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Nightclub shooting
Sep 3, 2011 11:49:16   #
Nobbyness Loc: Tallahassee, FL
 
Hi! A friend asked me to help with her portfolio. She's a stage performer.

Tried last night for the 1st time, thinking I'd be pretty much ok given the quality of the available light to go ahead as follows using my Olympus E-620 with a 9-18mm lens (1:4-5.6):
- no flash
- ISO 800
- f5.6
- 1/5s

All the pictures I took in the dressing rooms and when she was pretty much stationary on stage came out exactly as I'd hoped. These will be post-processed as B/W or sepia, depending on how she likes the results.

Where I failed miserably was where there was during the performance itself where there was any kind of motion. The results are woeful (and that's being kind).

Realizing (from the lcd viewer) that things weren't going as I'd hoped I did start changing the ISO, shutter and aperture, along with the EV value to see if any one change would help things, but this really was neither the time nor place to start hit-n-miss, so I had to go with what I could get.

So, where did I go wrong, please? Am very much open to suggestions on whatever it'll take to get it right next time.

Thanks in advance!

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Sep 3, 2011 12:40:35   #
Starr Loc: St. Louis, MO
 
You may need to spot meter on your subject. That way all the lights surrounding her will not be metered.

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Sep 3, 2011 14:17:37   #
DanielB Loc: San Diego, Ca
 
Need a much faster lens than f4. You need to look for Min f2.8 if not faster and a lens with image stablization would give you a 2 stop advantage also. You need to get that shutter speed up to 1/80 - 1/125 sec 1/5th is way to slow. Try bumping up the ISO to 1600. That may give you more noise than you like but you can correct some of that in post processing using photoshop or other program. A mono pod may help also. Hope this helps and good luck.

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