Low low light photography [no judges]

PaulStat · 24 Jul 2006 at 08:57

Stage photography after dark, so all there is is the stage lighting. I tried this this weekend, I had to use a relatively quick shutter speed (1/60) as they were dancing pretty quickly.

I also used the largest aperture possible (f4), I would have liked to use ISO 800 but it was just to dark so ended up using ISO 1250, which made all the pictures unbearably noisy.

The picture below is probably one of the better shots, albeit perhaps off focus and noisy

Any more tips for this type of photography would be helpful

Sic · 24 Jul 2006 at 09:01

in my opinion, f4 just isn't wide enough for low-light like this. i operate between f1.8 and 2.8, ISO800, around 1/25 - 1/60, and im really happy with the results i've started seeing. it's also worth upping your contrast and balancing out the exposure.

try and get yourself a 50mm f1.8, they're under £100 and they're excellent lenses for this type of photography - don't be afraid to use slower shutters as they pick up the movement well

PaulStat · 24 Jul 2006 at 13:14

Just contrasted her a bit, thanks for the suggestion. Although I will be looking into one of those lenses

mrgubby · 24 Jul 2006 at 13:25

The 50mm/f1.8 is a cracking lens , With mine I don't need to bother with flash indoors unless I'm going for a large DOF.

If you fiddle with the levels you can pull quite a bit more out of your shot (come out a bit blocky , would be better starting with full res image

)

PaulStat · 24 Jul 2006 at 13:31

Yup I shall def look into, mrgubby I think I prefer my contrasted one. The overall tone, colours and lighting looks nicer imo.

mrgubby · 24 Jul 2006 at 13:48

PaulStat said:
Yup I shall def look into, mrgubby I think I prefer my contrasted one. The overall tone, colours and lighting looks nicer imo.

Fair enough

, was just trying to pick out the extra detail , never bothered with resetting the colours/saturation

King_Boru · 24 Jul 2006 at 13:54

mrgubby said:
The 50mm/f1.8 is a cracking lens , With mine I don't need to bother with flash indoors unless I'm going for a large DOF.

If you fiddle with the levels you can pull quite a bit more out of your shot (come out a bit blocky , would be better starting with full res image )

It looks all grainy now and the colours are bleeding too.

Sic · 24 Jul 2006 at 16:46

Paul, if you run that contrasty image through noiseware, you should get a better-looking result

also, play around with the shadows/highlighting to get some more detail around her face

PaulStat · 24 Jul 2006 at 21:09

Sic said:
Paul, if you run that contrasty image through noiseware, you should get a better-looking result also, play around with the shadows/highlighting to get some more detail around her face

I've only got the trial version

mrgubby · 24 Jul 2006 at 22:07

PaulStat said:
I've only got the trial version

I've got the full version if you want it processed

PaulStat · 25 Jul 2006 at 09:03

mrgubby said:
I've got the full version if you want it processed

Might buy it myself if it's not too expensive

, updated