Digital Camera for lighting work

[Brian B]

We give out the canon ixus 65 for our LDs to take pics and there the best digi camera weve had for lighting

tons of options on there and loads of neat functions

and very easy to use with is great for me !

[Light Console]

I am still impressed at my K100D - just passed 1000 snaps! Set the White balance to "White Florescent" for the best balance if you want the picture to look exactly like what you see.

[SceneMaster]

I have a EOS 400D and have found it to be excellent for low light for photography. Worth looking at a Nikon D80 but from what I have heard when experiment seen the 400D has much better low light response. One thing to watch out for the standard kit lens with the 400D is rubbish so you will need to invest in at least a semi decent lens as well.

 

When I have some time I’ll post some pictures of stage lighting taken without the flash which a friend of mine took with it on last week’s job.

[DaveBeattie]

I have used a canon EOS 10D for a few years now. ISO goes up to 3200 and takes all of the lenses from my old film camera.

 

Dave

[ceecrb1]

Nikon D80 with the 18-200 DX VR IF EF lens (ie built in vibration reduction!)

 

with low light (ie taking photos of shows) nothing compairs to having an active vibration reduction lens (like the nikon VR range of the cannon IS range)

 

there is a very knowledgable place I know of, some guy called "steve" runs on tinterweb.. many many answers there

[lightsource]

I use a Fujifilm FinePix S5600, for all my photo's (including the LightSource Avatar pic - which was taken using 2x 250w scanners)

 

XD card tho'

[Paul Graham]

Hi All

 

I'm looking to buy a new digital stills camera for capturing show images.

Our last few have struggled between shutter speed and brightness in dim lighting states. The images tend to have blurry faced actors or the image doesn't do the lighting state juctice. I know very little about cameras and just want something I can point and click during a dress. The images need to be printed on A4, so somthing at least 5-6 megapixies.

 

Has anyone got anything that works well for them?

(I'm looking to spend about £400-£500)

 

Cheers!

Paul

[vl nick]

http://www.blue-room.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=17069

 

There has been a few similar topics before which are worth a read

[soundo26]

I use a Fuji Finepix S5600 (£180) on it's natural light setting and get good pictures. I take lots of pics of our sets, I'd post one here but can't work out how to attach it, if you'd like me to send a couple of examples, e-mail me at brian@liquidmediagroup.co.uk and I'll forward a couple on.

 

Avoid using flash at all costs. When you buy a camera, avoid the little pocket cameras as they do no have enough optical zoom and the lens aperture is usually too small to gather the low ambient light levels. Go for one that looks like a real camera with a larger objective lens and the largest Optical (not digital) Zoom factor you can afford. If you want to print larger sizes you will need higher resolution so the greater the megapixel number the better, the trade off there is that the greater resolution you use, the more memory you will need, so you should buy a memory card of at least 1GB to store your images.

 

Hope this helps!

[Paul Roberts]

I tend to agree with the above post regarding the Fuji S5600 - they are very good cameras for the price. I bought an S5500 2 1/2 years ago and find it a reasonably good camera for capturing images of lighting states.

[p.k.roberts]

I If you want to print larger sizes you will need higher resolution so the greater the megapixel number the better, the trade off there is that the greater resolution you use, the more memory you will need,

 

I'd have said the bigger trade off is that the higher the number of pixels, the lower the sensitivity of the camera and so a slower shutter speed needs to used and so blurry pictures are far more likely. I would go for the lowest number of pixels you need for the resolution you require.

I'd also try to avoid hand held shots, try to find something to steady the camera or try a cheap mono-pod.

[jakefraser]

On a side note from the shutter speed, you may find (like I did with my Panasonic FZ-20) that at high ISOs (which are fairly vital for low light sets) you get a lot of image noise, typically a blue grain on the black/much darker colours in the shot.

 

There are some excellent pieces of software to remedy this - I use Imagenomic's Noiseware tool link here and it does a stellar job, removing all grain, colour artifacts and associated rubbish!

 

Just something to consider, depending on your final choice of camera.

 

Jake

[Tomo]

The noise will be greater if the CCD pixels are smaller - so again, pick the lowest physical resolution that meets your needs, assuming the sensor is the same physical size.

 

I use a Nikon D100, and there's no noticeable noise up to ISO600 - a little bit at ISO1200, and it gets nasty at ISO3200 and 6400.

 

Large sensors are generally found in the SLR-type cameras.

[Congo]

I have to agree I have a Fuji Finepix S5600 and it has taken my good pics over the last few years but seeing that pixmania have the 5700 at £100 its big new brother S8000D at £179 which looks a much better Camera for the money

 

Mark

[Cormac]

My tip would be whatever digital camera you get buy a small foldaway tripod and use the timer function's as this usually gives better results and you won't get the blurred actor/set as often.

If you can't afford a tripod use a small box or table and set the camera to timer to avoid any unnessesary movement.

If you can change your camera shutter speeds try playing around with them a bit,longer shutter speed more light gets in so in theory a brighter picture.

 

best C