Need your photography expertise

[digishoes]

My daughter is performing in her last dance competition of the spring. The competitions normally have a professional photographer hired and then I order the CDs of each dance and I then have all the still photos I need to work on scrapbook pages. Unfortunately, I just found out that there will not be a photographer at the competition. I am looking for some advice what settings I should have my camera on to capture some pictures of her dancing. As you can tell...I usually have the camera on auto. The stage is lit, but the area where I will be taking pictures is dark. She will be a moving and a grooving...so definitely will be mainly action shots. I have a Canon Rebel XT with a 28-300 mm lens. Any advice you might have is appreciated!

[dugarner]

You would probably want to rent a lens. I just looked up that lens and the one you have is about a $2,200 lens? It says f3.5 on the website, but I would still recommend getting a few extra stops on your f number.

It is almost impossible to hand-hold a lens indoors and stop the action, even at 3.5. I would recommend renting a 75-200 2.8 or something in that range. I rented that lens from lensrentals.com last winter and it was about $100, including shipping, for a whole week.

You need a telephoto, but more importantly, you need a "fast lens," one that has a big aperture (small number, hence 2.8) that can let enough light in with a faster shutter speed. Those are good quality lenses, they gather light quickly and focus fast, but I still practiced with the one I rented before I took it to the Andy Williams concert (which I shot indoors).

Hope this helps!

[digishoes]

Thanks Sarah! That is helpful! It confirmed my thoughts that this would be out of my comfort zone and my camera's comfort zone. I so wish they were going to have the professional photographers there. The competition is this Friday/Saturday so the rental lens won't work, but that is a great idea for future events! And I now have some valuable info for future lens purchases! Thanks for taking the time to research for me!

[dugarner]

Originally Posted by digishoes

Thanks Sarah! That is helpful! It confirmed my thoughts that this would be out of my comfort zone and my camera's comfort zone. I so wish they were going to have the professional photographers there. The competition is this Friday/Saturday so the rental lens won't work, but that is a great idea for future events! And I now have some valuable info for future lens purchases! Thanks for taking the time to research for me!

Well, since it's coming up so quickly, you may want to try setting your camera to TV (I think that's shutter speed on a Canon) and setting it at about 1/250. Your camera will then decide the aperture and ISO needed to get a decent exposure.

However, this may not work. If you do in fact have the 3.5 lens, you could try using M (manual) and dialing in 1/250 for your shutter speed, ISO 1600, and aperture f/3.5. See what that does. If it's too dark, try dialing in ISO 3200. You probably don't want your shutter speed any slower than 1/250 (the bottom number needs to stay high), though 1/125 might work for some shots. You really don't have many choices since you're inside; leave the shutter speed fast and leave the aperture at the lowest number you possibly can. Your ISO is going to be the determining factor for quality.

Set your camera to shoot in RAW, this is really important when you know you might be underexposing shots on purpose. Then you can process it in Photoshop after you've taken the pictures. If you take them in JPEG you can't do much with exposure and white balance.

Try to get comfortable with dialing in the three settings before Friday. It doesn't take long to get comfortable with manual, really, even though this would be a crash course for you. I don't know how high your model will go as far as acceptable ISO (mine is way too grainy at ISO 800), but you can take a shot, look at it (blow it up a little on your screen to see how grainy it will be), and adjust. I'm willing to bet you can get acceptable quality at 1600 or even 3200.

NB: I just noticed the stage will be lit. It doesn't matter if the area around you is dark or not. If you're zooming to the stage, and the stage is nicely lit, you might get away with auto, just suppress your flash. The lens will gather the light from around the focal point, not from around the camera. Try a shot on auto with the flash suppressed and see how you do. If that doesn't work, go to plan B. But you probably won't need such a high ISO if the stage is well-lit.

Hope this helps!

[digishoes]

Thanks Sarah! I will definitely give those options a try. We have to arrive 2 hours before she dances, so I will have some time to see if it will work! I appreciate you taking the time to help...I really need to get off auto! Maybe after dance wraps up!