More on Upgrading: Compare Canon XTI to 20D

kitkatkaplan

Thanks so much for all the great advice on upgrading. My budget is limited and I am now comparing the Canon XTI to the 20d for shooting night time events in bars, especially dark dance floors. I just shot a holiday party with my old Rebel 300d and a Sigma f/2.8 17-70 with a Speedlite and the auto focus just didn't work. I used ISO 400 for fear of grain at higher levels.

The walls, the clothing and most of the people were black. It was so dark there was nothing to focus on and people around me with point and shoot cameras were snapping away while me, the pro, sat there waiting for auto-focus that didn't work. Very embarrasing.

Also, any tips or links on how to shoot in near dark would be great.

Thanks again for all the great advice.

ziggy53

In a really low-light situation like you describe I generally use a preset focus and then try to position myself at that distance from the subjects.

Shoot at ISO 1600 and use software noise suppression. You may have to use a somewhat smaller aperture to get reasonable DOF.

On the Canon 300D use only the central focus point and single-shot mode. Full manual mode is probably a benefit as well.

A really fast prime lens, f2 or better, will yield more keepers overall and you "might" even get some autofocus function especially with a Canon or Sigma flash with a focus assist lamp.

Tee Why

The XTi has the AF system of the 30D, which was a slight improvement from the 20D. High ISO noise of the 20/30D is slightly better than the XTi though. For me, it would be a toss up. I think I'd end up getting the XTi b/c the larger LCD gives me more chimping pleasure. However, the 20D has a more rugged build. Tough call but both are good, so I don't think you can go wrong.

As for the shooting, I'd definitely shoot in Manual, that way your flash will expose the shot and you can stop down so that the the dof is pretty deep, especially if you stick to the wide end of the focal length. This way if you have to manually focus and guess the distance, you can be close and still have the subjects in focus. If you can use AF, then I'd definitely use the AF assist with the central AF point only and aim for the eyes. They might not like the red bars from the flash, but it's either that or out of focus shots.

You can also drag the shutter so that the background is exposed with the ambient light so the subjects don't look like they are standing in the middle of a black void.

Practice a lot, b/c low light shooting is tough.
Good luck.