Photographing Dancers

[iflynething]

My sister has dance nationals today and all week...into the weekend actually.

I have a D50 with a 18-24 and a 80-200/2.8 lens.

Since it's nationals, I am not able to use my speedlight - that would be the easy way out. Now, that tele is great since it's a 2.8 lens but what would be a good setting to get as much frozen motion (mostly for jumps) and also make the lighting look the same as my eye sees it even without a flash?

The lighting will be stage lighting if that helps

Thanks so much

~Michael~

 

[Garbz]

No it doesn't help. Realistically no one can answer this as lighting at various venues for different performances changes very drastically. I can only suggest that you should go in and have a look beforehand if you can.

Other than that you can experiment on the day. Turn up early and photograph someone else. Stick with f/2.8 if you can, and try and keep the shutter speed above 1 / (focal length x1.6) so 1/320 if shooting at 200mm. You could possibly go lower but you will need to brace yourself against something. I recommend locking in the aperture and shutter speed and playing with the ISO to get the desired exposure.