blues_photo_equip.txt 090929 2100 Introduction: Photographing blues dancing in available light requires good equipment, better technique and lower standards. For those not familiar with it, the current blues dance scene grew out of the lindy hop revival, and is generally done in very low light. The dancing is generally partnered, often very sexy, and bright flashes of light would be very inconsiderate. Modern equipment makes it possible to get good photographs of people blues dancing, but it takes high ISO sensors, fast lenses, and being able to accept noisy images that are prone to subject blur. This article will primarily concentrate on photographing social blues dancing, in available light. However, many of the techniques should apply to photographing most sorts of dancing, in difficult lighting situations. If you are doing a specific photo shoot of dancers, then I assume that you will be using proper lighting, i.e. strobes, or at least a tripod, and a lot of the material here will not be nearly as applicable. I will assume that you know at least the basics about sensor speed (ISO), shutter speed, aperture, focal length, depth of field, and how they are related to one another. If you don't, then you may need to read up on a few terms as I discuss them. ========================== ========================== Equipment: I will start with a discussion about equipment. I'm a firm believer that the photographer, not the equipment is usually the limiting factor in the quality of the photographs. However, when one is pushing the performance envelope of the equipment, it does take better gear to be "good enough". Does this mean that you need a top of the line, full frame camera with an image stabilized f/1.2 lens? No, you don't, but if you use a point and shoot superzoom be prepared for a very low percentage of shots that have good enough image quality. I have not had the chance to try photographing a blues dance with a top of the line system like a Nikon D700, or a Canon 5DmkII with an image stabilized f/1.4 or faster lens, but I have shot a lot of blues dancing with both a Pentax K100Dsuper and a Pentax K20D. My primary lenses for shooting dancing are the Pentax FA31/1.8 ltd and the Pentax FA 50/1.4. At current prices, the most expensive of these items is the FA31, and while I haven't had a chance to shoot with the sigma 30/1.4, despite a reputation for being soft at the edges, it would very likely do a very good job. At today's prices, especially if you bought used gear, you could get a K20D and an f/1.4 lens for under $1,000. =========================== Camera body: This isn't an article on how to decide what camera body to buy. If you're reading this, chances are that you already have a DSLR and are looking to get the most performance out of it, so you can probably skip to the lenses section and not miss out on much of importance. I do, however, find it helpful to understand everything that affects my goal, and will therefore discuss how the camera body itself relates to taking low light dance photos. ---------------------- Resolution: You don't need more than 6MP. As a matter of fact, for low light work, there are a lot of advantages to having fewer, larger, pixels to having lots and lots of small ones. Any DSLR made in the past several years will have enough resolution for just about any picture an amateur will take. If you're already making a living doing this, you already have a camera body, and what I say in this section doesn't apply to you. ---------------------- Image stabilization: I currently shoot Pentax. It has a couple of major advantages over Canon and Nikon. In my opinion, in its performance range, Pentax gives you more for your money than either of the two big names. Another is in-body shake reduction. There are endless debates about whether lens based or in body image stabilization works better, with the general consensus that with everything being the latest issue, lens based may have a slight advantage. However, in-body image stabilization will work with any lens, including a 30 year old 50/1.4 lens that you can pick up used for under $100. Ten years ago a major advantage of in-lens image stabilization was that it wasn't possible to do in-body stabilization with film. ---------------------- Sensor size: For the same angle of view, a smaller sensor will give you more depth of field than a larger sensor. However, you can always put the same lens on a "full frame" body as you would on an APS body, and crop it to take advantage of the greater depth of field of the wider lens. The 24x36mm SLR was optimized to work with a 50mm lens. This is why most of the manufacturers made 50mm f/1.2 lenses, and 50mm f/1.4 lenses are relatively affordable, while it is hard to find sharp lenses faster than f/1.8 in the 28-31mm range, which gives a similar angle of view on APS. Since photography of social dancing tends to be in close quarters, a "standard lens" i.e. 30mm in APS or 50mm in "full