Tips on low light photography?

Hello!

I have been learning how to use a D3200 DSLR. Mainly I photograph my significant others band and have been having issues with blurry photos.

I do not want to use a flash, because they have colored lighting kits set up and I want the colors to keep in the photos and not be killed with the light of the flash.

I have only learned how to use the auto functions on the camera and have been using the lenses that came with the camera.

Any tips or suggestions to help me take non-blurry photos without the flasher tripod? Is there another lens I should look into? I have a 35mm that I just purchased as well as the 18-55mm and 55-210mm that came with the camera itself. I do have a basic understanding of aperture and shutter speed.

Thanks for any help!!

It sounds like a tripod, or at least setting the phone down I is necessary. But, working with what you said, you will need to raise the iso so that you can shoot at a fast enough shutter speed to not blur. However the higher the iso the greater the noise. What you're wanting to do really needs to be done in a manual or partially manual mode.

Post an example of what you're shooting and we can be more specific.

Here are some photos I took that came out blurry. I want to learn manual mode. Can you guide me into options to change? I can look up how. I will be taking a class this weekend with a pro photographer to start learning how to shoot in manual.

Up the ISO as much as you can, shoot as wide open as you can to keep your shutter speed at something that will freeze the action. It is ok to under expose some parts - stages aren't all brightly lit, sometimes the best band photo's have a fair bit of black in them, with just your subject highlighted. And after all that, sometimes, some movement is ok - you are photographing a dynamic band, not statues.

You have to make your images look like the stage was, rather than all solidly, uniformly lit.







Don't be frightened to under expose bits...

Your first image is a great effort!

Are you shooting RAW or jpeg. If jpeg, shift immediately to RAW. That will give you at least 2EV and may be 3EV advantage while boosting shadows.

I use Aperture Priority. In the scenario you have shown I would set up camera -
1. Aperture Priority
2. ISO 800 fixed (not auto). I have assigned ISO to the Fn button.
3. Apertures between 1.8 and 4 if using 35mm F1.8 DX

For static shots, where there is very little movement, you can shoot down to 1/60 sec. For fast action, use at least 1/250. Now you can juggle between the aperture and ISO, but I do not thing going beyond ISO 1600 will help, so increase the aperture from F4 to F1.8 and then increase the ISO. If you find the lights bright enough, then you can reduce ISO to 400.

If you are not familiar with post processing of RAW images, then download the Nikon NX-D software from Nikon site and start using it.