Monopods

I found myself shooting almost in the dark on Sunday (3200ISO and 1/30 wide open on my 50mm f1.7 and 40mm f2.8. Out of 200 odd exposures there are quite a few suffering from camera shake (should that really be photographer shake?) Since I've a repeat performance in two weeks time I've invested in a monopod, something I've procrastinated about for years. A Giottos P-Pod which looks pretty substantial since they illustrate it with a Pentax 67. http://www.giottos.com/P-pod.htm At £51.99 from Aspen of Herford it seems good value since they are £69.99 from Warehouse Express. I've never used one before so any tips and advice will be greatfully received.

Does anyone have experience of the Sigma 30mm 1.4? I'd rather have the Pentax equivalent but the Sigma is nearly a third of the price.


http://www.sigma-imaging-uk.com/lenses/dclenses/30mm.htm

I use a Benbo with ball & socket head, only really use it with my Bigma as I find it too heavy to handhold, its a poor substitute for a solid tripod but a lot easier to tote around

I've owned a monopod (one of the Manfrotto ones) for at least a decade now however I'd be surprised if it's had a dozen outings in all that time.

It's definitely an improvement on hand-holding but not by as much as I'd expected (perhaps I don't have long enough lenses) and also, IMHO, not as much as the K10D's image stabiliser. In low light conditions I usually find something to brace myself against and I think that works at least as well as a monopod as well.

What subject where you shooting? One option might be to shoot raw and deliberately underexpose the image to get a higher shutter speed - later fixing the exposure on the computer.

In 30 years I've never felt the need to own one until now, but needs must I fear. Unfortunately I dont have SR. I'm shooting dance rehearsals in a theatre, one of the biggest opera houses in the country - no set, no lights other than 6 flourescent tubes which must be at least 60 feet above the stage which is painted black and most of the performers wear black too. This is dark, dark, dark. A tripod is too cumbersome to drag about the stalls so I thought a monopod might help. At the price I can bear it if it never sees the light of night again. I wont go down the on, or slightly off, camera flash route and its just too big for studio flashes. The company dont pay for house sparks during rehearsals so no help there!

Good point about going down the RAW road, have you any idea how much underexposure you can get away with? I usually shoot RAW in fact but I decided to do this in JPEG just because of the sheer volume of pics.

This is kind of what I'm up against

Depends partly on the RAW converter... the trouble is the more you have to push, the more "mud" you rake up in terms of noise. Most converters have at least 2 stops of adjustment (Silkypix has 3) and then you can always use the curves tool or levels tool in the converter to pull some more!

Probably the darkest thing I did was at the JazzCafe - and that was a nightmare! ISO3200, fully manual, and had to push at least 2 stops The result was noisy, but was the only way to deal with the hotspots of the lights.

A monopod is a definitely good idea in this circumstance and will probably give you a stop or two further... but if the Tv is too slow you'll see movement in the people, unless they're absolutely still.

Failing that you'll need something like the FA*85/1.4
Matt

[quote="MattMatic"]I'd have thought that was definitely a consideration in this case.

That's what I bought mine for.

FA*85/1.4 added to wish list!

Ken

There are some cheap/fast options as well - my fastest lens is a old K-mount 55mm F1.2 Porst that cost next to nothing on Ebay. Ok it's not the sharpest wide open but it does work. An Pentax 50mm F1.2 would be nice but those tend to make serious cash 2nd hand - as does the FA* 85mm F1.4.

There is also the new DA*50-135/f2.8. That should give a little extra headroom wide open and is probably easier to get than the 85!
(And not much difference in price either )
Matt

Trouble is, chaps, I'm shooting with wider lenses hence my enquiry about the Sigma, for this sort of gig my ideal would be a 20mm f1.2 DA* Limited SMC Distagon were their some such thing.