frame" tends to be ideal. If you want to use a fast 50 and get the wider angle of view, that means using full frame. There is no theoretical reason that a full frame sensor should have better low light capability than an APS sensor. The limiting factors are the size of the light collecting area and the noise level of the electronics. In theory a 6MP APS and a 12 MP full frame should be able to deliver the same performance in low light. However, since the top of the line cameras tend to be full frame, and market pressures push towards more pixels (whether or not they improve image qulity), the cameras with the best low light performance tend to be full frame. There is a major disadvantage, however, to full frame camera systems. They cost a lot more money, both for the body, and for the lenses (unless you're using legacy, manual focus, glass). ---------------------- Brand: Every brand of camera body has its advantages and disadvantages. There is a commonly held belief of camera brand monogamy. You buy a camera body, commit to that lens mount, buy lenses for your camera (often more expensive then the body itself) and that switching camera systems ends up being the financial equivalent of getting a divorce. In the 21st century, however, camera bodies have become the equivalent of film in the 20th century. At $20 for film and processing a 36 exposure roll, you can buy a very good camera body for the cost of thirty rolls of film. That is a thousand frames, or about what I'll shoot in an average week. My feeling is that you should find the lenses that you need to do a particular task, and get the camera bodies you need to use those lenses. In reality, I have Pentax DSLRs, and it is handy to be able to swap lenses between them. However, if a compelling reason comes up for me to get a body and lens by another manufacturer, then I'll have no hesitation to do so, use it for what it does best, and use my Pentax gear for what it does best. ---------------------- Technical improvements: The price for a particular level of performance in camera bodies continues to drop. Today's $600 entry level camera will outperform the $6,000 top of the line professional gear of just a few years ago. If you wait a few years, you should be able to get camera bodies that'll let you use your slow f/2.8 lenses in light that requires f/1.4 today. ---------------------- Technical specifications: In the early days of hi-fideltiy audio, there were no standardized measurements of power output, Distortion or Signal to Noise ration. In the same vein, there are currently no standardized measurements to accurately compare the high ISO performance, sensor noise, or image stabilization of one camera to another. While published specifications are not meaningless, just keep in mind that they are published by the marketing department, not an independant test lab. ================ Lenses: For most photographers, their largest equipment investment is in glass. Every lens design is a tradeoff between speed (widest aperture), sharpness, bokeh, cost, size, durability, features, focus range, zoom range, and a myriad of other things where improving one characteristic will negatively impact at least one other. I can say with almost certainty that the lens that came with your camera will not work for low light dance photography. Kit lenses are generally designed to be inexpensive while meeting the goals of the specifications that the marketing department deems important. Those specifications tend to have a lot more to do with zoom range, and a lot less to do with speed and sharpness. The things that you will care about are focal length, maximum aperture, sharpness, bokeh, image stabilization and price. Autofocus and auto exposure can be convenient in some situations, but are of only secondary importance. ----------------------- focal length: Most photographs of social dance will be done from fairly close. Unless the dancefloor is nearly empty, or you are from far above the dance floor, you will need to be close so that other dancers won't be in your way. Almost all of my available light dance photos are with either my 31mm or my 50mm lenses which would equate to 49 or 75mm with a "full frame" system. The shorter your lens, the more depth of field you will have, though you may have to crop more to get the image you want. ----------------------- maximum aperture: The bigger the maximum aperture (smaller the number of the f/stop) the more light your lens will let in. However, the bigger the aperture you shoot at, the less depth of field you will have. But do note that while you can stop a f/1.4 or even a f/1.2 lens down to f/1.8, f/2 or even f/16 to get greater depth of field, you cannot open an f/3.5 lens up to f/1.8 or f/1.4. When I bought my FA31/1.8, I didn't think that the 2/3 of a stop between it and f/1.4 would make a big difference. When I got my FA50/1.4 I learned that when shooting dancers the difference between 1/10 second and 1/15 second