Help! Taking low light pictures without using flash!

Hi there. A friend has asked me to take pictures for his band. They are performing outside in the early evening and they would prefer no flash. I have never taken pictures such as this...and since I am a beginning photographer...I am not sure the best route to take. I have a Minolta A2. It takes great pictures, but I have not played around with shutter speeds, ISO, etc. that much. I am thinking I can take some with my mounted flash, but just take it down a notch on the power. Also, I would like to take some nice natual shots that show the movements of the band members as they are playing.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, I would appreiate it!

Thanks!

You might have to use flash, but experiment a lot. How high can you turn up the ISO before the images get too noisy (grainy)? A little bit doesn't bother me in shots like this but there's a point where it's too much. I use a Fuji S2 and get great ISO800 results but not at ISO1600. This works out good for me because ISO800 with an aperture of f2.8 should give you a decent shutter speed with any amount of decent lighting. Early evening outside should help a lot too so you might be able to get away with ISO400.

It might be useful to try a higher speed film (ISO 800, 1600, 3200). The advantage of a higher speed film is that you do not need to use the flash with these films. The disadvantage is that the film gets very grainy (think pixels here), very quickly :( . Needless to say, any film with an ISO of less than 400 will not do you any good without a long exposure or a flash. The other alternative is to use a tripod. This would allow long exposure, without the flash. This also contains a hidden benefit. The long exposure would actually show movement. This could be a good thing, or not. Just my thoughts. Take along a tripod, high speed film (ISO 400 and above), low speed film (ISO 200 and below), a hot thermos of tea (that at least would be my preferred beverage! :D ), and a large buch of luck. Good luck.

Dzerzhinski :p

Dont really know if the tripod would help too much...might blur out the everyone in the band because of all the action.
High speed films will help for sure.
Or you might want to rent/borrow a faster lens. I'm not sure what kinda speed you would need. Any experts on avail. light photography? I wanna get into that too cuz I find flash usually ruins the mood. Problem though is that if you dont use a flash, you might get this response: What you took it? I didnt see it flash!

One thing to keep in mind - an A2 is a compact digital, not an SLR with interchangeable lenses. I didn't know this until I looked it up...

Flash is an option but think of it as a last resort. Band members don't like tons of flash going off in their faces - trust me, I'm on both sides of it!

Thanks for all the tips! It ended up not being bad at all. I also used a Canon Rebel and it took great shots! My A2 does not focus well in low lighting. I have added a picture for you to see how they turned out. I took some with, without flash. The ones without were by far the best. I think they have a neat "mood" to them. Not my favorite of the singer, but its okay. The band was happy, I guess that's all that matters! Thanks again!

OK, with a Dimage A2 you don't want to go past 400 ISO without software to clean up the noise.
But the character of the noise makes it quite usable even at 800 - I've done band and conference shots with available light and it's been fine.
Make sure you use a monopod at least, or a tripod.

I completely agree, available light gives better looking results than with the built-in flash on either the 300D or A2 (I used both at the same event).


>> I also used a Canon Rebel and it took great shots <<
I found the low light focussing on the 300D (UK name, digital rebel in the US I think) was inferior to the Minolta's gain-up monochrome viewfinder/focus mode.
I agree it takes nice pictures, quite comparable to the 8MP A2.
Or on the other hand, the Minolta is comparable to the Canon :)

>> My A2 does not focus well in low lighting <<
My A2 does not focus well in bright lighting, even with the latest software upgrade.

However heres's a few avaialble light shots of mine. now you've started ...

Bands can be very difficult to shoot, but when it works the results are great. Nice work - I agree about not using flash, it flattens everything out. Stage lighting is extremely contrasty so metering can be tough, you'll have blown highlights no matter what you use - film or digital.

Thanks again for the tips! Yes I was a bit worried about taking them b/c I had never done it before, but I think they came out okay. I only had 30 minutes to take them so I tried to get as many in as I could. Thanks SmartWombat for your examples. You took those using your A2? I have not been 100% satisfied with my A2. Mainly for the slow to focus issues I have. I am serisouly thinking about selling and getting a Nikon D70. Any suggestions/comments? Thanks again!

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Originally Posted by Pumpkin

I am serisouly thinking about selling and getting a Nikon D70. Any suggestions/comments? Thanks again!

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I've got a Fuji S2 that's great at ISO800 but not so good at 1600 - maybe if I get noise reduction software or something, but the D70 looks much better at 1600 from what I've seen. With a DSLR, the sensor is much bigger and the noise problem will pretty much go away. I can get clean blacks at ISO800, plus use my f1.4 lenses. Depending on the venues, a 50 f1.4 is pretty much a requirement. The 28 f1.4 would be nice but very expensive, might try the 28 and/or 35 f2. Another good one would be one of the fast 85mm primes. The kit lens with the D70 is pretty slow for this kind of work.