I've been kicking around the idea of writing up a tutorial on photographing blues dancing. I just want to put down some thoughts right now. Please chip in your own suggestions, and any questions that you might have. I'm making the assumption (unless otherwise mentioned) of available light, no flash. I'm also assuming digital photography. Equipment: Sensor size counts. As a rule, a "full frame" DSLR will have better low light performance than an APS-C DSLR, and an APS-C sensor will do better than a point and shoot. Image stabilization helps: with nominal exposures of ISO 3200, f/1.8 1/6 second, unstabilized hand held isn't going to work. Get a monopod. When I started using a monopod my keeper ratio went up at least five, if not ten fold. Learn your system. It turns out that after ISO 800 the K100 doesn't change its circuitry, it just does the ISO boost via math (left shift), so you're better off underexposing by a couple of stops than using the higher ISO. On the other hand, the K20 is supposed to work well at high ISO, so long as the image is properly exposed. Use a fast prime lens. Settings: Shoot raw. If you shoot JPEG the camera will just throw away detail in the shadow. Use custom white balance, even if it doesn't change the raw file, it helps with the histograms. Set your exposure manually. You need to know, and control what is happening. Technique: Use autofocus to pre set the exposure on someone, then disable autofocus so that you don't have shutter lag. You won't be able to shoot people who are moving around a lot. Shoot the breaks. People have to be stopped, or moving slow if you don't want subject blur. You know the music, you know when people will stop. Use the light, don't fight it. Shoot when people are in the light, or at least their faces. Trade resolution for depth of field. Shooting at f/1.8 or f/1.4 you'll have very shallow depth of field. With a wider lens (28-31mm) you'll get a lot more depth of field than with a longer lens (50 and up). In theory, you might be able to gain some noise reduction by using more pixels down rezzing from a longer lens. I haven't sorted that out yet, I've just often had better luck with my 31/1.8 than my 50/1.4. I want the sigma 30/1.4 to give it a try. Processing: Noise is often much less objectionable in black and white than color. But, there are various ways of converting from color to B&W and they often have different ramifications for noise. You have to experiment what works best with your camera (sensor) and processing software. Flash: If it is bright enough to use a flash, and your shutter speed is slow enough to see the background, put a tungsten gel on the flash so you don't end up with a weird yellow cast to the background. Use trailing sync flash so that people are at the end of the blur rather than the front. If you have a camera that is sensitive to infrared, and put infrared filters over the flash, you can take flash pictures without blinding people. Doug Brewer the correct answer, of course, is, "it depends." Nothing wrong with a little motion blur if you're shooting something that involves movement, like, say, dancing. If you're in a location where flash is acceptable, dragging the shutter and firing a trailing curtain burst can give you a good sense of movement while keeping the subject relatively sharp.... Read More I'm not sure how you set the exposure using autofocus; they are different systems, unless you mean that you have your camera set to meter on the focus point. That wasn't clear. more as I think of it. Joe Decker Yeah. The right lens is a big factor here. BTW, I'm not seeing *that* much difference (theory aside) in practice between the full-frame and APS-C sensors, though, a camera that's 1-2 generations newer but APS-C is often going to kick ass on a camera that's those 1-2 gens back but full-frame. So recency of camera body may be worth adding. Knowing the music and the dance has to be critical.... Read More Gods, how are you focusing all this? Is AF plausible at those light levels? if so, then there's maybe talking about general AF on moving subject tricks. Otherwise zone focusing, I guess. I haven't looked into the standalone noise-reductions plug-is (Noise Ninja, etc.), but conventional wisdom is they pull out more with less noise than LR/PS noise reduction. Haven't tested it so I can't say if that's correct, but if it is, might be worth a mention. Larry Colen Oops, I made a brainfart, use autofocus to focus, not to set exposure. I was trying to think of too many things at once. Autofocus will generally work, it just takes a while. That is why I say use it to prefocus and then lock the focus on while you wait for your shot. Larry Colen Joe brings up some interesting points. The K20 came out sometime between the D3/D700 and the 5DII, and they both seem to have much better low light capabilities. While I've heard that the K20 compares favorably with similarly aged APS cameras from Nikon and Canon. Dave Savage (in Oz) does some amazing night work with his D700: http://www.flickr.com/photos/disavage/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/disavage/3531464204/in/set-72157617029059586/ I have my camera set up so that the AF button disables autofocus. I'll find a couple, half press the