Circus photography...help needed

JWilbur26

Hi All...hope I am putting this in the right forum...

My girlfriend got us excellent seats for tonights Barnum & Baily Circus. I know...26 is a little old for the circus, but I never went as a kid.

I have not done a whole lot of low light photography and what I have tried, I have been unsucessful in. (trying to understand the basics more before I dive into low light). I am hoping you might be able to provide a crash course in low light. Maybe a circus will not be as low light as I think...and our seats are second row. Here is what I know so far.

• higher ISO (800 maybe)
• manual focus
• focus shutter lock - I believe i need to turn off, but not sure how to on the d50
• f/8 maybe - knowing the need to great DOF
• shooting in Raw
• exposure compensation...but how much....

Would I just set to manual and adjust the shutter speed and aperture as needed? I will most likely use my use my 55-200mm if that makes a difference. Tripod will not be possible so I am not sure if I should bother trying. I don't want to attempt to use the flash on my camera and haven't taken the leap to the speedlight yet. Pretty sure everyone around me wouldn't enjoy the flash either way.

Thank you for any help you can provide. Just looking for a few quick pointers or if my assumptions are off. Don't want to miss this opportunity to get a few great shots.

asylumxl

f8 in such lighting conditions doesn't seem right to me, as i'd assume they aren't amazingly brightly lit.

JWilbur26

I can step it down to 4.5. I was going on the thought that lower light would require a greater depth.

DoctorIt

JWilbur26 wrote:

Hi All...hope I am putting this in the right forum...

People come to "people" looking for shots... I think you'll get more advice in the "technique" forum. You were close, they are both in the larger "shots" forum.

I'm moving you there now

DoctorIt

JWilbur26 wrote:

I can step it down to 4.5. I was going on the thought that lower light would require a greater depth.

booo! you have the theory about depth correct, but your gut correlation on depth and light is incorrect. In low light you really have to sacrifice depth to get as much light as possible. You have nothing without light.

I echo the comment above - circus will be dark, open up your aperture as wide as possible and get all the available light you can. Set your ISO to what is acceptable for you. For me and for snaps from a circus, that would be 1600, I'd rather have a bit of grain, and sharp shots than smooth blurry shots.

These shots are memories for you, not to be sold back to the circus, right? so its all about capturing the moment, not perfection. You can't get technical perfection without perfect lighting, and you'll have no control over that, so why stress about it?

And your other points:
RAW = yes, if you already know how to deal with it, if not, try a few but be ready for lots of processing

focus shutter lock = huh I'd set it to one-shot, and do plenty of focusing and recomposing

manual focus = in light that low? nah, don't bother. in your tiny little viewfinder you won't be able to do better than the AI system, i can almost guarantee that - so don't give yourself too much to worry about

exposure compensation = if you're shooting in RAW or full manual (as you said you might), this is a moot point.

JWilbur26

Thanks for the input (and the move)

Understood...I can open my lense to 4 and I will crank up the ISO to 1600. I have a feeling I will need to increase the exposure little bit just to get the shutter to open.

These are just personal shots and I do just want them to be sharp. A little grain will not be a problem at all.

DoctorIt

JWilbur26 wrote:

These are just personal shots and I do just want them to be sharp. A little grain will not be a problem at all.

Bingo. I personally really like the nature of the high ISO Nikon grain - makes for really great looking black and whites that look like they were shot on film.

jdryan3

I shot the circus last year in Chicagoland @ the United Center. Very dark overall, lots of spotlights. Even from the second row, you are not close up most of the time. If you shoot manual and want stop action, shoot as open as possible (I don't know the lenses max aperature), at least 1/125 (if not 1/250 and boost the ISO as high as needed to properly expose (probably 800 at 200, 1600 for wide shots).

Or set aperature priority to max aperature, set ISO @ 1600 and let the camera choose the speed. I have shot night shots with strong light sources as part of the image and had to boost the exposure comp to +2/3 to +1 to get detail from the darker parts w/o blowing out the light. I used center-weight metering on my Canon 5D, rather than evaluative.

claudermilk

Another Canon-shooter here. I'd agreed with Dave's settings. For low light I run center-weighted metering, single-shot AF, aperture-priority, max ISO (unless I have enought light for acceptable shutter speeds at lower ISO). I also set to use only the center AF point--I'm sure Nikon bodies can do that too. With your lens, definitely run it wide open, you will find f4 (or is it f4.5?) will seem pretty slow, however the tradeoff is you should have plenty of DOF there. Shooting RAW will help & allow you to play with EV compensation to get better shutter speeds, then bring back the exposure in post.

JWilbur26

Thank you all for your help.

The circus was last night and I was very happy with the way the shots came out. Ran wide open the entire time. mostly at 1600 but was able to down it to 800 and even 200 for one shot (might be slightly underexposed). Kept it manual most of the time and was adjusting the shutter speed.

This was a learning experience for me for sure. I learned I need more memory. The 512mb card ran out pretty quickly so I had to delete and switch to jpg. Knew that was going to happen. Been to busy to get a new card.

I will get a chance to PP this weekend and will post what I can.

Thanks!,
Jonathan