Night Shots of band

MontecMontec Registered Users Posts: 823 Major grins
edited August 9, 2006 in Technique
What would be the best way to shoot some outside night time photos of a band playing in a park with no flash?
Cheers,
Monte

Comments

  • gpphotosgpphotos Registered Users Posts: 266 Major grins
    edited August 7, 2006
    what equipment are you shooting with?
  • MontecMontec Registered Users Posts: 823 Major grins
    edited August 7, 2006
    Sorry..I wasn't thinking.

    It is a Fuji S9000. One of these so called 'bridge' cameras with a 28-300 lens. It has full manual control over ISO, aperture and shutter. It is 9Mp.

    My skills would be rated as someone who is just learning how to use the manual settings but is very interested in my new hobby. After some experience with the Fuji I will be looking at a DSLR...but not until I understand the whole shutter/aperture/ISO and DOF concept a bit better.

    These photos are for a community project coming up shortly that I will be volunteering my services. There will be many different events that I should be able to handle well enough but this night time thing has me a bit worried.
    Cheers,
    Monte
  • SpeshulEdSpeshulEd Registered Users Posts: 341 Major grins
    edited August 8, 2006
    I would set your ISO as high as you can. Your pictures will have more noise, but thats about the only way you'll be able to operate in low light conditions.

    Setting your aperture as low as it will go will also allow more light in, however, your DOF will be a lot shallower.

    And slowing your shutter speed down will allow more light in, but will also create motion blur. Which can be good, but could also be bad. Slow your shutter too much, and you could get camera shake, which is no good.

    When I shoot concerts with my 20D, I usually set it at ISO1600, and leave my aperture at f/1.8 or f/2.8 depending on what lens I use. For the shutter speed I try to hit between 1/60 (there'll be limited motion blur, but usually none from camera shake) and 1/250 (usually no motion blur, but depending on light conditions, I've found its somewhat hard to get pictures with this fast of shutter speed). Sometimes I can get the shutter slower than 1/60 and still get some decent pictures if I was still enough and the performer wasn't moving too much.

    My biggest suggestion, have lots of cards and gigabytes and shoot like crazy. I can easily go through a 4gb card during a 2-3 hour show. The downfall, out of those 400+ pictures, maybe half of them will be usuable and from there I only pick out a few that I actually use.
    bored? check out my photo site...and if you have the time, leave a comment or rate some pictures while you're there.
    Canon 20D | Canon 17-40mm f/4L USM | Tamron 28-75 f2.8 XR Di LD IF | Canon 50mm f/1.8 II | Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L USM
  • MontecMontec Registered Users Posts: 823 Major grins
    edited August 9, 2006
    SpeshulEd wrote:
    I would set your ISO as high as you can. Your pictures will have more noise, but thats about the only way you'll be able to operate in low light conditions.

    Setting your aperture as low as it will go will also allow more light in, however, your DOF will be a lot shallower.

    And slowing your shutter speed down will allow more light in, but will also create motion blur. Which can be good, but could also be bad. Slow your shutter too much, and you could get camera shake, which is no good.

    When I shoot concerts with my 20D, I usually set it at ISO1600, and leave my aperture at f/1.8 or f/2.8 depending on what lens I use. For the shutter speed I try to hit between 1/60 (there'll be limited motion blur, but usually none from camera shake) and 1/250 (usually no motion blur, but depending on light conditions, I've found its somewhat hard to get pictures with this fast of shutter speed). Sometimes I can get the shutter slower than 1/60 and still get some decent pictures if I was still enough and the performer wasn't moving too much.

    My biggest suggestion, have lots of cards and gigabytes and shoot like crazy. I can easily go through a 4gb card during a 2-3 hour show. The downfall, out of those 400+ pictures, maybe half of them will be usuable and from there I only pick out a few that I actually use.

    Thanks! That is some great info to experiment with!
    Cheers,
    Monte
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