going to a horse show (olympia) tomorrow- low light indoors... HELP.

[chloewindle1]

I have the Nikon D5100 and the 70-300mm (slow lens i know but i have to work with what i have!!).... it's indoors and lighting isn't fab so i was wondering what i would have to do with my camera settings to make pictures clear with the light i have? I use manual mode but haven't shot indoors before so much info on ISO, Aperture ect i would be thankful!!!

 

[robbins.photo]

I have the Nikon D5100 and the 70-300mm (slow lens i know but i have to work with what i have!!).... it's indoors and lighting isn't fab so i was wondering what i would have to do with my camera settings to make pictures clear with the light i have? I use manual mode but haven't shot indoors before so much info on ISO, Aperture ect i would be thankful!!!

Well you could try shooting in A mode - aperture priority. Set the lens as wide open as you can to allow as much light as possible and then increase your ISO until you can get a decent shutter speed. Don't be afraid to bump up the ISO - once you go above a certain point it will start introducing some noise but a little bit of noise is better than not getting the shot at all. I use a D5100 myself and shoot a lot in A mode. One of the nice little tricks you can do is to go into the menu by hitting the menu button, select the icon that looks like a pencil - thats the custom shooting menu.

Arrow down to the "Controls" section of the menu, select controls and then select assign FN button - set your assign FN button to ISO.

Now when your shooting in A mode you can use the scroll wheel normally to control the Aperture, and if you need to change ISO press and hold the function button - it's on the camera body on the left hand side just below the button that deploys the flash. If you press and hold it you can then use your scroll wheel to change the ISO quickly and easily. As soon as you let up on the FN button it will default back to letting you control the Aperture instead. Makes it very quick to change to the settings you need based on your shooting situation.



This was taken with a 70-300 mm F4.5-5.6 in some pretty bad lighting conditions, the ISO was set at 6400 so that I could get the shutter speed of 1/800 required to stop the motion. As you can see there is some noise here but it's still a very usable shot.

 

[Braineack]

I would try matrix metering, auto-iso, and S mode and set the shutter speed to a happy place.

 

[Derrel]

You can pan along with moving horses at slower speeds, and maybe get some decent to excellent photos with the 70-300 VR lens. The last horse show I shot was pretty dim...panning was necessary on anything moving, but I had a pretty slow 80-400 VR lens (f/4.5~5.6) and a camera that maxed out at ISO 800 (D2x). Braineack's suggestion of using S mode, or shutter-speed priority and AUTO-ISO will tend to keep the ISO levels HIGH, which would be a good thing I think.

Just keep in mind, if you pan pretty slowly, like using speeds of 1/4 to 1/8 second, you will probably get some neat-looking blurring on the horses' legs and such. The trick is to swing the camera along at **perfectly matching speed** with the horse, which is fairly easy to do at faster panning speeds like 1/20 to 1/50 second or faster. One tip when doing SLOW-speed panning is to let the camera's AF take care of the focusing, and aim by looking right over the pentaprism of the camera...the mirror black-out of an SLR tend to make you pan too fast or too slowly when you cannot actually "see" the target, so this aiming over the top of the pentaprism method actually works pretty well. You might be surprised at how much that bit of visual feedback helps you lock-on and track and swing the camera at the same EXACT speed as the moving target.

Horses look beautiful when panned at slow speeds.

The white balance in the arena might be weird. Be aware of that.

 

[weepete]

I go for manual mode, ss 1/800 sec, auto ISO, aperture wide open CWA, high speed burst, AI servo, single point AF, jpeg with all in camera processing off. I will shoot at 135mm or shorter where I can keep the aperture at f4.5 and I try to shoot a bit further out and crop later. That's what I do with my low light basketball pics anyway.

Sometimes I'll spot meter around the arena and if the lighting conditions are right I can set up the camera for a ballpark exposure and do the rest in post. I'll sometimes do that if the lighting conditions are difficult to make sure the subject is as well exposed as I can get it.

I'd say that if conditions are difficult make sure your subject is as well exposed as you can get it and let the background do whatever it wants.

