Newbie, D80 settings for School concert
 

Hey I'm new with a D80 and somewhat limited experience, but have taken
some great photos with it. Tomorrow night is concert night in the
school auditorium and I'm think about setting it on program mode to
shoot. Flash is allowed. Wondering what other settings you'd use.

thanks

Re: Newbie, D80 settings for School concert
 

cen <skjoy@adelphia.net> wrote:
>Hey I'm new with a D80 and somewhat limited experience, but have taken
>some great photos with it. Tomorrow night is concert night in the
>school auditorium and I'm think about setting it on program mode to

Full Auto is not the greatest option, but usually will produce something
somewhat usable.

>shoot. Wondering what other settings you'd use.

That very much depends on what effect you want to achieve. Portrait mode
is good for some shots. Other shots will be much better with Night
Portrait, yet others with Night Landscape.
More experienced people would probably use apperture or shutter priority
or even full manual mode to get exactly the effect they are looking for,
but that requires a lot of practice.

>Flash is allowed.

PLEASE keep in mind that the build-in flash of any camera is _VERY_
limited in range and don't try to illuminate the whole stage from the
last row.
Besides being annoying to the performers as well as your fellow
spectators flash should be used very carefully anyway. It is so easy to
blast a romatic scene into a hard cold flat picture by using frontal
flash. Of course on the other hand using e.g. the right amount of slow
fill flash at the right moment can produce stunningly beautiful photos.

jue

Re: Newbie, D80 settings for School concert
 

"cen" <skjoy@adelphia.net> wrote in message
news:92cb6bb2-2b8c-4768-9964-e27344c672e2@h20g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
> Hey I'm new with a D80 and somewhat limited experience, but have taken
> some great photos with it. Tomorrow night is concert night in the
> school auditorium and I'm think about setting it on program mode to
> shoot. Flash is allowed. Wondering what other settings you'd use.
>
> thanks


What lenses do you have? Do you have an external flash unit?

Re: Newbie, D80 settings for School concert
 

On Dec 22, 12:20*am, Savageduck <savaged...@savage.net> wrote:
> On 2008-12-21 21:03:56 -0800, "N" <N...@onyx.com> said:
>
>
>
> > "cen" <sk...@adelphia.net> wrote in message
> >news:92cb6bb2-2b8c-4768-9964-e27344c672e2@h20g2000yqn.googlegroups.com....
> Hey
>
> >> I'm new with a D80 and somewhat limited experience, but have taken
> >> some great photos with it. *Tomorrow night is concert night in the
> >> school auditorium and I'm think about setting it on program mode to
> >> shoot. Flash is allowed. Wondering what other settings you'd use.
>
> >> thanks
>
> > What lenses do you have? *Do you have an external flash unit?
>
> Also expected auditorium lighting and shooting distances from subjects?


sorry, kit lens 18-135mm, no external flash. Stage lighting at about
50ft
minimum.

Re: Newbie, D80 settings for School concert
 

"cen" <skjoy@adelphia.net> wrote in message
news:442d6072-0582-4369-9dc7-e8bb9260a9f5@j39g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
On Dec 22, 12:20 am, Savageduck <savaged...@savage.net> wrote:
> On 2008-12-21 21:03:56 -0800, "N" <N...@onyx.com> said:
>
>
>
> > "cen" <sk...@adelphia.net> wrote in message
> >news:92cb6bb2-2b8c-4768-9964-e27344c672e2@h20g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
> Hey
>
> >> I'm new with a D80 and somewhat limited experience, but have taken
> >> some great photos with it. Tomorrow night is concert night in the
> >> school auditorium and I'm think about setting it on program mode to
> >> shoot. Flash is allowed. Wondering what other settings you'd use.
>
> >> thanks
>
> > What lenses do you have? Do you have an external flash unit?
>
> Also expected auditorium lighting and shooting distances from subjects?


sorry, kit lens 18-135mm, no external flash. Stage lighting at about
50ft
minimum.



