[pcrichmond]

What a fun challenge you have set for yourself. One of my favorite hobbies is to shoot amateur rodeo which is often at evening/night, though there are the arena lights to work with.
I use a F300 4.5 or Sigma 70-200 2.8 and find these fast enough.
Do you have any lighting at all or reliant on natural light only? Agree you don't want to use flash for the sake of riders and animals.
The reason people suggest a high speed lens is for the autofocus. Try your F series lenses in AF mode first. They will use the widest opening (f4) for autofocus if possible, even if you are shooting stopped down.
If that doesn't work try a work around of manual focus and preselect a focus point where you know the riders will be and shoot that point.

This camera combination works for me, give it a try and see what happens.
Set the camera in TAV mode and let the camera choose the ISO, letting it go up to 6400 if needed. As Sagitta mentioned you should be ok with ISO speeds of 3200.
I've found f5.6 to be about ideal, anything wider and you loose depth of field which will cause the subject to look out of focus. If you have no artificial light go ahead and try f4.
Try to keep the shutter at around 250-500 to freeze action if you are using a longer zoom or focal length. If you are shooting at lower focal lengths (35-100mm) don't go below 125.
Remember hand held it helps to keep the shutter no lower than the length of your lens but a minimum of 125 or so to stop action.
I shoot this hand held all the time and find Shake Reduction a great benefit.
Let us know what you come up with, this sounds like a great photo experience.

[Roob-N-Boots]

I highly recommend the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson to get you shooting manual. https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Exposure-Fourth-Photographs-Camera/dp/1...nding+exposure

And i also highly recomend getting an F50 1.7, it was my first AF prime and my favorite go to lens for low light and and second favorite for portraits. (first being DA*50-135)

[Shock2DC]

here's the thing

if you're shooting action with moving subjects and dim lighting, shooting at wide apertures is going to give you all kinds of nicely exposed, but out of focus shots. hell take your k50 and a da50 f1.8 in poor light and see how many nice sharp shots you get wide open with NON moving subjects.

there's just so little leeway for misfocus at wide apertures and your camera is going to have a harder time focusing in low light at any aperture.

your best bet is to get something like adam said (55-300), and push the ISO to make up for the shutter.

I do know how to adjust ISO. Learned that just fiddling around with the camera. My biggest issue is never knowing just what to adjust. I can only absorb so much information at once, which is why I am not a quick study at this. I will definitely try that and see what results I get next time around. Thank you!

[HudsonShooter]

get a 50 1.8 or a manual 50 2 if you really need to go cheap. you can do iso 3200 on k50

[wibbly]

it was mentioned earlier in this thread, but your minimum shutter speed is going to be relative to your focal length. using the reciprocal of your focal length is a decent start. so if you're shooting at 200mm, 1/200 is about as slow as you want your shutter for reasonable results.

there are a lot of different modes you can use to accomplish what you want to. i do things a little bit differently than others, but Tav is probably your best bet. you can set your aperture, shutter, and it will automatically set the ISO.



shooting in low light can be quite tricky, and it will just take time to get your desired results. but you do not necessarily want to be shooting wide open, as this will negatively impact your keep rate.

[Des]

You haven't said what focal length is suitable for photographing the kids and horses. The longer the focal length the harder it gets.

I've tried to shoot birds and wildlife at dusk, with a K-30 and now a K-3. It is hard to get a decent image with a telephoto lens, without using flash. 3200 ISO or even 6400 ISO are OK on the K-30 (same as your K-50) in reasonable light, but when light is poor the resolution and colours drop away quickly, not to mention the noise. The longer the lens, the worse it is - longer lenses, as a general rule, eat light.

If 50mm is enough, one of the 50mm primes might be as good as you will get for <$100. I've had the A f1.7 and the DA f1.8 and they are both fun and sharp.

If you can get by with 35mm, the DA 35 f2.4 (which can be had for around $100 second hand) is also really good. It's sharp from wide open, so the slight difference in maximum aperture isn't hugely important.

Any of these primes are really good lenses to have anyway.

I'm wondering what that Gemini lens you have is. A 52mm prime would be quite unusual - could that be the filter size?

