Canon 60D Low-light shooting

[elizpage]

Hey guys,

I'm a natural light beginner working with a Canon 60D, a 50mm f/1.8 and a 24mm f/2.8.. However, by some crazy happening, I was selected to shoot photos of Taking Back Sunday for an entertainment blog. The concert is in about a week. I'm thinking my current equipment won't really be enough to capture the concert as well as I want to. This is an example of a photo that is "okay" taken in a venue with very low lighting with my 50mm in a venue with barely any light.




My question is, should I rent a 50mm f/1.2 or something a little faster so I won't get so much motion blur? I'm comfortable using the 50mm a bit more now, so I'm thinking this may be a good move.

By the way, here's a few shots from the wedding I shot that a few people on here said I couldn't do with just a 50mm. I don't think they turned out just *horrible*



Like I said, I'm Beginner and at the most intermediate, by no means a professional. I plan to go out and shoot some concerts in the meantime so that I can refine my skills.

^ above is a shot of a musician I took.

So.. what do you guys think? I want my photos to be super crisp (these photos look blurry to me and I want something faster to work with..)

Thank you in advance!

 

[W.Fovall]

you can run the ISO up fairly high on the 60D then use Lightroom to remove the noise.. I have had usable pics all the way up to 6400.. What settings do you use?

 

[shaylou]

I would definitely rent a 1.2 lens. The crop sensors do an ok job in low light but what I saw in your pics was actually pretty good light for a band. There is a spot light right on him. I shot a band with my 5dIII in low light and had to crank the iso up to 4000 just to keep the blur down. I was using a 2.8 lens and it was tough even with a full frame body. So if you get into a situation where there is very little light you will wish you had a faster lens. Especially with a crop body.

 

[bratkinson]

Low light, a monopod, a 60D and fast L glass was a real 'battle' of the exposure triangle for me.

I could push the ISO from 1600 (OK on the noise) to 2400 or 3200, but the noise was sometimes difficult to remove in Lightroom. I could slow down the shutter to 1/60th and slower, and the motion blurred pictures went from maybe 3 out of 5 at 1/60, to a dismal 9 out of 10 at 1/20 or slower. I would sometimes keep one or two with the hands blurred, but the rest of the subjects bodies motionless enough to keep. Alternatively, I could shoot at f2.0 (my fastest lens, a 135L) or f2.8 with my 80-200L, or f4 with my 24-105. But, few lenses are at their sharpest wide open (or close to it) and with thin DOF at those apertures, more than a single in-focus subject was often not possible.

So, while renting a 50mm f1.2 may seem a reasonable solution, the thin DOF wide open might limit your shooting options. Also, why duplicate focal lengths to what you have?

As it seems you are leaning towards primes, I'd like to suggest either an 85 f1.8 or even 135 f2.0 for some 'striking' thin DOF shots.

 

[elizpage]

Low light, a monopod, a 60D and fast L glass was a real 'battle' of the exposure triangle for me.

I could push the ISO from 1600 (OK on the noise) to 2400 or 3200, but the noise was sometimes difficult to remove in Lightroom. I could slow down the shutter to 1/60th and slower, and the motion blurred pictures went from maybe 3 out of 5 at 1/60, to a dismal 9 out of 10 at 1/20 or slower. I would sometimes keep one or two with the hands blurred, but the rest of the subjects bodies motionless enough to keep. Alternatively, I could shoot at f2.0 (my fastest lens, a 135L) or f2.8 with my 80-200L, or f4 with my 24-105. But, few lenses are at their sharpest wide open (or close to it) and with thin DOF at those apertures, more than a single in-focus subject was often not possible.

So, while renting a 50mm f1.2 may seem a reasonable solution, the thin DOF wide open might limit your shooting options. Also, why duplicate focal lengths to what you have?

As it seems you are leaning towards primes, I'd like to suggest either an 85 f1.8 or even 135 f2.0 for some 'striking' thin DOF shots.

The 85mm sounds good, could you give me some examples of photos taken with this focal length? They have an 85 f/1.2 for about the same price as the 50mm. What do you think?

 

[bratkinson]

I used to have a Canon EF 85 f1.8 lens and it performed quite well for me when I had the 60D. But as I had the 85mm focal length covered by 2 L zoom lenses, I ultimately sold it, as I didn't use it often enough to justify keeping it.

That said, I'm thinking the f1.8 would be sufficient rather than the 85 1.2L. Although the 1.2L is known to produce beautiful results, I don't think the extra 0.6 increase in aperture will get you a major jump in improvement over the f1.8. I've also read here and on other sites that the 1.2L is 'tricky' to mount as the rear element projects out the back of the lens a little bit. Mounting that to an APS-C body like the 60D might be even more problematic. And, of course, the DOF at f1.2 can be incredibly thin.

