Need advice asap - Nikon D5000

[billythekidrock]

I need some advice and help.

I was just given an opportunity to take concert photos next week and I was loaned a Nikon D5000 with the following lenses. DX 18-55, DX 55-200, 70-300

I took it to a local club Friday night and some pics were ok but most were horrible using a variety of settings. The lighting in the room was not great and flash is not always an option.

I changed a few settings and went to a larger venue with better lighting last night and basically had the same results. I can take comparable and often better pics with my little CanonSX160 IS that has 16x zoom and is 16 mega pixels.

Any tried and true settings or rules that will give me a better chance at capturing a few decent shots?

[Bean Counter]

Shoot in *.RAW. This will allow you to correct the white balance later. Download a free 30 day trial of Lightroom 5 and be amazed. I'm lazy and stupid and I find it super easy.

Yongnuo just made a clone of the Plastic Fantastic for Canon. It's supposed to be better and cheaper than Canons already cheap version. Idk whether they have made one for Nikon or not but at F/1.8 it will let in a lot more light so you can use a faster shutter speed and avoid the ever frustrating blurry photos. Buy the Nikon version if you have to. You can always sell it later. Lenses hold their value well esp if you buy used to begin with.

[Bean Counter]

You can shoot in continuous burst mode, too. Compose and focus, recompose, and then fire off 4 or 5 shots. Blur is often a random event and can be induced by hitting the shutter just like slamming the trigger on a gun. Usually one shot in the middle of a 4 or 5 shot burst will be nice and steady. 1/60 of a second is a good guideline.

Better to have some noise (grain) from higher ISOs than blurry shots from a slow shutter speed. Lightroom cleans noise up well n

[Bean Counter]

More advanced technique: look at your background surrounding your subject: is it dark/black? often a dude singing or playing guitar is spotlit and the surrounding backdrop is dark. Remember your camera doesn't look at light the way your eyes do. You can cheat out a faster shutter speed when the backdrop surrounding the subject is dark. Try dialing down one or two negative stops of exposure compensation, especially if your subject (the musician) was blown out (too bright--almost glowing like). Feel free to post up some examples if you want C&C.

[huntnphool]

You need a faster lens, f2.8 or faster, and will need to shoot RAW so you can adjust white balance later in post processing.

[billythekidrock]

Thanks guys. This will give me something to think about.

[huntnphool]

Thanks guys. This will give me something to think about.

 Now you understand why faster lenses (lower aperture) cost more money, they allow you to shoot faster speeds in lower light situations.

[billythekidrock]

With the current equipment listed, can you suggest aperture and ISO settings for a starting point?

[huntnphool]

With the current equipment listed, can you suggest aperture and ISO settings for a starting point?

 I would start in aperture priority, ISO 400 @ f4, take a couple shots and check your speed at those settings. If it's too slow go to ISO 800 and do the same. After that I would drop aperture one stop and try that, only because I don't like shooting past ISO 400, let alone 1600.

I'm not familiar with the speed of those Nikon lenses, not sure if they are f4 or not. If your lens only goes down to 5.6, then start there.

[Bean Counter]

Billy, if you can post up an example or toe from the last shoot it might give us an idea.

[huntnphool]

Billy, if you can post up an example or toe from the last shoot it might give us an idea.

[billythekidrock]

Sorry.. got busy and haven't been on much.  The pics from the first shoot with this camera were deleted.

But here one from my Canon point and shoot.



Here are a couple pics from the second test shoot with the Nikon. I did use flash and no post processing.





These are from the shoot I was asked to do. I took over 450 shots and have less than ten percent that I am happy with. But that is about the same percentage as the second test shoot.  No flash was allowed, decent lighting at times and some post processing in PS 7 (mostly instant/auto fixes and curve adjustments).





I really liked this one but the original was washed in red light and I couldn't get it to look right. It is a bit blurry but I thought the pose was fun.

[Bob33]

You don't need to shoot RAW to adjust color. You can open jpg files as raw files in several editors including some inexpensive ones like as Photoshop Elements. You can then tweak the color temperature which should provide a satisfactory result. I'm not familiar with the D5000 but several Nikons can adjust color balance to a predefined neutral color object like a gray card.

Wish I were closer to come help. Good luck. Worst case put the images on a cloud site or send me a DVD and I will work on them.

[Bean Counter]

Great start there, Billy! 

I have no problem deleting 90% of what I shoot--if the other 10% is There isn't a pro out there who would claim that 100% of his event photos are keepers. Its just a fact of life. yes, its time consuming, but now what's left over will all be great art work.

Check out this article from Luminous Landscape on RAW vs. JPEG for adjusting color temp.

[billythekidrock]

Thanks.

The last set was shot in RAW/JPEG but for some reason CS wouldn't open the RAW files so I used PS 7 on the JPEG versions.

I had to give the camera back, but will be getting it back for another show real soon.