shutter to get AF to lock on them, it can take a couple of seconds, then use the AF button to disable AF so I can take a shot without shutter lag.... Read More I have a kaztzeye screen, but I have to admit that at this light level, AF often works better. Larry Colen These are the shots I took last night. I've gotten to the point that I wouldn't normally post shots fo this quality to flickr, but between this discussion and trying to figure out if my camera is working properly here they are: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/sets/72157621701270101/ Joe brought up the very valid point of post processing. My PP skills are pretty rudimentary. I'm using the excuse of learning to get the most out of my camera, because as long as I have the negatives, or rather, RAW files, I can always go back and post process them later. ... Read More I'd really like to set something up sometime, getting together with dancers and photographers to work on our techniques, trying different things with different cameras. Larry Colen For what it's worth, my photo collections: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/collections/ almost all of my dancing sets are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/collections/72157603434373350/ a couple of collections, or sets in particular... Read More http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/collections/72157605613398475/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/collections/72157607335063934/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/collections/72157604215595306/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/collections/72157618384885452/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/sets/72157607366393744/ Larry Colen Composition: All of the things in my initial post are almost purely technical. Composition is a lot of where the artistry, or at least the craft comes in. There is the practical aspect of not getting in peoples faces to get the angle as well. I like to shoot from other than eye level, often as close to the floor as I can get, sometimes putting the camera on the floor and aiming by luck. ... Read More I often make the mistake of centering the image on someone's face and end up cutting off half their body and showing a bunch of ugly ceiling. I also have a terrible time keeping the camera level. I shoot with primes and zoom when I crop for fine details of composition If people don't mind you "in their face", shoot a wide lens and get in very close. Likewise try shooting with a longer lens than you think you want and see the compositional choices that that can force. Derby Chang Interesting. B+W is also an option when the lighting is extreme and the reds start to clip. Scott Atwood I find even at f/1.8 I often have to make compromises in shutter speed and ISO that spoil a lot of shots. I think the extra 2/3 stop of an f/1.4 lens might rescue a few more shots, even with the paper-thin DOF and softness inherent in f/1.4. I've also successfully used B+W in some difficult low-light conditions, such as in a bar where much of the ambient lighting was coming from a large screen TV, totally negating any possibility of good white balance. Scott Atwood Specifically at Friday Night Blues in San Francisco, I might consider going to B+W, simply because the room is painted in such an awful shade of pale green. Even when white balance is spot on, that ugly green background is kind of distracting. Larry Colen I have found many occasions where the extra 2/3 stop from f/1.4 brings the shutter speed across a threshold that makes a crucial difference. The difference between 1/6 second and 1/10 second is bigger than 1/60 and 1/100 in the number of shots that work out. I agree about the ugly green of FNB. Scott, did you post your shots from last week on flickr? ... Read More I saw them on facebook and they look a lot better than the shot you posted from your first night with the camera. Scott Atwood I tend to select photos differently for sharing on Facebook and Flickr. On Facebook, I'll share pictures with significant technical or composition defects, if they are otherwise decent pictures of my friends, or part of the story or theme I'm illustrating with an album. On Flickr I try to post only my artistically best shots. With that being said, my Flickr photo album from the most recent FNB is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10295241@N02/sets/72157621865247842/ Scott Atwood It helped that most of the pictures I took last week were at the beginning of the evening and during the birthday jam, when the lighting is at its brightest. Two weeks ago, I really pushed it, trying to pull some pictures out of the murky darkness. There were a couple of decent shots, but a lot of junk. Larry Colen There is a key lesson here: Shoot when and where you have the best light. Randy Pante Great post Larry. :) With the low light, high speed conditions that photographers have to wrestle with in dance venues, one can never have too much knowledge about your camera and the language of light. When I see photos of dancing that I like, I often wonder if the photographer is an invisible ninja being able to get the shot... ---------------- Post processing: crop, noise, sharpening ...