Settings for ballerinas in an indoor ballet studio

redwagon

With my Nikon D5100 I am planning to photograph little ballerinas (age 4-6) in a ballet studio this weekend. This studio has a lot of windows and natural light, and mirrors along two walls. Can you suggest which settings might work best?

I plan to use my 50mm f/1.4 lens. I'm curious about ISO, metering, white balance. Should I use flash? I plan to shoot still life and some action. Thank you, Tamara

Moose

Howdy @redwagon - I would start with the following...

1. Enable Shutter priority (S on the mode dial) and start with a shutter speed of 1/60 and increase it depending on how much movement is taking place.
2. Set the ISO to Auto - This will ensure accurate exposures when shooting indoors.
3. Adjust your metering to Center-weighted - This will pinpoint the exposure based on your subject (best for portraits), rather than the entire scene.
4. Set a custom white balance - Do this right when you get to the studio. All you need it a white wall or a white piece of paper. Refer to page 84 of the D5100 manual for instructions.

For action shots...
5. Set your Focus Mode to Continuous-servo (AF-C)
6. Set your AF-Area Mode to Auto-area AF
7. Set your release mode to Continuous (burst)

With these settings in place, half-press the shutter button to continuously focus on the subject. When you're ready to take the shot, fully press the shutter button and hold it down to rattle off a series of shots in quick succession.

For still life...
5. Set your Focus Mode to Single-servo (AF-S)
6. Set your AF-Area Mode to Single-point AF

With these settings in place, half-press the shutter button to lock focus on a subject. While continuing to half-press the shutter button, re-frame your shot for better composition, then fully press the shutter.

That should get you going in the right direction. Happy shooting! :)

redwagon

Thank you! I will give all of this a try. Do you think I need to purchase an external flash for this?