but once I download the pictures they don't look as focused as I thought.

Lets start with what your lens line-up looks like?!

I am not sure what that means.

He means what lens are you using with your camera??

What lenses do you have?

[EDIT]caught at the line by triton3k...[/EDIT]

Something that might be helpful...back in film days many of us had a Jiffy Night Scene calculator first published by Popular Photography in the mid-1980's. The "New Jiffy Exposure Calculator" is more suited for digital cameras. Use the link to download the PDF, then print, cut out as indicated, assemble, and throw it in to the camera bag. It is a great starting point for night time exposures. But remember to bracket.

Look at scene 3 as a start.

http://www.stacken.kth​.se/~maxz/files/jiffy.​pdf

I have 18-55mm lens

If the lens you have is a Canon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 then it's not a good choice for low light. First that lens is not very sharp until close to f/8 which is not going to work in low light.

If money is tight your best bet is to spend $100 and get a Canon 50mm f/1.8 aka a "Nifty-Fifty"... this will allow you to shoot in much lower light. The focus blur you're seeing is from you shooting at probably 1/60 or maybe even 1/30 and the blur is from your subjects moving not camera shake. Since your lens has IS I'm sure it's slow shutter speed and subject movement blur and not you having an unsteady hand...

You're going to probably need to be at 1/250 or faster at f/1.8 and ISO 1600 - 3200 or so to get any usable shots in that setting. The 50mm on your crop camera will have ~80mm FoV so that should be ok for candid portrait work in that setting. That's what I'd do...

If you can afford a bit more say $400 or so look for a good used Sigma 30mm f/1.4 which would be fantastic for that venue and would provide 2/3 more light than the "Nifty-Fifty" and would have an ~50mm FoV on your crop camera.

preciousmom73@att.net wrote in post #14929108
I am not sure what that means.

Sorry, I should have worded that better!
As stated above, wide aperture (lower f/ stop number) and higher ISO settings is the name of the game in those lighting situations. I'm afraid your 18-55 isn't the best choice. It could be done at the 18mm end but, you would really have to max out that ISO to get a shutter speed fast enough to freeze any kind of motion.

The nifty 50 is a great little lens for the price. But, I found it to be not quite wide enough for indoor use on a crop body (like yours). Set your 18-55 to 50mm and shoot around indoors in a few different scenarios to get an ides of what the nifty 50 would look like.