Help D7200 low light settings suggestions? (Concert Hall)

Lord_Tuetanus

Hi guys! I really need your suggestions for a concert low light settings with:

D7200/ AF-P DX NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G ED VR

I know it's not the best, I would prefer taking my 35mm 1.8 (or even the 18-140mm) but I will be at some distance in the theater and I don't wanna risk it.

I was thinking starting with: S Mode, CH, AF-C, 1/640, ISO 1600

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

bruto

That sounds about right but depending on what sort of concert it is, and how it is lit, you might be able to get away with a slower shutter speed. If not, the D7200 can probably go a stop or more higher on ISO if the subject is fairly well lit (this is a good machine for noise, and noise is always worst in dark areas which may matter less.).

If the concert is one in which the performers are highly lit and the background or surroundings dark, consider spot metering, or using a negative exposure compensation to avoid overexposing the dark areas at the expense of blown subject (or maybe even both). This is a pretty common problem in night shooting, and you may find that it works better at -2 or even further. An advantage to this is also that you gain those two stops, which allow either a faster shutter or lower ISO.

When you're in the venue, I'd take a shot or two, and set the playback to "highlights." Blown highlights will flash, and you can quickly adjust to make sure important details are not lost. The histogram can help too, though with a lot of dark in the picture you will likely want to ignore the left side. What you want there is to get highlight info as close to the right as you can without hitting it.

The D7200 is one of the most "ISO-invariant" cameras out there, and this means that if need be, for faster shutter, etc., you pay very little if any noise penalty for underexposing with a low ISO and raising in post, rather than shooting at high ISO. It's still probably better, and certainly simpler, to get it right at the start, but if you're at a critical point where you just can't get what you need at the camera's guess at ISO, it may pay to underexpose further than you'd normally want to.

ISO invariance is interesting and occasionally controversial, but it means basically that the way the signal is processed in the camera changes very little as you change ISO, so raising the ISO does not require added noise reduction in the camera. This differs considerably from some others, such as the D3200, which is much noisier if you underexpose and raise in post than if you raise ISO in the camera.

By the way, apologies for not seeing this sooner. I got back from Australia on the 30th, and missed your post, as the idiot spammers got in the way. I'm reminded of the now-defunct public radio program "Car Talk," in which certain people were described as "unencumbered by the thought process."

Lord_Tuetanus

Hi! no problem I know you are a busy man =)

The concert went very well... I think :D let me show you the results and any feed back from you is more than welcome!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtHR8Wyg4rG/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

I have the self task to post a photo daily, so please take a look to my instagram and happy to know what you think of it

bruto

Definitely not rockers by trade. Looks good. The overall shot looks as if it might have benefited from a tiny bit less exposure (the drum heads look pretty bright), but hard to tell in the Instagram reduction. It's possible that the highlights are there to rescue, but that the little JPG reduction doesn't handle them so well. It looks as if the exposure is right on for the individual shots. There's high contrast inherent in the scene, but it looks as if you got the compromise right.

If you shot in Raw, you might experiment a little with white balance. This may be as good as it gets depending on the light, but the temperature looks a little cool, and you can sometimes get a little more zing out of skin tones if you warm it up a little.

A concert like this is a challenge for composition, since you can't isolate subjects, but numbers 2 and 3 are very nice.

And don't you love that clean D7200 image?