Low Light Ballet Recital???

I have a canon S3 IS and my daughter has a ballet recital saturday. I went to the dress rehersal and snapped some test shots and it was too dark for my camera without a flash (was in the first row and didnt wanna distract the girls, they are only 4yrs old so they had hard enough time tryin to remember the moves) I took the iso to 400 (grainy) F/3.5 (still not bright enough), 1/10th (couldnt stop blurr , most shots had it ) I took one with the flash just to see and it made the picture yellowish Below i have posted my results the last being with flash. Any help is welcome

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Unfortunately, the real solution to this problem costs a bit of money. A camera body that can use higher ISO values without unacceptable "noise" is the first item to look at, and the second is a fast lens. By fast, I mean a lens with at least a f/2.8 maximum aperture and, better yet, a prime lens (non-zoom) with a maximum aperture of f/1.4 or so. This combination would have allowed you to gain a few stops worth of shutter speed while still getting the exposure right.

The color issue is one of "white balance" - a function of the lighting source types. Sometimes selecting the right white balance in the camera is difficult because of unknown characteristics of the lighting. Shooting in RAW mode allows you to very easily correct the color shift when converting the RAW to an editable format.

you could always try underexposing by a stop or so... but this is gonna make the noise worse when you recover it on your computer. try resting the camera on the chair in front for stability and wait for a break in the performance to take a shot.

Unfortunatley the S3 IS isnt good for low lighting (still a great camera) I guess I will just go with the iso400 f/3.5 and maybe a 1/30-1/50 shutter speed and try to lighten the image a bit. I will have to learn to live with the limitations of my P&S until I get a 30D

My future setup

Franko515 wrote:
My future setup

That will work quite nicely.

I would absolutely recommend that you get at least two, and preferably more, CF cards for the camera.

At least two spare batteries would be a wise choise also (go Sterlingtek - much less pricey than Canon's batteries and just as good).

A P&S is not up to the task. Your future equipment list is perfect. I've shot a number of shows with my 20D & rented or borrowed 70-200/2.8 IS lenses, or my 50/1.8 or 24-70--these are what gets the job done.

It's this kind of demanding use that drove me to move to DSLRs.

For now, can you adjust the ISO? A high ISO shot properly exposed should give a better, less noisy pic that a underexposed lower ISO shot.
Personally, I'd use a flash & limit my shots if "didnt wanna distract the girls" was that big a factor. How many times will you get to take these shots, if not right now?

If you can adjust the WB, then do that too.

He stated in the original post he set it to 400. I see the camera can do 800, but I wonder how bad the noise will get; I know on my older P&S ISO800 was almost pointless.

This sort of problem was what got me started down the slippery (i.e. REALLY expensive) digital SLR slope... but the ride has been fun

For this sort of shot I put the ISO on 800 or 1600 or so, and use a fast lens such as the 85 f/1.8 or 135 f/2L, depending on how far you are away. The 85 f/1.8 is an excellent lens for the money. I use noise ninja to reduce noise from the image in post-processing.

f/1.8 is basically 2 stops faster than 3.5, so that moves your shutterspeed from 1/10 to 1/40. If you set the ISO to 1600, another 2 stops, you get a shutterspeed of 1/160. If you have steady hands then you could stick with ISO 800, f/1.8, 1/80.

A digital rebel + 85/1.8 is a great combination, but it's hard to stop!

Malcolm

Saw that, but I have no clue what you can do with a P&S.