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
