Canon lens for dance recital?

[dadCameraGuy]

Hi y'all

My daughter's dance recital is coming up next week and i've got one chance to get this right...

In previous years, I used an Xti with a tamron 28-75 f2.8 and gotten some good images, but many of them are blurry because of the motion.

This year, i now have a 5d and the 24-105 L f4.0 -- which i've not gotten to use in this auditorium yet.

I'm thinking of renting another L with either f2.8 or lower because it is darn dark under theater lighting. I know the proper thing to do is to bump up the ISO into the 1000+ range, but i have 2 goals with my shooting...

1) capture my daughter - which i can use higher ISOs for
2) shoot some images for microstock - which won't accept images with high ISO in most cases.

Here's a sample of something i shot last year at ISO 400 with the Xti and managed to get it accepted in the microstock biz and it has sold...

I called the local shop and they have some L lenses - but they only stock f2.8s. I can go to LensRental.com and get the 1.2s etc... should I go with them just to have the lower fstop? i still have the tamron f2.8 so i'm thinking i should go with lower fstops just to cover my fanny. I'm thinking the 24-105 f4 is just gonna be too slow.

Thanks for ideas!

ETA: by the way, during the dress rehearsals, we can go up to the stage to take photos - and the one shown above is from the side of the stage showing a line of dancers (which seems to sell pretty well)... so narrow DOF is quite acceptable

 

[Big Mike]

I agree, F4 will be too slow. F2.8 is better...but F1.8 or F1.4 etc would be even better.

F1.4 is two full stops faster than F2.8. That means that if you were shooting at 1/125 & ISO 800...you could shoot at ISO 200 or ISO 400 and 1/250 etc.

Of course, a lens that fast will be a prime which might be harder to shoot with in a stage situation like this.

Also, The 5D is great at higher ISO...but especially when you nail the exposure and don't under expose..because bringing up the exposure in post will really bring out the noise.

 

[dadCameraGuy]

Thanks - I appreciate the feedback!

 

[JimmyO]

Well the only thing i can say is to get a fast prime like it was suggested.

Im guessing no flash photography?