Indoor Pantomime Photography

[Mike380]

Hi all,

I'm a bit of a newbie to the forums so please forgive me if this is posted in the wrong forum :blushing:

A friend of mine is in a pantomime this Xmas season, and I'm going to watch in about a weeks time. Shes asked me to take some photos (I have a Canon 300D), but I'm not too sure about the settings. I want to get it right first time as I only have one oppurtunity to see the show. I tried this type of photography a few months back, and only produced 3 or 4 images which I felt proud of to have my name on.

Obviously it's going to be mainly dark in the theatre with the stage lit up. What sort of camera settings am I looking at here? I'm on the understanding that if the ISO is bumped up incredibly high then although the photos should be lighter they're going to be pretty grainy, but if the shutter is open for too long with a lower ISO then if the cast member moves then they're going to be pretty blurred?

I'd really appreciate any help you can give. Thanks! :mrgreen:

Regards,
Mike.

 

[Digital Matt]

What lenses do you have, and how far away are you going to be from stage? If you are going to be relatively close, a 50mm 1.8 will do well for you. You will still probably have to shoot at at least ISO 400 to get something sharp. If a 50mm isn't close enough, you can pick up the Canon 85mm f/1.8, which is an awesome lens, and still relatively cheap. You just really need a fast lens, because I'm sure they won't want flash photography at this kind of event.

 

[Mike380]

Yeah I think flash photography is pretty much a no no, which I'm happy with. I'm not too sure how far I am away from the stage but I've just been told "Row Q" from my friend who has the tickets (so I'm guessing 17 rows back?), but it won't be that far as its only a small production. I have an 18-55mm zoom, 75-300mm zoom, and a 50mm 1.8 fixed. I'm assuming that for close ups I'll probably need to use 75mm plus, but not much more than that (at least I don't think so anyway).

Apart from lenses, what sort of settings would I be looking at? I'm guessing Manual will give me great coverage of settings in this kind of thing.