Shooting Indoor Talent Comp.

I'm going to shoot an indoor talent comp today and was wondering if anyone could give me some tips for shooting it. I was think of shooting w/ my 70-200 (at a high ISO likely) and using my 580 EX in ETTL mode for catch lights and a tiny bit of fill (probably gelled with some sort of CTO). I have the skyports and a helper who could hold a flash wherever I like, but it seems like the manual flash would be a PITA for this type of shoot. Any advice?

About the venue. It has at least 30' ceilings, is normally fairly well lit by skylights (it's kind of like a food court) and there will be a stage in one corner (likely with some sort of stage lighting).

Any help would be appreciated as I don't have much experience with this type of shooting and I'm not usually happy with my results.

Thanks.

It reads like some of the tips for shooting indoor basketball would work well in this case. Have you looked at those indoor basketball threads? Bouncing the flash off the ceiling would be like bouncing off a gym's ceiling. You would probably not need the SS required by basketball to stop the action. I'd use manual mode with apertures of f/1.8 to f/4 and shutter speed of 1/250th. Then I'd adjust my ISO to 400, 800 and 1600 and see what the eTTL flash gives me.

Asking for advise the day you need it seems pretty silly. You should prepare in advance.

Can you use flash? I would use ambient if it was bright enough, otherwise diffused off camera flash if you can get it anywhere useful above the stage. Battery packs and disabling the CF that turns it off after a while.

Thanks guys, I went with ambient as they had some decent stage lighting. I was at ISO 800 to get the shutter speed I needed for my 70-200 hand held. I took a lot of shots and got a relatively small percentage of keepers; dancers came out more oof than stationary performers. Most of the shots were taken at around 1/320. This is probally the first time I wished that I had the 70-200 f/2.8 IS.

Here is one of the keepers. Thanks again.

tim wrote in post #6126233
Asking for advise the day you need it seems pretty silly. You should prepare in advance.

Can you use flash? I would use ambient if it was bright enough, otherwise diffused off camera flash if you can get it anywhere useful above the stage. Battery packs and disabling the CF that turns it off after a while.

Pretty silly to ask if I knew about it before today or if I was getting paid.

As it turns out ambient was the way to go; I think flash would have killed the mood.

Flash only kills the mood until you learn how to control it

Using ambient you could have pushed the ISO up to at least 1600. Much better to get a little extra noise in a sharp image than noiseless OOF images. I've been where you are and feel for the disappointment coming back with less keepers than you'd like. The shot you posted looks great BTW.

RichNY wrote in post #6128226
Flash only kills the mood until you learn how to control it

Using ambient you could have pushed the ISO up to at least 1600. Much better to get a little extra noise in a sharp image than noiseless OOF images. I've been where you are and feel for the disappointment coming back with less keepers than you'd like. The shot you posted looks great BTW.

Color balance would have been the main culprit with using flash here. If you have any tips for gelling flashes to match stage lights please let me know.

I though I was pushing the ISO w/ 800. I'm not sure if it was 1/320 was too slow of a shutter speed or if I was focusing poorly; the dancer was just moving so damn quick. Is this a situation where the controls of a 40D would really shine vs my xti?

Thanks for the kind comment about my photo.