The guide number for the built in flash on a D80 is 13/42 at ISO 100. That
means the light from the flash should reach about 42 feet from the camera if
you're lucky. Can the onboard flash see over that lens or do you get a dark
shadow across the lower edge of the photo?

I found with my D80 that ISO 400 was about as far as I'd go before noise
became unacceptable.

Re: Newbie, D80 settings for School concert
 

cen wrote:
> Hey I'm new with a D80 and somewhat limited experience, but have taken
> some great photos with it. Tomorrow night is concert night in the
> school auditorium and I'm think about setting it on program mode to
> shoot. Flash is allowed. Wondering what other settings you'd use.
>
> thanks
A lot depends on your lenses (VR?), your distance from the stage, the
nature of the acts (are they relatively static, or lots of fast action?)
and also the standard of the lighting.

You'll get wildly differing opinions here, but if it was me and the
lighting is half decent I'd be forgetting the flash, dialling the ISO up
to 800 or even 1600 if you don't mind a little noise and shoot with a
monopod/tripod if possible (if not, your partner's shoulder..) If you
utilise the concert lighting, the images will be much more atmospheric
than flashlit ones, and the D80 is pretty capable at high isos so why
not use that fact?

Don't forget to underexpose a bit (0.5 to 1.5 stops) if the acts are
brighter than the background, and they usually are.. Then there's white
balance, but I don't want to overwhelm - come back and tell us more, and
how far you are willing to complicate matters... (O:

There are a few non-flashlit examples from a similar situation here:
http://forums.steves-digicams.com/fo...750590#p750590
- scroll down to Meanstreak's post. Imagine those shots flashlit
instead - yuch.

Re: Newbie, D80 settings for School concert
 

On Dec 22, 1:00*am, Mark Thomas <markt@_don't_spam_marktphoto.com>
wrote:
> cen wrote:
> > Hey I'm new with a D80 and somewhat limited experience, but have taken
> > some great photos with it. *Tomorrow night is concert night in the
> > school auditorium and I'm think about setting it on program mode to
> > shoot. Flash is allowed. Wondering what other settings you'd use.
>
> > thanks
>
> A lot depends on your lenses (VR?), your distance from the stage, the
> nature of the acts (are they relatively static, or lots of fast action?)
> and also the standard of the lighting.
>
> You'll get wildly differing opinions here, but if it was me and the
> lighting is half decent I'd be forgetting the flash, dialling the ISO up
> to 800 or even 1600 if you don't mind a little noise and shoot with a
> monopod/tripod if possible (if not, your partner's shoulder..) *If you
> utilise the concert lighting, the images will be much more atmospheric
> than flashlit ones, and the D80 is pretty capable at high isos so why
> not use that fact?
>
> Don't forget to underexpose a bit (0.5 to 1.5 stops) if the acts are
> brighter than the background, and they usually are.. *Then there's white
> balance, but I don't want to overwhelm - come back and tell us more, and
> how far you are willing to complicate matters... *(O:
>
> There are a few non-flashlit examples from a similar situation here:http://forums.steves-digicams.com/fo...?id=122407&for...
> - scroll down to Meanstreak's post. *Imagine those shots flashlit
> instead - yuch.

I had planned on going up to 800 iso, never thought of overexposure,
thanks, I do have a monopod which works well. Kind of wish I had a
70-300mm (with or without VR).

Re: Newbie, D80 settings for School concert
 

In article
<7f178a4c-4a00-42d4-a56a-61d64aae6928@v42g2000yqv.googlegroups.com>,
cen <skjoy@adelphia.net> wrote:

> I had planned on going up to 800 iso, never thought of overexposure,
> thanks, I do have a monopod which works well. Kind of wish I had a
> 70-300mm (with or without VR).

you really need a 70-200vr (or 80-200) because they are f/2.8. a kit
lens zoomed out is going to be f/5.6 and that doesn't give you a lot of
leeway with exposure.

the internal flash will be useless 50 feet away, plus it annoys the
performers and audience.

set the camera to auto-iso and you'll get low iso when the lighting is
bright (which for a lot of shows it is). you can cap it at 800 if you
don't want to go any higher but a noisy picture is sometimes preferable
to a blurry one.