exposure times was huge. Below 1/30 second, any improvement in shutter speed is noticable in final image quality when shooting dancers, even people dancing slowly. Do note that as sensor speeds double, you will be able to shoot at f/2 where you used to need f/1.4. Also note that to shoot at f/4 where you shoot at f/1.4 would take 3 stops (1.4->2->2.8->4), or eight times the sesnsor speed. To use an f/4 zoom where you currently use an f/1.4 prime would require increasing the maximum ISO of your camera from 3200 to 24,000. If sensors improvements match Moore's law, this should be possible in about five years time. ----------------------- sharpness: In ideal situations, especially with high resolution sensors, the lens is the limiting factor for image sharpness. Most DSLR sensors these days, will outresolve all but the very best lenses. However, low light dance photography is far from ideal conditions. The shots are taken at slow shutter speeds, often hand held, almost never on a tripod, and even if there is no camera motion blur, the dancers are moving, and their motion over the 1/10 of a second of exposure is often orders of magnitude more than the resolution of either the sensor or the lens. ----------------------- bokeh: In short, bokeh is a description of how nice the out of focus areas of a photograph will look. When you are shooting at very wide apertures, with very narrow depth of field, there will be a lot that is out of focus, and therefore the quality of bokeh could be very important. However, with everything else that needs to be traded off in these conditions, bokeh tends to be a case of taking what your lens gives you. ----------------------- zoom or prime: Zoom lenses are more convenient than primes. If your subject moves in closer, you can zoom out wider, if they move away, or you want to shoot someone further away, you can zoom in on them and not need to crop the frame as radically in post processing. The problem is that designing lenses is hard, and making a zoom lens is complicated. I don't know of any quality zoom lenses that are faster than f/2.8, and those are both large and expensive. If you shoot with a zoom, chances are you'll also need a flash. ----------------------- image stabilization : If you are hand holding your camera in low light, then image stabilization can make a huge difference in the sharpness of your images. If you are using a monopod, it will still help a lot. If you have Pentax, Olympus or Sony equipment, then you're set. The image stabilization is in the body and it will work with any lens that fits on your camera. I don't know of any Canon lenses faster than f/2.8 with image stabilization. The fastest that I can find in an appropriate range is the EF-S 17-55 f/2.8 which goes for about $1,000. I can't find any Nikon VR lenses faster than f/3.5. ====================== Other accessories: ---------------------- monopod: I was so impressed at how well the image stabilization on my DSLR worked, I didn't think that I needed a monopod. I was wrong. When I first tried using a monopod my percentage of photos that were keepers went up by about a factor of four. I use my monopod with a manfrotto quick release ball head. I prefer a pan head on a tripod, but on a monopod the pan head doesn't make nearly as much sense. For me, a critical specification of a monopod is its collapsed length. First of all, I want it to fit in my camera bag without sticking out. Second of all, I like to do a lot of my photography of dancers from close to the floor. I was able to find two monopods that were both sturdy enough to work, and which would collapse to small enough to fit in my pack. Gitzo makes a very nice one that sells for about $220 at the local camera shop. I've been very pleased, however, with the Benro MC-66 that I bought off the net for about $80. ---------------------- Tripod: A tripod would be much more stable than an equivalent monopod. Using a tripod would make up for lack of image stabilization, and would probably give much sharper pictures than would using a monopod. There is, however, almost never enough space to set one up at a dance. It would be obtrusive, bring attention to you, distracting the dancers from their dancing, and would almost certainly get in the way. Tripods are also a lot harder to move around and reposition than monopods, making it tougher to change your position for shooting other dancers, someplace else on the floor. ---------------------- split prism focusing screen: I absolutely love my katzeye focusing screens. They make it possible to reliably manually focus my cameras. However, the light available at blues dancing, is not really enough to make use of the split prism portion of the screen. I do think that the microprism ring around the split prism does help, but it is of secondary utility. Focusing in the dark inherently involves guesswork and luck. ---------------------- ---------------------- /////////////////// full frame: dynamic range