Newbie, D80 settings for School concert

cen wrote:
Hey I'm new with a D80 and somewhat limited experience, but have taken
some great photos with it. Tomorrow night is concert night in the
school auditorium and I'm think about setting it on program mode to
shoot. Flash is allowed. Wondering what other settings you'd use.

thanks
A lot depends on your lenses (VR?), your distance from the stage, the
nature of the acts (are they relatively static, or lots of fast action?)
and also the standard of the lighting.

You'll get wildly differing opinions here, but if it was me and the
lighting is half decent I'd be forgetting the flash, dialling the ISO up
to 800 or even 1600 if you don't mind a little noise and shoot with a
monopod/tripod if possible (if not, your partner's shoulder..) If you
utilise the concert lighting, the images will be much more atmospheric
than flashlit ones, and the D80 is pretty capable at high isos so why
not use that fact?

Don't forget to underexpose a bit (0.5 to 1.5 stops) if the acts are
brighter than the background, and they usually are.. Then there's white
balance, but I don't want to overwhelm - come back and tell us more, and
how far you are willing to complicate matters... (O:

There are a few non-flashlit examples from a similar situation he
http://forums.steves-digicams.com/fo...0590 #p750590
- scroll down to Meanstreak's post. Imagine those shots flashlit
instead - yuch.

In article
,
cen wrote:

I had planned on going up to 800 iso, never thought of overexposure,
thanks, I do have a monopod which works well. Kind of wish I had a
70-300mm (with or without VR).

you really need a 70-200vr (or 80-200) because they are f/2.8. a kit
lens zoomed out is going to be f/5.6 and that doesn't give you a lot of
leeway with exposure.

the internal flash will be useless 50 feet away, plus it annoys the
performers and audience.

set the camera to auto-iso and you'll get low iso when the lighting is
bright (which for a lot of shows it is). you can cap it at 800 if you
don't want to go any higher but a noisy picture is sometimes preferable
to a blurry one.

cen wrote:
On Dec 22, 1:00 am, Mark Thomas
You'll get wildly differing opinions here, but if it was me and the
lighting is half decent I'd be forgetting the flash, dialling the ISO up
to 800 or even 1600 if you don't mind a little noise and shoot with a
monopod/tripod if possible (if not, your partner's shoulder..) If you
utilise the concert lighting, the images will be much more atmospheric
than flashlit ones, and the D80 is pretty capable at high isos so why
not use that fact?

Don't forget to underexpose a bit (0.5 to 1.5 stops) if the acts are
brighter than the background, and they usually are.. Then there's white
balance, but I don't want to overwhelm - come back and tell us more, and
how far you are willing to complicate matters... (O:

There are a few non-flashlit examples from a similar situation hehttp://forums.steves-digicams.com/fo...?id=122407&for...
- scroll down to Meanstreak's post. Imagine those shots flashlit
instead - yuch.

I had planned on going up to 800 iso, never thought of overexposure,
thanks, I do have a monopod which works well. Kind of wish I had a
70-300mm (with or without VR).

On the underexposing - on second thoughts, Nikon *matrix* metering is
rather good at that sort of thing, so perhaps you should get other
opinions on the desirability of a little compensation.. If you are
working at 800 or 1600, you really don't want to underexpose OR
overexpose your subject. It might pay to watch the histogram after each
shot.

I recently shot a concert like this at 800 on a *P&S* (admittedly one of
the better ones for high iso work), and though the images were noisy,
they captured the mood beautifully and with a bit of NR they printed up
very nicely at 7x5. I'd much rather have atmospheric images with some
noise than less natural looking flash images, so I wouldn't hesitate to
shoot some of it at 1600 on a dslr.. but that's me.

Mark Thomas wrote:
[]
I recently shot a concert like this at 800 on a *P&S* (admittedly one
of the better ones for high iso work), and though the images were
noisy, they captured the mood beautifully and with a bit of NR they
printed up very nicely at 7x5.

Good to hear of some actual results!

I'd much rather have atmospheric
images with some noise than less natural looking flash images, so I
wouldn't hesitate to shoot some of it at 1600 on a dslr.. but that's
me.

Completely agree on both points. Also, with Nikon I sometimes find that
the automatic white balance doesn't do so well in artificial light, so a
forced WB setting might be worth considering.

Cheers,
David

In article , David J
Taylor
wrote:

Also, with Nikon I sometimes find that
the automatic white balance doesn't do so well in artificial light, so a
forced WB setting might be worth considering.

especially theatrical lighting which is going to be various colours for
mood, etc. shoot raw, pick a white balance setting so all of the
images are consistent (tungsten is probably a good choice) and worry
about it later.