Fast lenses for night action shots

sifro wrote:

Erik Baumgartner wrote:

sifro wrote:

Erik Baumgartner wrote:

Please post an example of "people dancing at local dancing events", that could mean a lot of different things.

This for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ounrVadrqDw

Very fast lenses typically come with a very shallow working depth of field which could certainly cause problems if your subject(s) are at close range and/or aren't always on the same plane. The larger the aperture/longer the focal length, the shallower the DOF, f/2.8 may indeed be the best aperture for the job and you will indeed need a very high ISO to maintain a shutter speed high enough to freeze the action.

So yes, indeed I didn't take into account that at large apertures, the DOF might be too shallow to get a couple with both members in focus in one photo.

What do you think?

Thank you for your reply!

Are you shooting stills or video? If stills, an example with your 27 would be helpful (with the exif data) so we can know what the actual light levels are like. What SS/ISOs are you shooting at now? Looks like a potentially challenging proposition, a slow SS definitely isn’t going to cut it.

Well, you've got yourself some crap light there, that's for sure.

First, if it were me, I wouldn't even think about shooting jpegs, Raws will get you cleaner results and way more control over the mixed lighting color and dynamic range.

If you can get by with a wider angle lens, the 16 f/1.4 and especially the new 18 f/1.4 will get you significantly sharper results across the frame and a decent amount of DOF relative to most other lenses while minimizing motion blur when shot wide open. Otherwise, in these shots, it wouldn't be a bad thing if the everything but the subjects were out of focus so the Fuji 50 f/2 or Viltrox 56 f/1.4 (or 85 f/1.8) might be a good (and cheaper) way to go. I don't know if the Viltrox 56 is any good wide oven, but the 85 is OK. A 35 mm might be worth considering too (the new 33 f/1.4 will be unveiled tomorrow). Personally, except for the Fuji 18 f/1.4 and maybe the 16 f/1.4, I'd probably wouldn't go much, if any, beyond f/2 or so, most lenses don't perform all that well beyond that and don't deliver as much extra light as the aperture increase suggests. Sharper, cleaner images images from the get-go will require less processing/sharpening in post and produce better results overall.