Poor Lights, Poor ISO performance,..GREAT show!

[Bend The Light]

My daughter was recently part of a show. I was asked to take some photos as I did last year. The photos are not being paid for, I am doing them as a favour to help out the theatre company. They did give me a free 2 page spread in the programme, though, comprising several of my shots from last year's performance. Programs sold to over 300 people, so that's not bad advertising, eh?
Anyway, I took a lot of shots at the dressed rehearsal. In low/stage light, I have only 2 options for lens: an f2.8 135mm, and a f1.8 50mm, both manual. I use a 400d. With the ISO set at 800, in this light, the shots were still very noisy. Higher ISO makes them almost unusable. I find that red lights make it so difficult...why is that??
So, here are a couple of shots, which I have processed in Topaz. Bear in mind that they will not be used bigger than 8"x10", and mostly will be used on a small monitor as a display in a front office, so no point pixel peeping

Blood Brothers - I coulda been him by http://bendthelight.me.uk, on Flickr

Memory - Ballet Sequence by http://bendthelight.me.uk, on Flickr

masquerade 5 by http://bendthelight.me.uk, on Flickr
And one of my daughter (she's 5) singing her solo lines to "Toot Sweets" from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. She did it in front of 300+ people on Sunday. Very proud of her.

Toot Sweets - Ruby by http://bendthelight.me.uk, on Flickr
Thoughts on noise, Topaz, pictures and lights, please.

 

[Robin Usagani]

Why are they manual?

 

[Bend The Light]

Because I can't afford a fast auto lens.

 

[Robin Usagani]

What lenses are these? I understand if you are a Nikon shooter but I havent heard many manual focus except Zeiss lenses. You mount an older lens with an adapter or something?

 

[KenC]

These actually look just a bit overexposed. I think the stage lighting is giving the meter fits, not surprising because there are small bright areas and large dark areas in the background of most of them. An average exposure setting will overexpose the bright areas. You may have been able to use ISO 400 with about a -2/3 EC (except maybe on the last one).

 

[Bend The Light]

What lenses are these? I understand if you are a Nikon shooter but I havent heard many manual focus except Zeiss lenses. You mount an older lens with an adapter or something?

Yes. I have a canon 400d, and I mounted M42 lenses on them. Lenses I get from charity shops, etc.
Only way I can get fast enough lenses for these.

 

[Bend The Light]

These actually look just a bit overexposed. I think the stage lighting is giving the meter fits, not surprising because there are small bright areas and large dark areas in the background of most of them. An average exposure setting will overexpose the bright areas. You may have been able to use ISO 400 with about a -2/3 EC (except maybe on the last one).

Yes, the lighting is "patchy"...I had to recover highlights quite a bit, but I didn't recover them all the way for the lights, just for the people and their costumes. Will 400ISO and Exposure compensation stop (or reduce) the noise issue? I understand that -2/3 EC would be equivalent of upping the ISO to 800, but does that not introduce the noise from ISO, then?

I'll certainly remember that for next time...next show is October.