Re: Newbie, D80 settings for School concert
 

cen wrote:
> On Dec 22, 1:00 am, Mark Thomas <markt@_don't_spam_marktphoto.com>
>> You'll get wildly differing opinions here, but if it was me and the
>> lighting is half decent I'd be forgetting the flash, dialling the ISO up
>> to 800 or even 1600 if you don't mind a little noise and shoot with a
>> monopod/tripod if possible (if not, your partner's shoulder..) If you
>> utilise the concert lighting, the images will be much more atmospheric
>> than flashlit ones, and the D80 is pretty capable at high isos so why
>> not use that fact?
>>
>> Don't forget to underexpose a bit (0.5 to 1.5 stops) if the acts are
>> brighter than the background, and they usually are.. Then there's white
>> balance, but I don't want to overwhelm - come back and tell us more, and
>> how far you are willing to complicate matters... (O:
>>
>> There are a few non-flashlit examples from a similar situation here:http://forums.steves-digicams.com/fo...?id=122407&for...
>> - scroll down to Meanstreak's post. Imagine those shots flashlit
>> instead - yuch.
>
> I had planned on going up to 800 iso, never thought of overexposure,
> thanks, I do have a monopod which works well. Kind of wish I had a
> 70-300mm (with or without VR).

On the underexposing - on second thoughts, Nikon *matrix* metering is
rather good at that sort of thing, so perhaps you should get other
opinions on the desirability of a little compensation.. If you are
working at 800 or 1600, you really don't want to underexpose OR
overexpose your subject. It might pay to watch the histogram after each
shot.

I recently shot a concert like this at 800 on a *P&S* (admittedly one of
the better ones for high iso work), and though the images were noisy,
they captured the mood beautifully and with a bit of NR they printed up
very nicely at 7x5. I'd much rather have atmospheric images with some
noise than less natural looking flash images, so I wouldn't hesitate to
shoot some of it at 1600 on a dslr.. but that's me.

Re: Newbie, D80 settings for School concert
 

N wrote:
> "cen" <skjoy@adelphia.net> wrote in message
> news:442d6072-0582-4369-9dc7-e8bb9260a9f5@j39g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
> On Dec 22, 12:20 am, Savageduck <savaged...@savage.net> wrote:
>> On 2008-12-21 21:03:56 -0800, "N" <N...@onyx.com> said:
>>
>>
>>
>> > "cen" <sk...@adelphia.net> wrote in message
>> >news:92cb6bb2-2b8c-4768-9964-e27344c672e2@h20g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> Hey
>>
>> >> I'm new with a D80 and somewhat limited experience, but have taken
>> >> some great photos with it. Tomorrow night is concert night in the
>> >> school auditorium and I'm think about setting it on program mode to
>> >> shoot. Flash is allowed. Wondering what other settings you'd use.
>>
>> >> thanks
>>
>> > What lenses do you have? Do you have an external flash unit?
>>
>> Also expected auditorium lighting and shooting distances from subjects?
>
>
> sorry, kit lens 18-135mm, no external flash. Stage lighting at about
> 50ft
> minimum.
>
>
>
> The guide number for the built in flash on a D80 is 13/42 at ISO 100.
> That means the light from the flash should reach about 42 feet from the
> camera if you're lucky.
????
Umm, no. Distance = GN/*aperture*. So that flash will be struggling to
make 11ft at f4 (which will be the maximum aperture he has for most of
his shooting)...


> Can the onboard flash see over that lens or do
> you get a dark shadow across the lower edge of the photo?


> I found with my D80 that ISO 400 was about as far as I'd go before noise
> became unacceptable.
The tests I've seen of the D80, eg:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PROD...D80IMAGING.HTM
show the 800 and 1600 samples as quite good and very usable for this
type of shooting. Depends on your quality standards, of course, but I'd
happily accept a bit of noise for more usable shutter speeds, and he is
limited by having a f3.5-5.6 lens.