Getting the best from available light.

Im going to a dog show in a few weeks time and will be taking photos in low light without the use of flash. Can members offer up a few tips on how to get the best results on the day the venue will be in a sports hall.
Regards Ian

Tried to photograph my daughter whilst riding in an indoor riding school.
Didn't want to use flash in case it spooked the horses.

The only way I got any useable shots was to up the ISO and use my 50mm f1.7 prime.
Everything I tried with kit lens was useless, shutter speed was too long and got motion blur no matter what I tried.

Im hoping with the new KR to up the iso and have faster shutter speeds in order to try and rid some motion blur. If any one can offer any other thoughts it would be very helpful.
Ian

there aren't many other choices... lots of aperture (which means being *accurate* with focus) and high ISOs mean you can drop to 1/50 or so.

I was stunned this evening to see that ISO 6400 gives me a decent exposure outside at 1/40 and f3.2. That's with only outside ambient light. Don't worry too much about using silly-high ISOs if you've got a reasonable amount of light; as long as you're exposed on the right hand side of the histogram, noise should not be a problem.

Bret

Get a K-5

Why ?.
Ian

as long as you're exposed on the right hand side of the histogram, noise should not be a problem.

Bret
I agree with your comments.

I have found that exposing to the left (which happens too often in my shots ) will give increased noise,but it gives better colours, and is easy to fix.

When under exposed it has little or no noise,but loses rich colours.

If exposure is right I have both colour and little or no noise,

Well it's got stunning high ISO performance.

This is at 51200

http://www.bertin.ca/tmp/K-5/ISO/K5__9935_MED_1.jpg

Are you shooting moving targets or standing ones?

To freeze action you're going to need a shutter speed of 1/500 to 1/1000.
Even with a f2.8 lens, you're going to need some high ISO indoors.
For agility or other fast action, in stadium type lighting, ISO 10000 (ten thousand) and f2.8 is not a bad place to start.

At least use a tripod or monopod. If the subject is moving, try to learn how to pan with the subject. This will allow longer shutter speeds, but obviously for animals there are a lot of moving parts -- you will not get every part sharp with longer exposures.

Noise reduction software will become your friend.
Try a few to see which work for you, Noiseaware, Noise Ninja, LightRoom3, etc...

All god stuff!!


LR3's noise reduction is really rather good I must say.

For subjects with lots of 'moving parts' personally I think that motion blur on some 0of the parts adds to the vibe.

Just as sometimes it's not good to crush depth in a landscape by using a wide DOF, I also think it's not always good to try and freeze everything.

Anyway in 10 years we'll have noiseless shooting at ISO 10240000000

My main concern would be the quality of the light, sports halls often have very oddly coloured lighting all coming from the top. Are you not allowed flash or are choosing not to?

I was working in a sports hall recently and used 800 ISO and p-ttl set to -2 as a fill and it worked very well.

Thanks for the feed back guys some very helpful pointers there. I will be using the new Kr which got good reveiws for high iso levels so I would expect to see a better performance over the K10 at the high iso settings. My reason for not shooting with flash is it distracts both the dog and some times the owners or exhibitor, they can get a bit upset if there dog is put off by the flash so in respect to both I will use the light available. Im still feeling my way around the menus in the Kr but hope to have things sorted in a few days thanks again.
Regards Ian.

Thanks Smeggy, that is exactly what I meant.

I hit the limits of teh K20 today. Fastest lens wide open (F2) shooting football in a stadium but floodlights only half on, full ISO (6400) ended up giving 1/80 when I was needing 1/500 or more
Luckily not a paid job ...