kind of a silly question

Lord_Malone wrote:
Ah, yes. We all strive to master light to attain photographic utopia.

light.. the bain of my existance.. it's a little weird how light obsessed i've become.. but then on POTN everyone is always talking abou the weather, whether or not they had overcast if they were shooting in t he middle of the day, whether light was flat or hard etc... so, it's fairly normal atleast I think it is.. but still if you don't have light you don't have much..

sari

It'll make or break a photo. That's where you start to see the difference between skilled photographers and people who spend a lot, but don't take advantage of the equipment. The lighting...

I'm still very new with my camera and the other night took some photos of a school play, in a darkish theatre and I couldn't use a flash. I set the ISO to 1600 and they came out quite well. Is there anything else I could have done?

I was also very conscious of the noise the camera made - is there a way of stopping the shutter noise? I had to promise the peeps either side of me that I'd take pics of their children to make up for the noise. Thanks.

No - the only thing in addition to cranking up the ISO setting you could do is buy a "faster" (larger max. aperture) lens. About the noise - there are (very expensive) "blimps" to muffle cameras. You might use padding around the body to muffle the noise, if you don't mind how it looks, but DSLRs have real, mechanical, noises umnlike the electronic sounds of digital P&S cameras.

I know this sounds strange, but if i'm nervous before a shoot all it really takes is the sound of my shutter going off a few times to get my focus back and calm me down.. okay, i'm a weirdo...

sari