As much as I love shooting with film there are some areas
where the new digital technology excels.
Everyone knows it is extremely difficult to take great pictures
in extremely low light situations. It’s also more difficult to take good pictures
from a distance when you have to “zoom” in or use telephoto lenses. Combine low
light with having to zoom in on your subject and oh, while you at it, have your
subject moving around all the time – like kids dancing on a stage 200+ feet
away in a dark auditorium!
In the old days a picture like this could only be taken with
an extremely fast (and expensive) telephoto lens and high speed (ISO) film. I
have occasionally gotten lucky and taken pictures like this with fairly
“normal” equipment and film – but not often.
The shot above was taken at my grand daughters’ dance review
with a handheld Nikon P-300 set on automatic mode and the camera zoomed nearly
all the way out. I was sitting in an almost completely dark auditorium at least 200
feet away from the poorly lighted stage the kids were dancing on. Flashes were
prohibited and at that distance wouldn’t have done any good anyway.
The camera selected f/5 and 1/25th of a second
shutter speed with an ISO of 800, used
“Pattern” metering with the onboard image stabilization activated.
Could I have gotten this picture using my 35mm – probably,
but not that easily!
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