There was a Gemini 28mm prime apparently, with a maximum aperture of f2.8 - could that be the one?
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discussion/179439-gemi...questions.html
https://www.pentaxforums.com/userreviews/gemini-28mm-f2-8-mc.html
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/forums/thread29567.htm
(It took a 49mm filter, but yours could have a 52mm filter with an adapter.)

Seems there was also a Gemini 135mm f2.8, which had a 52mm filter thread:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discussion/205694-bros...mm-f2-8-a.html
http://forum.mflenses.com/viewtopic.php?t=15283&view=next

Whatever it is, with a maximum aperture of f2.8, it would be worth a try for low light shooting, if you can deal with the manual focus for a moving subject (not easy, I know).

[TwoUptons]

I'd suggest a fastish 50mm, one of the f1.7s or f1.4s. The F50mm f1.7 would be a terrific choice. They tend to get cheaper as you give up automation, so it may be a trade between a M 1.4 vs A 1.7, for example.

I'd also suggest the Takumar (bayonet) 135mm f2.5. The coatings aren't great, and it has a tendency to flare, but when you get it right, it works well.

The flip side for making you work for good results is that it's usually a cheap lens.

An A 50mm f1.4 and the 135 f2.5 were my indoor sports lenses on film years ago, and it is possible to do it. Good luck ☺

-Eric

[HudsonShooter]

I realized last weekend my low light lenses were the mitakon 85mm f2 and da70 f2.4 and one of them was cheap new.

[pres589]

Pardon my ignorance, and my jacking of this thread, but couldn't the OP just set a manual focus lens over at infinity and run it wide open and not have to refocus as long as the action stays far away enough? Say, 30ft ft and beyond if he's using an M 50 1.4 (which I just so happen to own myself)?

Obvious if the object of attention comes closer, he's going to have to either miss the shot, or get to twisting the focus ring, but if not...

[Shock2DC]

What a fun challenge you have set for yourself. One of my favorite hobbies is to shoot amateur rodeo which is often at evening/night, though there are the arena lights to work with.
I use a F300 4.5 or Sigma 70-200 2.8 and find these fast enough.
Do you have any lighting at all or reliant on natural light only? Agree you don't want to use flash for the sake of riders and animals.

Set the camera in TAV mode and let the camera choose the ISO, letting it go up to 6400 if needed. As Sagitta mentioned you should be ok with ISO speeds of 3200.

There is some light in the small pen, but the larger one, unless she is close to the barn, there isn't much. I attached small pen pics from Monday. Utilizing a tripod, I did try the prefocus idea on Monday, but the results were not good. Perhaps my ISO or shutter speed were insufficient. That is where I am disconnecting. I don't understand how they work together. SO much of what is out there on youtube is geared towards techies, and, in relation to photography, a techie I am NOT. My major problem is when I try to play with settings, sometimes it will refuse to take the picture and I don't know which setting is the culprit. I remember using a 35mm out of highschool, and taking pics is so much more cost effective these days, as a hobbist you don't pay with anything but your time for mistakes, but if I don't know what the problem is I cannot correct it.

---------- Post added 10-06-16 at 06:37 PM ----------

You haven't said what focal length is suitable for photographing the kids and horses. The longer the focal length the harder it gets.

I'm wondering what that Gemini lens you have is. A 52mm prime would be quite unusual - could that be the filter size? There was a Gemini 28mm prime apparently, with a maximum aperture of f2.8 - could that be the one?

For safeties sake, I'd like to stay away as far as possible. There can be a half dozen horses working in the large arena at a time. But, I realize that doesn't work well with a zoom for the reason you stated - loss of light. My focus is my girl, but I do take pictures of everyone when it's my turn/week.

The Gemini I mistyped, it actually is 135mm. It's an odd lens and as a (not true) macro it's cool, but as a long range prime it's not helpful at all.

[Sagitta]

My suggestion is a 28mm f/2.8 over a 50mm f/2 - if you're shooting horses (and horses are big) you'll want to be a bit wider than 50mm. If you get real lucky you may spot a 28 f/2 out there selling for cheap, but its not likely. That 28 means you can feasibly get down to under 1/25 of a second if the beasties are staying still, the equivalent what the 50 f/2 would give you at the same shutter speed, but with a wider depth of field.

