Newbie, to forum, please help

djmfaith

Hi, I am new to this forum and photography and looking for some help.

I was asked last night to take pictures of a friends daughter at a dance studio next week. From what I understand, the studio has glass on all four walls.
I am afraid of lighting issues, issues with flash and reflections (which could be good or bad).

My camera is the Nikon D40, with the 18-55mm kit lens
I have the 55-200mm, and an external SB600 flash. And for right now, due to job loss and hand surgeries, can not afford anymore equipment.

My experience is limited to family pictures, but am at a crossroad in my life, where I am hoping to follow my dream of learning and growing with my love of photography.

Any help or suggestions, samples and ideas on the lighting and portraits, would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you, :lust

Art Scott

get as close to the "stage" as you can and hopefully the ceiling is low enuff to bounce the flash off of it.......I believe I would use the 18-55 and shoot in aperture priority and have flash settings a auto ttl...................also shoot in around f5.6 to 8 ..........if possible.................................

djmfaith

Thank you for your response. I am actually going to be shooting in the classroom setting. No stage.
The information is greatly appreciated.

Blessings

divamum

Welcome!!

A few thoughts:

• First, make sure you ask if you can use flash at all. If you can, then you're golden and can adapt bouncing etc to suit the situation. HOWEVER.... you may not be encouraged to flash as it distracts people so much.

• When you say "glass", do you mean dance mirrrors, or windows? If windows, then life is good - LOTS OF LIGHT!!!

• If dance mirrors, then you can actually use those to your advantage too, as you can take shots IN the mirror (remembering that the camera will focus on the glass itself instead of the depth of the image IN the mirror, so adjust accordingly by adding some extra depth of field if you can). Angle it so you don't see yourself in the mirror, but use it to catch the dancers - you can get some really interesting perspectives that way which will add a real "rehearsal" feel to the images that for dance can be very appropriate and a neat effect. Try to position the seams between panels in interesting places too (this sounds harder than it is - you'll get the hang of it quickly once you're in situ!)

• Dancers move, thus you'll need the fastest shutter speed possible to freeze the motion. Use a high ISO, and deal with any noise issues in the image after the fact (the free program noiseware is GREAT for this and you can find it here - scroll right to the bottom of the page for the "standalone community edition").

• A trick that was discussed in another thread and which is a GODSEND for low-light, high-speed situations is this: shoot raw (so you can adjust exposure more freely afterwards). If you're shooting manual, then underexpose by a stop or two. If you're shooting av or shuttter priority, then use the exposure compensation feature to underexpose by a stop or two. YES the picture will be underexposed but, because you shot raw, you can fix that afterwards. BUT (and here's why it's a great trick), "fooling" the camera into underexposingg means you can bump up the shutter speed. I can't believe I never thought of this before - it's so simple and so effective! Yes, the pictures will likely have more noise because of being underexposed, but a sharp noisy picture is going to clean up better than a blurred noisy picture . Sometimes you just have to go with what's possible.

• If you can't get up to 200+ no matter what, then try to use blur artistically wherever possible. Capture a clear face and let the arms or legs blur to form a trail - be creative.

• It can be fun to focus on just feet in a dance class - get down low and shoot across a line of them, trying to capture the geometric shapes of the choreography and angles; sometimes using tilts (either in camera or when you edit) can be fun too. With a group of dancers, capturing angles and shapes is a really nice way to emphasise what they're doing. If you have access to a stepladder and can shoot from above, that could be fun too.

Hope that helps with some ideas. Have a great time and shoot LOTS! This is a situation where trying to get the "perfect" shot will probably meaning losing lots of opportunities because it will move fast - flash cards are cheap these days, and I would definitely err on the side of having more keepers by shooting lots, even if that means more duds too

Have fun!!

Edited to add: one other thing to make SURE you do at the very start of the shoot since it sounds like the space will have a mix of lighting types: do a custom white balance (check your camera's manual for how to do this). It will only take a few seconds, and will drastically improve the results on the shots!

djmfaith

Thank you so much !!!!!

I have lots to learn in a hurry.

I love this site, so happy I found it.

koush

this site is amazing...I have learned so much here from so many talented photographers,and all have been so willing to pass on their knowledge with such grace.

enjoy your stay here, best of everything on your journey, and good luck at the dance school

Tim