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Still trying to improve my dance photography, although i have to say this particular genre does seem limiting.







This will probably be the last time i shoot dance with a D80.

Hampster, that last shot seems to have a great mix of sharpness and movement blur. Very impressive.

Thanks although i must say that i really don't know what the relationship between shutter speed, flash output and motion trails are. I'm thinking by altering the settings i can get varying lengths but i havent' had the time nor the practice to do so. Ideally i want to be able to control how long the motion trails are, and i'm not sure how to go about that in practice.

Hi, good shots (lighting, colour, composition), perhaps try some depth of field - stop the lens down (what lenses are you using?) and maintain the focus on the subject, the closer you are the narrower the depth of field and the more blurred the background will be.

Shutter speed determines how much movement you will capture - of course.. but flash will determine where you 'freeze' that motion. Front and rear curtain flash will shoot the flash at the start or end of the exposure, thus clearly defining that image at that point. Trial and error with the rest based on dancer, location, lighting.

Justin: I am unfortunate to only possess one body and one lens, and that is a D80/18-200 VR combination. I'm not quite sure what you mean by stopping the lens down. These pictures are already unacceptably dark straight off the camera at 1/30 or 1/20th shutter speed and the aperture is wide open (from 3.5 through to about 4.8 depending on focal length). Stopping the lens down would only make my pictures darker. I was only one or two meters away from the subject at all times (hurray front row seats) in order to make use of the wider apertures on the zoom.

You're going to need to explain further because my knowledge would tell me that the closer I am, the wider my focal length would need to be. Stopping the lens down would only increase the depth of field as opposed to reducing it...so why would my DOF be narrower with a stopped lens?
If you mean zooming in for a tighter crop, my experience with this sort of style is that the dancers all need to appear to have room to move...a tight crop isnt' always the best shot for this style.

Your D80 manual will explain front / read curtain flash better, start with that and practice with someone walking across the scene.

Sorry I think I messed up my terminology... open the lens right up... wups.. to let in as much light as possible. Perhaps a good investment would be a 35mm F2.8 or 50mm 1.8, or even a 28 2.8. a 50mm 1.8 can be had for around about $150

The only other thing I could suggest is ISO, up to 800 / 1600 should be ok?

Also, active VR on the 18-200 is pretty good for stability on longer exposures.

I was making a stab at explaining how distance from subject varies the depth of field - I'm not commenting on your distance from the subject, as I said I like the composition.

that's okay

I'm well aware of what the differences between front and rear (or first and second curtain) sync are. My experiences tell me that in dance situations, rear sync is preferred because dancers who know the moves ask why dancers are doing the steps backwards if I shoot with first curtain sync. What i'm trying to say is i also know that the length of the trails in the photos can be controlled, but i dont' know how or what controls that.

The lens was fully open as well that night. It had to be.

The ISO on the camera was 640 but don't let that fool you, the automated PP means these photos are currently at between ISO900 to 1250. Any more then that and we'd all be looking at grain (see out background areas with not much illumination). A 50 f/1.8 is certainly in the works, but other people tell me for this sort of stuff a 50 f1/8 can be rather limiting as shooters like us don't get much room to move backwards and forwards, only side to side.

Anything slower than 1/25 means bad pictures for me and it isn't VR's fault. The subjects move so fast that their faces ended up becoming blurred smears.

It seems like i'm reaching the limits of my equipment.

some thing like this sigma could be an option for you....i dont know anything about the dealer though

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NEW-SIGMA-30mm-F ... dZViewItem