Dance

A Dance Question from Australia...

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I was recently asked this question via Email. In replying I realised this is the methodology I use to get to the optimum settings for all my shoots, so I thought I’d publish it in case others might find it useful :-)

Hi David,

A friend of mine has asked if I could take a couple of photos of her a local ballroom/Latin dance event. I have no idea what I’m doing so came across you & your fabulous photos while frantically searching for information on camera settings, lens etc.

I did shoot her at practice… and it’s fast. My images were all noisy & grainy so am reaching out to you with fingers crossed and hopeful that you may share some of your tip to help me capture at least one image for her.

My gear;

- Canon RP
- 24-105 / f4
- 70-200 / f4
- 85 / f1.6

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Many thanks, Claire, Cairns, Australia

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Hi Claire,

I’m guessing lack of light will be your main problem - this is often the case indoors.

Turn your camera to Manual Mode - we are going to work through logically to get the optimum settings for Aperture, Shutter Speed & ISO;

Aperture (depth of field)

Shoot at the lowest Aperture you can - this lets most light into the camera.

I'd use the 85mm lens & shoot at F2.8 - you only need the dancers sharp, everything behind can be blurred, that makes the dancers stand out. With the other lenses (but I'd try to not to use them) shoot at F4.

Shutter speed

Shoot at the lowest shutter speed you can - this lets most light into the camera.

Start with 1/200s & use auto ISO so the camera gets a good exposure. Take a shot then zoom in on the back screen of the camera;

  • are they blurred? (i.e. motion movement) - shoot faster

  • are they sharp? - shoot slower

Keep going slower until they go blurred - then slowly faster until they are sharp again. You now know the minimum shutter speed to keep them sharp.

ISO

Shoot at the lowest ISO you can - this will give you the best quality image (i.e. less noise / grain).

Deselect Auto ISO & go to manual ISO & start at ISO 400. Take a shot & then use the histogram (or just look at the back screen if you're not comfortable using the histogram);

  • is it over exposed? - lower the ISO

  • is it under exposed? - raise the ISO

Keep going until you get the minimum possible ISO

This would be the way I would approach any new situation to get to the optimum camera settings.

Hope this helps.

Regards, David

Waltz With Me

Hip Hop

in

I’ve not been doing a lot of editing recently but I’m getting back into it now - I love editing images and I can happily spend all day doing it. I took this image 13 months ago so that’s much longer than I normally leave images before working them up. But I do like to leave a reasonable time because I think you are in a better position to assess their potential. To explain; I took 135 images of Steph and this is the only one I will use in competitions. I think I was better able to decide this was the one because any high’s and low’s of the shoot have long since faded from the memory, I’m not so emotionally attached now. I used a Pinterest board to give me inspiration - a technique I use regularly to gather lots of images I like from around the Web. I was also able to use a background from a shoot 4 years ago - an abandoned waterworks in South Yorkshire. Together with my good friend David Cudworth I had a short Urbex fascination & we got into lots of abandoned buildings. We had great fun (big kids & all that) so it’s great to also be able to use an image that has good memories. Anyway, here’s the image, with special thanks to the dancer, Steph Ovenden.

Hip Hop

The original image

The original image

A background from my short Urbex career ;-)

A background from my short Urbex career ;-)