Fast lenses for night action shots

nonicks wrote:

Great job! Some very nice shots there! Yeah, number 4 is excellent!
[ ... ] I think you are doing very well for your first trial! Keep trying and report back what you find! Thank you for sharing!!

Hi, first of all thank you for your very encouraging post!

These pictures make me think what I would do in the venue besides of just getting ready to post process. I guess I would:

1. Use manual

2. Set the ISO at 1600 to start with

2. Set the SS to 400 or 500 for freezing actions unless I aimed to create designed blur for some pictures, then I would use slower SS.

3. Decide the aperture range to be used. I probably would choose f/1.4 to f/3.2 ( maybe f/4 if the room is not super dark with the dance lights).

4. Test my setting for best pre-post results:

I would ask the band to dim the room and turn on the moving heads (or the LED dance lights) for a few minutes to mimic the actual lighting for the dance floor.

I will play with the aperture through the range anticipated to be used ( f/1.4 to f/3.2) while observing the change of the EC value on the camera. I want to make sure the ISO 1600 and SS 400 ( or SS500) will give me an EC ranged within +1 to -1 when I adjust the aperture from f/1.4 to f/3.2 in the room with the moving heads in action.

I would use a chair or two as subjects for testing and would try to cover different spots of of the dance floor. If the EC value is not consistently or mostly within the +1 to -1 range, I would adjust the ISO or SS accordingly. I would try to avoid using anything below SS 320. My ideal ISO limit in low light for Fuji APSC sensor is 3200 or below ( hence iso1600 EC +/- 1) . Anything higher should call for a capable FF camera with cleaner high ISO performance.

Thank you, this is indeed a very good work plan I can use next time. Having very little experience, simple and clear instructions with specific settings examples like this are very helpful.

For better chance to get two faces in focus when you use large aperture, I would suggest to try the 33/1.4 ( Fuji or Viltrox) or even 23/1.4 Viltrox. Otherwise, you may need to step back more with the 56mm but that may not be feasible in the space.

But if DOF depends on aperture, how will a different focal length affect my ability to get in focus two faces at different distances from the camera?

In other words, with the same camera positioning and same aperture, will a 56mm have a narrower DOF than a 23mm?
Or with a different positioning so that both the 56mm and 23mm are capturing the very same frame (so i'm closer to the action with the 23mm), will a 56mm have a narrower DOF?

My guess is that the answers are NO and YES respectively.

Flash or not, it depends. You can always use temperature filter to match the color tone/vide of the room. But I can see that the flash can be distracting to the dancers.

Back from my smartphone photo taking days, I really hated flash and the ugly light it created, so I try not to use it. But if there are filters to fix this, it could be different. By filters you mean phisical filters on the flash itself, or post-production adjustments to color temperature?

Indeed I wouldn't use a flash during social dancing because it would be rude to other people, but I might use it (with permission) for shows.