Advice Needed - Rock & Roll Dance This Weekend

Aspire

This weekend I am taking photos for a local Rock & Roll club for a birthday dance they are holding. (My partners parents are in the club and they normally just get photos by another rock & roller with a small compact camera but never seem to get any good photos...)

It is being held in a hall & as I have only recently purchased my DSLR (Canon EOS 450D) I only have the kit lenses to work with;

EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens & the EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS

I am also just starting my dip in photography so I would appreciate any advice or tips on shooting people dancing/using inbult flash etc and getting the best photos with the lenses I have. I will be covering the setting up of the hall, couples & groups dancing, the band, the tables centre pieces etc.

Many thanks in advance

Scott_Quier

Aspire wrote:

This weekend I am taking photos for a local Rock & Roll club for a birthday dance they are holding. (My partners parents are in the club and they normally just get photos by another rock & roller with a small compact camera but never seem to get any good photos...)

It is being held in a hall & as I have only recently purchased my DSLR (Canon EOS 450D) I only have the kit lenses to work with;

EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens & the EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS

I am also just starting my dip in photography so I would appreciate any advice or tips on shooting people dancing/using inbult flash etc and getting the best photos with the lenses I have. I will be covering the setting up of the hall, couples & groups dancing, the band, the tables centre pieces etc.

Many thanks in advance

Wecome

This is going to sound terribly harsh - sorry.

You have some pretty serious hurddles to surmount:

• Dances are dark
• The hall is going to be quite large
• The built-in flash is quite under-powered
• Your lenses are quite slow - small maximum aperture

What all the above adds up to is

• Your flash will have problems illuminating your subjects (in many instances, you just won't be able to get close enough to them for your flash to be effective),
• Where you can/do get close enough, your subject(s) will look quite flashy and the background will either be very under-exposed or not exposed at all - not attractive
• Using your built-in flash in this manner is a serious battery drain - do you have extra batteries?

All that having been said, you will probably get photos that are better than those taken by a simple P&S camera, but I wonder if they will meet your expectations.

If you had more time, time in which to practice a bit, I would suggest you get an external flash (three examples - Canon 430EX, Canon 580EX II, or a Sigma DG 500 Super), a Better Bounce Card, and a faster lens (examples, in no particular order: Canon EF 50mm f/1.8, Canon EF 50mm f/1.4, Canon EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 IS, Sigma 30mm f/1.4).

That's all well and good, but you also asked for some advice. Here's the best I can offer right now:

• Shoot in RAW and plan to process these to get decent JPG files. Don't know about RAW - Google it and read up on it. Shooting RAW will get you the best opportunity to save images that are not correctly exposed.
• Shoot at ISO 800. This will incur a bit of noise, but you need all the speed you can get to offset the slow lenses.
• Do the best you can to get proper exposure. While ISO will introduce noise into your photos, it will be a LOT less in properly exposed images.
• Relax and have fun. Sounds strange, but your shots will turn out better if you do.

HTH

Oh, and you are "obligated" to post a couple of your more successful photos! Really looking forward to seeing those.

Aspire

Thank you - your comments are appreciated & I do understand the limitations with the current gear I have luckily this is a casual dance, it really is a practice for me & a stepping stone in my learning!

Thanks also for the advice on how to get the best from my gear & I will most definately post the most successful pics. Unfortunately I am unable to add to my lenses or have anything other than the built in flash but I do intend to do the best I can with what I have - at least I will have a starting point & will be able to see in the future my improvements

I was planning on shooting RAW anyway as I prefer to have that flexibility. Your advice is just what I was wanting & look forward to posting the some of the finished photos.

Thanks again
Nicola

Scott_Quier

Aspire wrote:

Thank you - your comments are appreciated & I do understand the limitations with the current gear I have luckily this is a casual dance, it really is a practice for me & a stepping stone in my learning!

Thanks also for the advice on how to get the best from my gear & I will most definately post the most successful pics. Unfortunately I am unable to add to my lenses or have anything other than the built in flash but I do intend to do the best I can with what I have - at least I will have a starting point & will be able to see in the future my improvements

I was planning on shooting RAW anyway as I prefer to have that flexibility. Your advice is just what I was wanting & look forward to posting the some of the finished photos.

Thanks again
Nicola

HTH - in this case, that's "Happy To Help"