Shooting (or attempting) my daughter's ballet recital.. help?

[koofa]

So, I opted with the 60D. Got the body only, so I need a lens.. I'm getting a couple, but I want one to be a standard one I can use in almost any situation that will also be able to zoom well.. I have no idea what the venue of her recital looks like or where I'm going to be able to sit, so that's obviously an issue, but I'm preparing for the worst. I'm going to have to use my camera to do it because we don't have a camcorder. What kind of lens would be good for this - assuming that it'll probably be in low-light, and guesstimating that I'll maybe be 50-100 ft. away from the stage.. I don't want to go over $200 or around there. Also, how big of a memory card would I need, would I need a tri-pod, is shooting video as easy as shooting and then uploading to your computer? I want to put it on a DVD for my family, because we moved a few months ago to be with my husband who's in the army and none of my friends or family are here and I know they'd love to see her perform. Any advice would help. Thanks.

 

[shootermcgavin]

You're budget kind of puts you at a 50mm 1.8 which will be the best for lighting, but you won't have any zoom capabilities so you're just kind of stuck with whatever comes out of the camera. Pretty much everyone has a 50mm 1.8 so it definitely won't be a waste of money. The last ballet recital I went to was really dark so I'd love to hear how the 60d performs I have the same body. I don't take too many videos with it though.

 

[mangtarn]

that's a lot of questions. you need at least a 4GB card for the 60D with fast writing speed. I recommend Sandisk Extreme. you need a tripod because there is nothing worse than camera shake, the 60D is not a light camera so simply handholding is going to be difficult. and shooting video is as easy or as hard as you want it to be, if you want to edit it and put in effects then it's difficult, but if you just want to put it on your computer and burn it on a disk then it's not that hard. So you are cutting it close with 200 here.

 

[MLeeK]

Your budget doesn't allow for you to get a zoom of GOOD quality at this point and it is way to tight to get you into one that will work in low light. The only option open to you is the 50mm f/1.8. Sit as close as you can.
you can squeeze into the 55-250 f/4-5.6 but it isn't going to work inside without flash in most well lit situations, let alone a dimmed recital.

For memory cards I prefer smaller ones and many of them as opposed to one large one. I generally shoot with about an 8G card max when shooting RAW and a 4G max when shooting jpeg. On your camera a 4G card should hold somewhere around 800+ JPG images.