Tips needed on low light shooting

[Parentphotographer]

I have a Canon EOS rebel sl1 and I shoot a lot of my daughter's plays. Flash photography is forbidden. I sit about 30 ft from the stage and use a 55-250 lens with a hood and I can get really good closeups and pan out for about half the stage. I use the auto setting and the only trouble I have is when the stage lighting is very low. The shutter slows down in these conditions and any camera movement at all leads to blurry pictures. Her next play is all low light apparently, any suggestions on how to take better pictures in these conditions? Thanks in advance Joe

 

[tirediron]

Open up the aperture and/or increase your ISO.

 

[Designer]

Her next play is all low light apparently, any suggestions on how to take better pictures in these conditions?

Does that lens have image stabilization?

1. If you are hand-holding it, keep the IS turned ON. If you are using a tripod, turn IS OFF.

2. Invest in a $5,000 lens.

3. Shoot at practice, and ask for the lights to be turned up higher.

 

[Derrel]

Elevate the ISO to 3,200 or to 4,000, maybe even to 5,000 or 6,400 ISO, and shoot wide-open with the 55-250 and hope for the best! It might be best to shoot in the zone where the lens has its wider maximum aperture value, and not zoomed all the ay to 200-250...

Somewhere between 105 and 150mm the lens is probably a bit faster than it is at say, 180-250mm.

 

[photo1x1.com]

Hi and welcome to the forum.
Using the all-auto-setting of your camera is usually not the best idea for this kind of photography.
What you could do is set your camera in Tv mode, and the ISO to Auto. That way you set the shutter speed and the camera will take care about ISO and Aperture.
If you hand-hold the camera, set the shutter speed to 1 divided by the focal length you choose. If it is the maximum zoom of your 55-250mm lens, it will be 1/250th, if you are using the minimum zoom, it will be 1/50th (there is no 1/55 to chose, so take the one that is closest).
If you have the camera on a tripod, you can easily choose slower shutter speeds, but how slow depends on the fact whether your daughter is moving a lot on stage or not. If she stands still (that´s only theoretically I guess ), you can choose even 1sec. If she runs on the stage, you´d again need a much faster shutter speed.
Another thing to consider is your metering mode. If the stage would be completely black and only the face of your daughter would be lit by a spot, the camera would use the average brightness of the scene which is mostly black, so the face would be over exposed. You would then have to use spot metering (the one with the dot or circle in the middle) on your daughter's face. Or - you could go all manual - sounds complicated, but you can always use try and error as long as the click of the shutter isn´t disturbing others .

I have a Canon EOS rebel sl1 and I shoot a lot of my daughter's plays. Flash photography is forbidden. I sit about 30 ft from the stage and use a 55-250 lens with a hood and I can get really good closeups and pan out for about half the stage. I use the auto setting and the only trouble I have is when the stage lighting is very low. The shutter slows down in these conditions and any camera movement at all leads to blurry pictures. Her next play is all low light apparently, any suggestions on how to take better pictures in these conditions? Thanks in advance Joe

 

[Parentphotographer]

Thanks so much everyone the $5000 lens is not an option so I will try some of the other suggestions and let you know how it goes.

 

[Benoby]

You can partially reduce ISO noise in post processing but you can try using a low f number lens they let in much more light but depth of field is smaller. They can be expensive, maybe look for a prime lens with f/1.8, focus lenght depends on the sensor size.
Tripod is good.
It is important what kind of movemen she does because of shutter speed.
To get the least noise possible try exposing to the right.
Exposing to the Right Explained