Nikon 5700 & Stage Photography

[koosh]

Hi Guys,
Was wondering if anybody can share their settings for stage photography?
The conditions are:
no tripod
low light
far from stage

Thanks in advance!

[espn]

1/60, f/<largest aperture>, ISO200, external flash @ full power.

[mervlam]

Originally Posted by espn 1/60, f/<largest aperture>, ISO200, external flash @ full power.

full power flash??? ugly leh... use flash for fill-in only

[Jus_a_Nick]

Originally Posted by koosh Hi Guys, Was wondering if anybody can share their settings for stage photography? The conditions are: no tripod low light far from stage Thanks in advance!

do you gotta shoot w 5700??
IMHO, try shoot at 1/60 at 2.8 like wat espn had said but dun use flash, ISO 200. If too dark, dun take.
On flash you loss all the mood, unl;ess it jus to record a "friend is on stage" pic, but for pure photography purposes, forget it. (IMHO of course)
If possible get a DSLR or film body, shoot w press 800.

cheers, jus my own opinion.

[espn]

Well no choice for direct flash @ full power, he's not going to be near the stage, he can't bounce off the top and since he's a distance, just do a manual +EV0.7 on the flash, should be just nice exposed.

1/60, f/2.8 is only possible at 1x zoom at 8x zoom, it's f/4.5 I think.

[Prismatic]

It's not impossible.
Refer to http://forums.clubsnap.org/showthread.php?t=62035
Thought I was quite close to the stage. And ISO 200? Dun think so, the settings for many concerts I've been to is like 1/80 at f2.8. And I dun like using flash cos your subject might be correctly exposed, but usually you end up with an ugly background shadow. (Unless of course, the background is properly lit)

Anyway, if you are more than 15-20m away, I think you can forget about it cos the zoom on your 5700 wun be enuff. And there's the problem of handshake. Without the added sensitivity of DSLRs, pictures output is likely to be grainy.

As Jus_a_nick says, go for a film body with fujipress 800. I absolutely swears by it.

[espn]

If you're just printing at 4R, sacrifice a bit shoot at ISO400. But must maintain at LEAST 1/60 to prevent handshake at 8x.

[koosh]

Originally Posted by espn If you're just printing at 4R, sacrifice a bit shoot at ISO400. But must maintain at LEAST 1/60 to prevent handshake at 8x.

Thanks all for your replies!
Actually I would prefer not to use flash as it wold cause the background to be dark.
I have already bumped up the ISO on the 5700 all the way to 400...still torn between using a longer shutter speed to capture enough light and a faster one to 'freeze' the action on screen.
Say, I use a shutter speed of 1/60 and yet it still turns out to be dark. What do you guys advice?

[Zerstorer]

Flash doesn't cause the background to become dark. The background is dark because not enough ambient light is being captured due to your shutter speed/aperture/iso combination.

[sehsuan]

dont use fill flash, or flash.

why?

severe distraction for those watching the performance. if you can shoot without flash, shoot. otherwise don't. don't ever compromise your shooting for distraction to the audience.

here are my shots of my kids' stage performance without flash. those with flash were all not during the performance.
http://schools.moe.edu.sg/sajs/home/...ical/index.htm

[Prismatic]

Seh, you are lucky that you've got a good bright stage there. However, if you are going to shoot pop concerts or performances, sometimes the conditions will be at least 3 stops darker. Conditions get a lot harder then.

Anyway, my advice is see what the audiences are doing.... if they are snappign away too, go ahead and fire your flash. If it's like those really hip concerts with all that flashing and blink lights, the audience probably can't tell the difference between the stage lights and the flash anyway.

[jOhO]

Originally Posted by espn Well no choice for direct flash @ full power, he's not going to be near the stage, he can't bounce off the top and since he's a distance, just do a manual +EV0.7 on the flash, should be just nice exposed. 1/60, f/2.8 is only possible at 1x zoom at 8x zoom, it's f/4.5 I think.

ahhahah so fast forget liow..

at max zoom it's 4.2 brudder.

anyway back to the thread, how will u be displaying the photo? online in small size, or print out? if u can expose properly, u can push to iso400, the highlights won't be too noisy, but the shadows.. YUX... but when resize for screen viewing.. it's ok. i guess.

[sehsuan]

thanks for highlighting that out, Prismatic (pun not intended )

i'm still blur about fillflash for lowlight situations....

[stevorn]

Originally Posted by koosh Hi Guys, Was wondering if anybody can share their settings for stage photography? The conditions are: no tripod low light far from stage Thanks in advance!

I'm almost in the same boat, mate. I am trying to photograph my daughter in a gymnasuim doing "Dance" with a 70 member team. Action and at a distance in the stands. I'm looking at your advice.

[stevorn]

Originally Posted by koosh Hi Guys, Was wondering if anybody can share their settings for stage photography? The conditions are: no tripod low light far from stage Thanks in advance!

I also have a Nikon 5700 and have learned that in my situation, I have to take the camara into manual mode, set the camera into a 400 ASI setting and perform "Manual Focus" to obtain the ultimate pictures.

[bonfire]

Turn BSS 'On' you be surprise wat it can do.
Else you might want to manually select the speedlight flash power from the menu.

[wkcheah]

Originally Posted by stevorn I also have a Nikon 5700 and have learned that in my situation, I have to take the camara into manual mode, set the camera into a 400 ASI setting and perform "Manual Focus" to obtain the ultimate pictures.

Hi Stevorn,
When u say "Manual Focus", is it where u select one out of the 5 available region to focus on, as well as manually setting the aperture + shutter speed? I always compare the "manual focus" for these kinda camera with an SLR where we sometimes have the center box + lines to focus/align.