If you get stupidly lucky, you can maybe get a used ultra wide (ie, 10mm-20mm) for around your budget or a hair more. the trick here is lowering your shutter speed down to where night shots are passable. You can hand-hold a 10-20mm in stupidly low light thanks to the wonders of image stabilization. I haven't tried it with non-static images, but I do it all the time for night scenery shots.

[Des]

For safeties sake, I'd like to stay away as far as possible.

So I guess that means telephoto.

Use TAv mode. Shake reduction on. With your F 100-300, there will be a point when the maximum aperture jumps from around f4.5 to 5.6 (possibly about 200mm). Try to keep the zoom below that point for the wider aperture, and use it wide open. Set the shutter to the lowest necessary for an acceptable level of motion - will depend on how fast everyone is moving, but might be something like 1/250th second. Set the ISO to float in a band up to say 6400. Shoot plenty and hope for the best (spray and pray).

Something like the 55-300 might be a little better, but it's still pretty slow. Lenses that are long and fast aren't cheap.

[Just1MoreDave]

There is some light in the small pen, but the larger one, unless she is close to the barn, there isn't much. I attached small pen pics from Monday. Utilizing a tripod, I did try the prefocus idea on Monday, but the results were not good. Perhaps my ISO or shutter speed were insufficient. That is where I am disconnecting. I don't understand how they work together. SO much of what is out there on youtube is geared towards techies, and, in relation to photography, a techie I am NOT.

ISO is basically like volume control except for light. Big numbers are turning up the slight sensitivity of the sensor. Eventually you run into practical limits, the equivalent of a radio that's too loud. The scale is usually 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200 etc. with sneaky half or third steps in there depending on how your camera is set.

Shutter speed is how you capture motion so you need to know how fast your subject is moving. The faster the shutter speed, the more your subject is frozen in time. But if the shutter is not open for very long, hardly any light gets in. A photo of a posing person could be taken at 1/30, a candid kid shot at 1/125, a horse might need 1/250 (a guess). If you have shots where the horse's legs are blurry but the rest of the shot is not so blurry, that's a shutter speed that's too low. You can try to use a lower shutter speed by following a moving subject, called panning. The lens focal length matters because higher focal lengths magnify camera shake, and how fast the subject is crossing the frame.

My major problem is when I try to play with settings, sometimes it will refuse to take the picture and I don't know which setting is the culprit. I remember using a 35mm out of highschool, and taking pics is so much more cost effective these days, as a hobbist you don't pay with anything but your time for mistakes, but if I don't know what the problem is I cannot correct it.For safeties sake, I'd like to stay away as far as possible. There can be a half dozen horses working in the large arena at a time. But, I realize that doesn't work well with a zoom for the reason you stated - loss of light. My focus is my girl, but I do take pictures of everyone when it's my turn/week.

That is probably the camera telling you that it doesn't think your focus is right.

The Gemini I mistyped, it actually is 135mm. It's an odd lens and as a (not true) macro it's cool, but as a long range prime it's not helpful at all.

I was going to suggest a 135mm f2.8 because they are cheap. It often isn't really long enough, but it does open to f2.8. If you get a decent shot, you can crop it to make the subject larger. I would try using it again and figuring out the problems. It's manual focus which is not easy, but it is free.

[Shock2DC]

OK, I don't know if it's dumb luck or just fate, but I picked up an auto 50mm f/1.7 locally yesterday from someone on craigslist, for half of what I had planned on spending. I took it with me last night, and had it wide open once the stars started coming out. It was amazing. I got some shots I know I would have never got with my other lenses. I am still processing those in photoshop since they had other people's children - and I don't post people's kids without their permission. I can't wait to get out some more and REALLY figure this out. Thank you everyone and take a look at the couple of pictures I posted.

[HudsonShooter]

best options for your price range are the 50mm1.8 and Mitakon 85mm 2.0, both under 200 dollars and yes the mitakon is manual focus, but in low light you may need to do that anyhow.