Need Advice, Please.

HI, I just recently bought a Canon 40D. I had a rebel before, I killed it. Anyway, the 40D is alot different and I have a friend, who has a daughter in a high school pagent tonight in the auditorium. She wants me to come and take pictures of her. Can someone offer suggestions of Iso and settings for this? I only have the flash on the camera. I took some pics the other night at another auditorium and they were so dark! I finally set it to auto and still they were not very good. I normally shoot in manual mode.

Please help! I don't want to let my friend down. Her daughter asked for me. I would use my old canon but seeing how it quit I have no backup.

Teeny

I would try to do this WITHOUT Flash, if possible. But you need to set a Custom WB before hand - in the lighting of the Auditorium (or in PP) - ideally in the same lighting that you'll be using when you take the actual pics. Take several test shots at various aperture settings and sutter speeds at a middle ISO (400-500) and check it in your histogram. Adjust your ISO higher as needed. Remember that a wider DOF aperture will let in a lot more light, which should help. But if you try to go the other way (tighter aperture), you'll need to compensate to get more light into the exposure. Have fun....

What might work for this venue is really dependent on what lens or lenses you have available to you.

If you have a fast prime that would be the way to go, I regularly shoot plays and other types of productions and would be lost without the 50mm f1.4 or 85mm f/1.8.

I don't use a flash as it disrupts the performance so it means a wide aperture, high ISO and shooting in AV or manual depending on conditions (because of the varying light changes across the stage).

It almost just like shooting an indoor sport like basketball but with no real worry about get the shutter speed above 1/500th. In this type of situation 1/100th or so is usually enough. It is much easier to get a shutter speed in this range.

A custom white balance is also very important to get to the proper colors, or to be shooting raw and correct in it post. For me to shoot an entire production though it is not the best use of my time to run RAW through post on a couple hundred shots so I shoot this stuff in jpeg.

This is just a couple shots that I took at a production of Midsummers Night Dream a couple weeks ago to show some results.

This was shot with the 40D in AV with the 85mm f/1.8 @ f/2.2, ISO 1600, 1/200th.

BradM wrote in post #5258958
...snip .... For me to shoot an entire production though it is not the best use of my time to run RAW through post on a couple hundred shots so I shoot this stuff in jpeg.... snip ...

Just a thought -- if you have a decent size CF card (4GB), I would shoot in BOTH RAW+JPG. That way, you have the RAW images - just in case there's those few shots that are MUST-have that need to be PP'd. Also, even if you shoot all-RAW, you can quickly run them through Adobe Bridge to save a copy of all of them as JPG. But in most cases, RAW will save your butt .... especially if WB or exposure is OFF.

Thank you both for your help. Hopefully tonight will turn out fine. Wish me luck! I really like your pics Brad, good color. by the way, my lens is a Tamron 18-200 mm.

Teeny

Teeny, if you have a faster lens, bring it along. Note the parameters of the exhibited shots...ISO 1600 1/100 f/2.8 becomes a bit more challenging when you use a slow lens, particularly if the stage lighting lowers.

I just went to a dimly lit room in my house and tried to take a pic in AV mode. I used 1000ISO and the lowest f, I could get was like 3.5 my pictures were lit well, but the object was blurry. More help please.

Teeny

Shutter speed was to slow. Depending on focal length most people can only get down to about 1/60th hand held without getting camera shake. You will need faster if you have to stop subject motion.

Start by setting the aperture, then the shutter speed you want, then adjust ISO to get correct exposure, then you may have to fine tune shutter speed.

Hi, I went to the pagent and these are the worst pics I have ever taken! I even used my tripod. I tried AV and I even went to Auto. I am starting to wonder if its my new camera. Anybody that looks at these, please let me know what you think might be the problem. I don't know if I have at least 1 or 2 decent shots to give my friend.
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Teeny

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These appear to have been shot aperture priority at f/6.3, so the resulting shutter speeds were way too slow. The tripod didn't help because the subject was moving. Getting the lens opened wider may have sped things up enough to make a difference.

You used auto white balance, so that's what threw the colors off.

Oh well, you'll know better next time!

Alex