Although I used the 135 f2L on my 60D, due to its 1.6 crop sensor, the field of view (angle of view) is that of a theoretical 216mm lens which resulted in my needing about 40-50' to the subject(s) to get them all in frame. Being that far back at church events with the people in the pews standing, for example, limited its use until they were all seated so I could shoot over their heads. However, one of the advantages of the swivel screen on the 60D was I could shoot while holding the camera above my head and after looking at the image displayed, shoot again to make sure I got all of the subjects in the frame.

One of the last times I used my 60D before upgrading to a 5D mark iii for its low-light and AF capabilities, I found myself somewhat surprised at our Sunday morning church service with a guest speaker/singer that had been here previously. The surprise was that the entire sanctuary was darkened, windows covered in black, etc. All I had with me was the 60D and my trusty 24-105 f4L lens...I was expecting a WHOLE LOT different setup. Needless to say, I shot everything at F4 or close to it, and used ISO speeds from 1600 up to about 2400. I STILL ended up taking a lot of shots in the 1/60th - 1/100th shutter speeds knowing full well that for hand held (even with IS!), for walking/talking/singing subjects, anything slower than 1/125th will have a lot of subject motion-blurred pictures. So I took perhaps 250 shots to get maybe 50 keepers, if that. Most of the rejects were due to blurring.

For what it's worth, I was fortunate to be 'forced' into f4 as it allowed my to get both the subject and the projected images on the screen maybe 15 feet behind him to be in focus. So, just as a reminder...shooting at, say f2.8 and wider will result in a surprisingly narrow/thin DOF. If shooting more than a single person, quite often, only the 1 person will be in focus, and everyone else slightly less focused.

Here's a couple of my keepers from that surprise day with the 60D. The first one is f4, 1/100, at 105mm, and the second, f4, 1/100, at 50mm. Needless to say, I had to do some noise removal and slight lighting adjustments in post processing.

 

[Derrel]

You'll want a FAST-focusing lens, and the 50 1.2-L and 85 1.2-L lenses are not really know as "fast-focusers"...they have a lot of big, heavy glass to move, and on both lenses focusing precision and accuracy are the biggest issues that Canon made sure they got dialed in right, because many people will shoot those lenses wide-open at f/1.2, where the depth of field is realllllly thin.

The 50/1.4 and 85/1.8 EF are fast focusing lenses, with more-normal weight, and MUCH smaller lens groups that the AF motor has to move back and forth to achieve spot-on focus. I would go with the standard 50mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.8 lenses. And remember...many times the performers are actually "lighted", by more light than the camera's averaging meter will "see", due to so much black background behind them, which is not lighted by spots or even floods. I used to own the 50mm f/1.8 Canon, and on my 5D and 20D, it was NOT a very snappy focusing lens in challenging lighting, so I gave it to my wife's nephew when he went off to art school in Seattle to study photography, and I bought the 50/1.4 EF instead, and was much happier with its performance, especially in its sureness and speed in focusing.

YOU CAN SHOOT THIS CONCERT!

 

[elizpage]

You'll want a FAST-focusing lens, and the 50 1.2-L and 85 1.2-L lenses are not really know as "fast-focusers"...they have a lot of big, heavy glass to move, and on both lenses focusing precision and accuracy are the biggest issues that Canon made sure they got dialed in right, because many people will shoot those lenses wide-open at f/1.2, where the depth of field is realllllly thin.

The 50/1.4 and 85/1.8 EF are fast focusing lenses, with more-normal weight, and MUCH smaller lens groups that the AF motor has to move back and forth to achieve spot-on focus. I would go with the standard 50mm f/1.4 and 85mm f/1.8 lenses. And remember...many times the performers are actually "lighted", by more light than the camera's averaging meter will "see", due to so much black background behind them, which is not lighted by spots or even floods. I used to own the 50mm f/1.8 Canon, and on my 5D and 20D, it was NOT a very snappy focusing lens in challenging lighting, so I gave it to my wife's nephew when he went off to art school in Seattle to study photography, and I bought the 50/1.4 EF instead, and was much happier with its performance, especially in its sureness and speed in focusing.

YOU CAN SHOOT THIS CONCERT!

Thanks. I need something that is really fast at focusing, I was just about to spend more money than I needed to on renting the 85mm f/1.2L as well.. so thanks for the help! I have the 50mm f/1.8 and I'm not happy with the speed in focusing. the 1.4 I might get better results out of.

So I think I'll go with the 85mm f/1.8.. It's about $30 cheaper than renting the 85 f/1.2

 

[BenT]

I use a tamron 17-50mm f2.8 and it works for me at an ISO of 800.

IMO, I would go for a lens that give you the ability to zoom in/out a bit. Cause with a 85 mm on a concert you'll have to adjust your standing place to either have a full body or portrait photo.
And for example with my tamron lens I can take a full body or a portrait from the same place. it's usefull if you are on a crowded concert.

But the quality of your images depends a lot on the lights on the show, the more light the lower you can put your ISO, the faster your shutter speed and off course your aperture as low as possible. In my case f2.8