 

[vintagesnaps]

I usually shoot w/ manual settings and have done sports and events. My starting point is usually 1/125, I don't like to go much slower than that, but in low light I'll use 1/60 and make sure I'm braced to support the camera well (that's w/a short telephoto lens, using a shorter lens I could do slower - it just depends on how steady you can hold a camera and avoid shutter movement and blur). For capturing movement though you'll want a fast shutter speed as much as possible.

I set my camera to start at f8 because it's a midrange setting and from that I can open or shut the lens a couple of stops fairly quickly. I use the meter to let me know how to adjust shutter speed and aperture and ISO. Usually outdoors I use 100/200 and 400 ISO or higher indoors. It probably depends on how high you can set it and not get too much noise.

If you can anticipate action and know when/where a horse will be going next you could get set and focus on a rail etc. then adjust focus as the horse comes into your viewfinder. I watch for when the action is going to turn and go in another direction since there can be a brief pause. That helps me use shutter speeds that are less than ideal for sports (usually you'd want at least 1/250 or faster to freeze action).

I agree that horses may not be moving as fast as action in other sports so that might help, and getting shots as they're waiting ready for the next event etc. can get you some photos. I don't do much panning but found it took me a lot of practice to get decent at it. Try going early, I've gotten nice pictures during warmups, pregame etc.

 

[runnah]

Yup, manual mode will more than likely hamper your efforts. Go for one of the priority modes.

 

[robbins.photo]

Yup, manual mode will more than likely hamper your efforts. Go for one of the priority modes.

I'd agree. Manual mode is great for being able to set all your options but for a beginner it can be pretty overwhelming. I generally recommend A mode but S mode will work fine as well, not sure that Auto ISO is actually available in Shutter priority mode though, I'd have to check

 

[chloewindle1]

thanks everyone )

Sorry, I'm not really a beginner, I've been doing this for the past 3 years and get payed. I know how to use manual I was just wanting a few tips considering I've never shot indoors it's always been outdoors.

 

[robbins.photo]

thanks everyone )

Sorry, I'm not really a beginner, I've been doing this for the past 3 years and get payed. I know how to use manual I was just wanting a few tips considering I've never shot indoors it's always been outdoors.

Ok, well in that case manual mode, want to keep your shutter speed up or pan as Derrel mentioned, Aperture as wide as you can to get a reasonable DOF and boost your ISO as needed to get the correct exposure. Anticipate as much as you can and try to focus on your target before you actually need to start shooting, it will keep the lens from having to hunt quite so much when you do need to start shooting.

 

[pdq5oh]

One thing you'll find shooting a high ISO; you better get focus and exposure dead on or you'll have lots of noise. Cropping options will be pretty limited as the photos will fall apart quickly. I shoot in manual because I don't want any surprises with exposure when some stray light fools the camera's meter.

 

[Braineack]

One thing you'll find shooting a high ISO; you better get focus and exposure dead on or you'll have lots of noise. Cropping options will be pretty limited as the photos will fall apart quickly. I shoot in manual because I don't want any surprises with exposure when some stray light fools the camera's meter.

you'll have lots of noise regardless shooting at a high ISO..

Personally, I'd rather have a noisy, sharp, well-exposed picture at the shutter speed needed to capture whatever it is I'm trying to do, than to limit myself with ISO and have a clean yet underexposed, blurry picture.

If you're shooting in S with a higher shutter speed to stop some motion or prevent camera shake on a zoom, then the camera is almost always going to default to the lowest aperture the lens can achieve. So really, the only "surprise" you'll get with the camera is what ISO it decided to go with to amplify the light it was seeing to give you your exposure. In most circumstances, all my Nikon's have done a pretty bang-on job of this. If there were spotlights on the horses, I'd reconsider the exposure mode, and maybe use center or spot, but I'd still let auto-iso do its thing and not worry about the noise. Actually, if light conditions were constantly changing, I'd expect manual mode to give you more surprises than with some sort of auto mode...

 

[gsgary]

thanks everyone )

Sorry, I'm not really a beginner, I've been doing this for the past 3 years and get payed. I know how to use manual I was just wanting a few tips considering I've never shot indoors it's always been outdoors.

It makes no difference light is light you work with what you have