ESSENTIAL CAMERA SKILLS TOP GEAR TIPS

01 shoot in raw

Raw gives you an extra safety net in challenging, fast-paced conditions like this. With Raw you can alter white balance after the fact, and pull greater detail out of shadows and highlights, even in seemingly dud exposures.

02 shutter speed

Your shutter speed needs to be fast enough to capture the action and movement on stage. As a general rule, try to keep it above 1/200 second and if your lens has it, turn on image stabilization.

03 Wide open lens

By shooting with a lens ‘wide open’ you open the aperture to its widest setting, which is f/1.4 on the 50mm lens here. This allows the greatest amount of light through, which helps keep the ISO as low as possible.

04 Focusing

Focusing can be tricky in low light, especially when shooting with the lens wide open. Try using back button focusing as this keeps the shutter button free. Alternatively, try focusing with Live View, if your camera has it.

05 iso performance

In dim interiors, your ISO is likely to spike beyond 1600. This leads to increased image noise, so it helps if your DSLR is a good low-light performer. Full-frame cameras tend to outperform crop sensor DSLRS in this department.