Without knowing your equipment or experience, I'll say there's two paths for pageants. I do a lot of 'stage' shots at church events, so I've tried both ways.
It's basically all about the photography triangle...aperture, shutter speed, and ISO speed. Knowing the tradeoffs of wide aperture vs high shutter speeds, etc, is crucial. Knowing what to expect as results for various combinations is also important. Perhaps the most critical piece of knowledge is what is the 'highest acceptable' ISO speed for your camera. Going beyond that speed, you'll have an unacceptable level of noise. If the noise at...say...ISO 3200 is acceptable but higher is not, then keep 3200 in mind as your 'max'. But favor 2400 and 1600 when possible for less noise.
Option 1 becomes 'add more light'...eg, one or more flash units. Depending on the venue, flash may or may not be allowed. Recognize, too, that when taking pictures of children 'on stage', they are already nervous, and adding a flash may startle them into forgetting their lines or other flubs. But, assuming you have or will have a flash, I strongly suggest you get the flash off camera. An external flash mounted on the hot shoe will often result in 'red eye', which, although easily corrected in post, can be avoided by having the flash on a bracket above the camera. Having an assistant to hold the flash several feet away (wire or wireless) also works well. Remember too, that the light from a flash 'drops off' quite quickly as the distance to the subject increases. For this reason, I opted for the biggest, baddest Canon flash at the time, a 580 EXii to light up everything within 60-70 feet like it's daylight, when needed. Of course, rarely is it used at full power.
Option number 2 is also 'add more light', but by using fast lenses (f2.8 and faster) and higher ISO speeds. Fast lenses are great, but shooting at or near wide open, the depth of field can become quite thin, so focusing has to be 'right on'. Faster ISO speeds with acceptable noise levels generally requires newer a full frame camera body. Having both fast glass and fast ISO is almost 'heaven', but my credit card will be longer than expected to clear off.
Having fast glass/ISO is only 2 parts of the exposure triangle, the other is shutter speed. When shooting with a camera that had ISO 1600 as 'good', 2400 as 'acceptable' and 3200 'in a jam' limitations, I frequently found myself shooting at shutter speeds in the 1/60th and even as slow as 1/10th to stay within the ISO limitations at max aperture for my lens(es). The problem with those speeds is that subject movement, even for someone standing relatively motionless, results in slightly blurred images as those speeds are not sufficient to stop subject motion. Also, at those lower speeds, while image stabilization will take care of slight camera shake, IS really can't handle 1/30th or 1/15th unless you are REALLY REALLY motionless when clicking the shutter. I found that a monopod is a necessity when shooting in low light situations, especially at slow shutter speeds. Even so, my 'keeper' rate at shutter speeds of 1/100th and slower drops from about 1 in 5 at 1/100th to less than 1 out of 25 at 1/20, or other ridiculously slow shutter speeds, all due to subject movement. Sometimes, I get a 'steady' subject and their arm or hand is blurred. I keep some of them as it shows their movement while preserving the otherwise good shot.
The key to 'stage' photography is experience, experience, experience. Using a camera you just got last week or a lens you've haven't taken a lot of shots with is a recipe for disaster. In looking at the 'progression' of my shots of 10 years ago using a point and shoot with flash to what I did 2 weeks ago under similar conditions, I've improved greatly. Yes, my cameras and lenses improved as well, but learning how to use them is far more important.
![[No title]](/data/xfmg/thumbnail/35/35959-c7e267b1e7e08d889fe1a4fa28766c11.jpg?1734167798)
