Taking photos in an auditorium?

<p>Hi guys! I'm on yearbook and tomorrow I will be taking photos in our auditorium. It has a dark audience area, with spotlights on stage. It seems like no matter how I change the settings pictures turn out terrible. Could you please tell me what settings I should be changing and what they should be changed to? Thanks!<br>

Here's what I'm working with:<br>

-Nikon D70s camera<br>

-Nikkor 18-70mm 3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX Lens </p>

<p>Also, I will be close to the stage so zoom isn't a problem. I just need to get the perfect lighting and reduce blurriness. </p>

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<p>Will you be taking photos of people in the audience or on the stage? Will you be allowed to use flash?</p>

<p>Spotlighted subjects onstage are usually around EV 9, give or take one stop. With your D70s at ISO 400, that's around 1/90th second shutter speed at f/4.5. If the performers are moving quickly you'll probably want to set the ISO to 800 for a shutter speed of around 1/200th at f/4.5. </p>

<p>But to be certain, spot meter on a middle gray object. Or bracket in full stops and check the LCD and histogram (if the D70s has a histogram display - I don't recall).</p>

<p>If minimizing motion blur is the priority, don't worry about high ISO noise. If the light is significantly dimmer than EV 9, you'll need to set the ISO to at least 800, possibly higher. Shoot raw (NEF, with Nikon dSLRs) and fix the noise later in editing. Noise Ninja and Noiseware work well. Raw Therapee (free/shareware) and Lightroom also offer good noise reduction.</p>

<p>If your D70 can do it without the digital noise starting to look like golfballs, I would go to 1600 ISO. That should give you both a high enough shutter speed to avoid camera shake/motion blur and enough depth of field to cover any focusing errors. To get accurate exposure, trying sooming in tight on the person that's in the spotlight so that they fill the frame as much as possible. Use spot metering mode if the camera has it. Determine what the correct exposure is, then lock it in on manual and shoot the rest of the show at those settings while ignoring the meter. The aim is go get correct exposure on the people. If you do that, you can usually let the rest of the scene fall where it may. Raw definitely gives you flexibility afterward.<br />Shot many pictures for my school yearbook and newspaper nearly 40 years ago before going to work for real newspapers. Good luck.</p>

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<p>. Determine what the correct exposure is, then lock it in on manual and shoot the rest of the show at those settings while ignoring the meter.</p>

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People can move in and out of spotlights. Spotlights can overlap at certain points. This means that the advice about manual is bad advice. I would use aperture priority and figure out if you need any exposure compensation. My experience, which is recent and not 40 years ago, is that matrix metering in this kind of situation is usually the best bet. Set the camera to aperture priority and shoot wide open unless you're getting shutter speed above 1/100 if people aren't moving. Then you can move to a stop or so from wide open.</p>

<p>I think that I am somewhere between Craig and Jeff after sixty years of fumbling with cameras :-)<br>

I think Graigs suggestion is correct so long as the lighting remains static and what you are shooting is in the same place but what you need to be very much aware of is if the conditions change in which case you have to use the meter to establish the exposure for the new situation. In a rapidly changing situation you probably need to rely on the meter as Jeff suggests so long as you appreciate how a meter can lead you astray. A line of pupils coming up to receive their diplomas and a handshake from the Dean doesn't give you any time for messing with exposure.</p>

<p>On the other hand be also aware of the other parameter that over-exposure is a killer but some under exposure can often be adjusted for in editing ... so don't fall into the trap that I did when fresh out of photoschool and thinking I knew all about it and was adjusting for every small perceived change of lighting ... it drove the darkroom guys mad becuase they were printing four frames at a time... becuase in each case I was over compensating. That camera I was given to work with was designed for dummies and just had B,H,D settings rather than f/stops. Evenually I said to hell with them and left the aperture untouched and immediately got a message back 'Stay with it" :-)<br>

A rather different world to today with our automatic this and that.</p>