hip hop dance event

[CaseyChaos]

Hiya, I'm going to be taking photos for a dance show this Thursday and I'm not sure what would be the best settings
I have a sony alpha a200 with 18 - 58mm lens
The show will be indoors and will have a variety of lights which will be moving around as well as the performers, plus they will be on stage...Any Advice anyone? urgent
Thanks

 

[cgipson1]

With that camera and lens combination.. you are probably going to have problems unless you can use flash. Typically lighting at an event like this is minimal (it may look bright to you.. but it won't to the camera). YOu have a max ISO of 3200, and a max continous speed of 3fps. For an indoors dance competition, that won't cut it!

To do a good job, you need a professional body capable of High ISO with low noise, and at least 6 to 8 fps (catching those dance moves at their peak can be difficult), and good lenses with a large constant aperture.

DPReview from 2008: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydslra200/31

Some of the CONS listed for your body (that are going to directly affect this shoot):

Large amounts of chroma noise and little shadow detail in high ISO images
Poor white balance performance in artificial light
High ISO noise reduction blurs a lot of detail
Image quality suffers above ISO 800 (from both noise and excessive noise reduction)

 

[groan]

Casey,
Given that you probably won't be able to go out and buy a new camera for the event, do you have the ability to go out and rent a longer lens?
That lens may be OK if you want full body/stage shots but for anything close you'd have to be on stage with them.
hopefully, with the colored lights you won't need to worry about the white balance too much, and that is something you can correct in post processing fairly easily.

Can anyone else suggest anything with her current setup?

 

[o hey tyler]

You're really at a severe disadvantage with your current setup. The A200 is not great at handling noise, and when I owned one I found the image quality to be unacceptable over ISO400.

You may want to consider leaving your camera at home and just enjoying the event. At 55mm, you will be @ f/5.6 which won't cut the mustard without flash(es). At 18mm you'll be at f/3.5 but you'll also be way far away from the action unless you're on stage with them.

Please, just tell me that this isn't a paid gig and you can not worry so much about getting serviceable shots.

 

[cgipson1]

You're really at a severe disadvantage with your current setup. The A200 is not great at handling noise, and when I owned one I found the image quality to be unacceptable over ISO400.

You may want to consider leaving your camera at home and just enjoying the event. At 55mm, you will be @ f/5.6 which won't cut the mustard without flash(es). At 18mm you'll be at f/3.5 but you'll also be way far away from the action unless you're on stage with them.

Please, just tell me that this isn't a paid gig and you can not worry so much about getting serviceable shots.

Have to agree with that!

 

[LuckySe7en]

Crank the iso, open wide and speed it up. What you get is what you get. Hopefully the lights in the place will be abundant.

 

[o hey tyler]

Crank the iso, open wide and speed it up. What you get is what you get.

What they'll get is a lot of chroma noise and blurry photos.

 

[Derrel]

Crank the iso, open wide and speed it up. What you get is what you get.

What they'll get is a lot of chroma noise and blurry photos.

Yeah, but the participants are young, hip-hop dancers...they'll not even notice the noise. Many people today are used to low-light pics shot on cell phones...if they are in a photo and recognizable, that will be good enough. And no, I'm not being sarcastic. Non-photographers have a way of looking right past technical flaws, even serious one, and zeroing in on the emotion and subject matter (the "content") itself. Blurry? Well, so what? It's movement! Content over quality. That's how non-photographers evaluate photos.

 

[LuckySe7en]

Crank the iso, open wide and speed it up. What you get is what you get.

What they'll get is a lot of chroma noise and blurry photos.

my point exactly.

 

[KmH]

Crank the iso, open wide and speed it up. What you get is what you get.

Content over quality. That's how non-photographers evaluate photos.

Yep, I agree.

This is a shooting situation where having a good understanding of how the camera works and the technical aspects of doing photography can pay dividends. It is a shooting situation many DSLR cameras would have difficulty shooting.

For moving subjects you need to use continuous focus. But, auto focus requires x-amount of light to work, and continuous focus puts the camera in shutter priority focus mode and will release the shutter if focus has not been achieved. Single point focus used focus priority, but won't release the shutter if focus hasn't been achieved.
So which is better, a somewhat blurry shot, or miss the shot entirely because the shutter didn't release.

The OP didn't say flash was not allowed. Does the a200 have an auto focus assist function? How far from the subjects will the OP be? Pointing the camera up at the stage will induce keystone lens distortion.

Renting a faster lens is a viable option, but it takes a bit of time to learn how to use a new lens effectively and the OP has to shoot in 2 days.

 

[customflashdrives]

Many people today are used to low-light pics shot on cell phones...if they are in a photo and recognizable, that will be good enough. And no, I'm not being sarcastic.

As a former dancer I must say this is a good point. If you catch them doing something cool/difficult they won't care too much about the quality of the photo as long as you can tell what they're doing. Aim to capture their intensity (if they have any) and if not go for interesting angles (it will make the dancers feel more professional and therefore satisfied with the photos).

I recommend trying to find example shots to browse beforehand to get some good ideas on what you want to capture and how you can capture the "feel" of the dance in photos.

 

[groan]

Crank the iso, open wide and speed it up. What you get is what you get.

What they'll get is a lot of chroma noise and blurry photos.

Yeah, but the participants are young, hip-hop dancers...they'll not even notice the noise. Many people today are used to low-light pics shot on cell phones...if they are in a photo and recognizable, that will be good enough. And no, I'm not being sarcastic. Non-photographers have a way of looking right past technical flaws, even serious one, and zeroing in on the emotion and subject matter (the "content") itself. Blurry? Well, so what? It's movement! Content over quality. That's how non-photographers evaluate photos.

this.

As I said, I don't expect she will be able to go out and get any new gear, my lens rental suggestion aside, go, have fun with it and take what you can get.
Bump up the ISO and open your aperture and fire away. Get in people's faces in the crowd, get shots of them having fun, and make sure they are as lit as much as possible. Let them jump around and add a bit of blur., just make sure it's focused.

Then when you're done come back and show us! This last part is important!

remember, croping can be done after you take the shots.

 

[CaseyChaos]

Thank you guys for your advice, its not a paid event...I'm taking the photos for my college...ill upload some of the pics after the event....maybe some editibg advice then

 

[CaseyChaos]

Hey guys, today is the day....any last minute advice? Excited and a lil nervous

 

[gsgary]

Hey guys, today is the day....any last minute advice? Excited and a lil nervous

Leave your camera at home, because you will be very disheartened when you see the results, even an experienced photographer will struggle with your equipment, the only thing i can see possible is some artistic second curtain sinc blur shots but i don't think that is possible with your pop up flash