Frustration

Hello friends. I was asked to shoot a music concert in a dark music hall. Could not use my flash. NO matter what I tried I could not get decent shots. I tried program mode, aperture mode...you name it. At f4 with my 18-105 mm pics were blurry. Tried an f1.4 35mm nikkor lens and everything was blown out despite adjusting iso and ev step....what did I do wrong?.....so incredibly dejected and embarassed

I seriously doubt that you will ever get anything decent in a dark hall with a D300. The ISO capability is just not there.
The blurry pics were most likely caused by camera shake, as your shutter speed was much too slow.; To compensate for this you have to bump up the ISO way high, and this is where your problem starts and ends. The d300 can not handle high ISO.

pmillage said:

Hello friends. I was asked to shoot a music concert in a dark music hall. Could not use my flash. NO matter what I tried I could not get decent shots. I tried program mode, aperture mode...you name it. At f4 with my 18-105 mm pics were blurry. Tried an f1.4 35mm nikkor lens and everything was blown out despite adjusting iso and ev step....what did I do wrong?.....so incredibly dejected and embarassed

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You posted in the D7100 section but list your camera as a D300. What camera were you shooting with? It would also help if you would post one of the photos along with the EXIF data.

Don Kuykendall said:

You posted in the D7100 section but list your camera as a D300. What camera were you shooting with? It would also help if you would post one of the photos along with the EXIF data.

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Heck, I didn't even notice I was in the D7100 section, I just saw his camera was listed as a D300s.

Need example photos.

very sorry....it was the d7100

OK, so what was your White Balance set at?

pmillage said:

very sorry....it was the d7100

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Still need to see photos so we can see what you were trying to do. I shoot the D7100 and I know it does a great job in low light.

pmillage said:

very sorry....it was the d7100

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That makes a world of difference. From what I understand that camera should handle that situation well.

Here's one I did...Focal length 28mm..Aperture F2.8...Shutter 1/60 sec ISO 200

I did miss some until I upped the ISO to 800 and the shutter speed to 1/160...

pedroj said:

Here's one I did...Focal length 28mm..Aperture F2.8...Shutter 1/60 sec ISO 200

I did miss some until I upped the ISO to 800 and the shutter speed to 1/160...

View attachment 92390

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I see that I have to learn a lot about settings. BTW, Great shot

siamthai1 said:

I see that I have to learn a lot about settings. BTW, Great shot

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Shot in raw and photoshopped and a fare bit cropped off it...

Here's a link to my shoot of my daughter when she was in the play Rent as part of the CalTech players from a couple months ago. They allowed cameras but not flash. I didn't arrive early enough to get a good front row seat so I was about 10 rows back to stage right. All photos are shot at ISO 6400 with my D7100 with the Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 lens (VR on). The play is dark most of the time with only one spot light on the main speaking character. This is how they all came out - as you can see they are ok as the D7100 does very well at high ISO. The trick to doing high ISO shooting is to OVER expose when in doubt - I set it to 1/2 to 1 ev on the plus side. When shooting with high ISO, you can recover from over exposed images somewhat but if you try to recover from underexposed ones, the image gets very grainy and color aberration sets in.

Here's the link:
Rent - the Musical - yauman

btw, I hate the new SmugMug - wish I had stayed with the old format!

Enjoy!

pedroj said:

Here's one I did...Focal length 28mm..Aperture F2.8...Shutter 1/60 sec ISO 200

I did miss some until I upped the ISO to 800 and the shutter speed to 1/160...

View attachment 92390

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Yea, you are shooting at way too low ISO. Don't worry about upping your ISO - it's a new era in digital imaging - up the ISO so you can up your shutter speed. In a dance action shot, you should be using shutter speed of 1/200 or higher. If you shoot at ISO 200, your shutter speed will have to be way too low and your aperture too wide and you'll still end up with slightly underexposed images which will be GRAINY when you recover the shadow and blacks in post production With the D7100 you can shoot up to ISO 3200 without worrying about grains if you are shooting raw - serious. When you get to ISO 6400 or higher, you have to over expose at bit but other than that, shoot to 128,000 and be happy. BTW, the Nikon D4S as well as the Sony a7s shoot up to ISO 409,600 and looks good SOOC! Really, get use to not worrying about upping the ISO to get the exposure you want.

Excellent job..Yes I've found with low light shots over expose some...

Here is a link where I show concert shots with D3300 and 35mm F1.8 DX
http://nikonites.com/d3300/22585-low-light-shots.html#axzz33HQ4AvNs

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This one is shot at low ISO. I had an advantage that there was not much movement. In case you have to increase the shutter speed from 1/100 to 1/400 just adjust the ISO accordingly. All modern Nikons are good enough to ISO 1600.

yauman said:

Yea, you are shooting at way too low ISO. Don't worry about upping your ISO - it's a new era in digital imaging - up the ISO so you can up your shutter speed. In a dance action shot, you should be using shutter speed of 1/200 or higher. If you shoot at ISO 200, your shutter speed will have to be way too low and your aperture too wide and you'll still end up with slightly underexposed images which will be GRAINY when you recover the shadow and blacks in post production With the D7100 you can shoot up to ISO 3200 without worrying about grains if you are shooting raw - serious. When you get to ISO 6400 or higher, you have to over expose at bit but other than that, shoot to 128,000 and be happy. BTW, the Nikon D4S as well as the Sony a7s shoot up to ISO 409,600 and looks good SOOC! Really, get use to not worrying about upping the ISO to get the exposure you want.

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Tell me what do you see wrong with this shot...I see movement as well as sharpness without to much noise...

This is a shot inside an auditorium theatre hosting a graduation ceremony. Using a D300 with an 10-105 lens (my longest zoom), this is what I could come up with. The subjects are roughly 80 ft from my position. A YN565EX flash mounted on camera was also employed at 1/4 power. ISO was 800. Shutter speed was 1/20 sec Manual Mode.

Learn to use and manage high ISO. If you're shooting at ISO 200 in a dark hall you're doomed before you start. With the D7100 you can easily shoot at ISO 1600 and barely notice it. Yes, there will be noise, but Camera RAW does a good job with Noise Reduction, and Nik Dfine 2.0 does a better job if you have it. A noiseless picture that's not sharp is useless. A little noise bothers the photographer more than anyone else - but unless you're going into the Hi range you should be able to manage it.