Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [OM] dance photo shoot

Subject: Re: [OM] dance photo shoot
From: "Ken Norton" <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:46:05 -0600
If the lighting is consistent, just stick you hand in the light, meter it
and raise exposure one stop--two stops at most.  Lock this exposure in using
manual-exposure.  (Yes, that "M" position which Canon users have no idea
what it does--they think it stands for "Mistake").

You'll find that the exposure really isn't that slow when you do this. Under
this kind of lighting you'll find yourself in the neighborhood of ISO 1600,
F4 and 1/125 give or take a stop or so.  Do manually set your WB!

F4, with most lenses is a stop down from wide-open which gives you just
enough usable DoF while also covering up a slew of auto-focusing errors.
1/125 is almost always fast enough to stop most motion except when they are
really moving their hands, feet or heads.  ISO 1600 is a good start point,
but adjust as necessary to maintain F4 at 1/125.

Even the best auto-focus will have a horrible hit-rate in this lighting
condition.  Personally, I find auto-focus to be a distraction when doing
this kind of photography because it ends up fighting you and you miss the
"decisive moment".  After 1/2 hour of practice or use, you can manually
track and focus better than auto-focus ever can.  Your frustration level
will go down greatly. Instead of a 25% hit-rate (shutter-release priority),
you can up that to 80% hit-rate of in-focus images.  (Even the best AF
systems can't muster much better than 25% hit-rate under these specific
conditions using SRP).

I put the camera in "motor-drive" mode.  When I shoot action like this, I
fire a three-frame burst.  (Almost always in JPEG mode for this type of work
so I'm not stuffing the buffer and waiting for the camera--just set
in-camera sharpening to off or 0). The three-frame burst is actually quite
important as you will invariably blur the shot (unless you have
image-stabilization) with the pressing of the shutter-release.  The second
frame is typically the better frame until you know how to roll your
trigger-finger instead of "pushing" the shutter release.  A slow roll from
the half-press position will usually result in a two or three frame burst
anyway.

I don't need to make recommendations about the compositions.  You've nailed
them and I really like the images presented!

AG
-- 
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz