[magmotif]

It seems that every time I attempt to photograph an indoor event with low lighting, I end up with disaster photos. Yesterday I attended a graduation ceremony that was held in a large church auditorium. I was seated approximately 150 feet from the stage. Using my K-5 with the DA70/2.4, I experimented with exposures and it seemed best to use ISO5000 (yuck), f3.5 at 1/125sec. I did my best to hold the camera steady, but the photos still look terrible (combination noise and motion blur - I think). In the past I've had the same (or worse) results using other lenses (kit lens, DA18-135).

I've attached 2 photos... one shows the overall venue, and the other is a sample of the mess I made (original RAW post-processed and cropped in LR). I'm looking for any advice to achieve success in the future. At the moment I'm wondering if I need to purchase new gear (maybe another brand?), work to improve technique, or just give up.

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[BigMackCam]

It's frustrating, I know, but don't give up. I'm sure we can get to the bottom of the problem

Are you using a single focus point and AF.S? If not, you should be - for these situations, at least. And have you carried out AF fine adjustment for your lenses with the K-5? Is SR switched on?

In the second shot, the area in focus appears to be some way in front of the subject (look at the text on that hat, towards the bottom of the frame).

It's worth noting that the K-5 isn't the best at focusing in low and certain types of man-made lighting. Having said that, I've had very few problems with mine.

Lastly, are you shooting RAW or JPEG? If JPEG, note that the camera's processing engine is likely to rob a lot of detail from the shot due to noise reduction. At something like ISO 5000, you want to be shooting RAW and processing the image yourself in something like Lightroom, RawTherapee or similar.

[Bob 256]

Actually, your photos don't look all that bad. The color of the second needs to be adjusted since you're having a problem with what exists at many venues to the photographer's detriment - mixed lighting. Those blue backlights reek havoc and tend to wash into areas you don't want the blue coloration. A mixture of light sources is hard to accommodate in any case.

I've shot church photos where the sun shines through a large stained glass window (deep blue) and it causes real problems. It scatters in the lens and creeps into darker areas of everything that has lower lighting.

Another problems is the dynamic range in photos like yours. You have strong stage lighting and then a lot of the scene is low lighted or back lighted and hasn't received light needed for good shooting. The best you can do is what you did - shoot at a high ISO - and let the highlights wash out so the darker portions of interest are preserved. I would apply some color adjustment to your cropped shot (some reduced blue in the shadows will help), and see how much curve adjustment can help without introducing too much noise.

Sometimes, it's just difficult to get those shots without more expensive, faster lenses, and even then it can be hard with bright blue lights shining in your face.

[C_Jones]

The ISO you are using is way too high. That alone will give you noisy images. I would recommend 1000 or lower. The f stop you are using should be enough to provide a depth of field appropriate for your subjects to have detail. If you have multiple levels of distance to cover, than a deeper depth of field is needed, such as F13 for a group of people and F3 -F8 for an individual. Your shutter speed could be alright for slowly moving people at 125, but you are going to have quicker moving subjects you will need a faster shutter speed. If you do not have a well enough lit area for the settings you have to use it is not your equipment that is at fault, it is the lack of appropriate light. If you could resort to getting closer to your subjects and/or resorting to a flash or other lighting it would most likely aid you in getting the images you want. I would recommend you resort to flash and positioning yourself for the shots you need.

If you are not already, I would also recommend using AF.C.

[TER-OR]

With VR you can go slower on the shutter, but you'll have to be careful with subject blur.

This is advanced territory - which means practice. I have used my 28mm f1.8 Sigma in low-light situations, but the subjects are generally closer and static. In those situations I'm shooting around 1/60, back with the K5. I think the K5 sensor is pretty good for this work, but you will lose contrast. Remember that. Images will be soft because there's very little contrast. Our brains are great at filling in details, sensors aren't.

[stevebrot]

Stage lighting can be tricky. My church occasionally asks me to cover events and I have settled on essentially full manual technique based on light and white balance readings (both with gray-card) taken before the event starts. The light will not be changing, so why allow the camera to screw things up? FWIW, high ISO is usually not required in that everything on the stage is under quite bright illumination.


Steve

[twilhelm]

The K5 is a good camera for low light work. Unfortunately, as many of us have experienced, you are dealing with mixed light which is horrible to work with. At a ceremony like this, your subjects aren't moving real fast, so you could be ok with shutter speeds down to possibly 1/60. I always stuck with AF-S in these situations and pre-focused to an area near where I expected to take the shot.

In the first photo, it seems the focus isn't on the subject, but the graduation hats in front instead. Other than that, work with the color temperature some to get closer to what you saw when you were there. When I was shooting events; graduation ceremonies, weddings and etc. I would use a gray card for my first shot. That would give me something to work with afterwards in post.

Don't give up just yet.

[biz-engineer]

The solution would be to buy a Pentax K-1 II .

[LensBeginner]

Wasn't there a bug in the K-5 focusing under certain artificial lighting?
I'd go MF in those circumstances: the stage won't move after you've found where the focus falls. Magnified LV perhaps.

Developing looks ok, pics look ok.
Maybe lower ISOs and underexpose, since you need some more DR, and AFAIK the K-5 is quite ISO-invariant.
And I think you could have risked a little bit more with shutter speed (1/60s?). Some very minor motion blur in the subjects could be tolerated (if the rest of the scene is perfectly blur-free), plus you could always have shot small bursts and picked the frames where the subject move less. 1/60s is definitely hand-holdable with a 70mm FL and SR on.

[Kozlok]

Go to some events you don’t care about and just practice different techniques. Keep a notebook to jot done what you did with each shot. Find out what is working and then you’ll be ready for a real event.

Learn proper technique for slow shutter speeds. Heie wrote an article here covering those techniques. Breath control, calm shutter press, follow through. It’s made a huge improvement in my slower shutter work, especially with long lenses. Practice until you can reliably shoot the 70mm at 1/30 second, then in a real event 1/60 or so is a breeze

[pres589]

I "never" go past ISO 1600 on my K-5 II. If I really felt like I was dealing with low amounts of like, 3200 would be absolutely it. Manual focus, longer exposure times, maybe more more stop down from where you were, lock the color balance, etc. Lot of good ideas mentioned.

[TER-OR]

Your right about the focus point, use center only. You're pretty much a sniper here, not a landscape artist.

[ChristianRock]

I think it's the aforementioned AF issue in artificial light that the K-5 has. The K-r has it too and this was one of two reasons why I upgraded to the K-S1 (the other being the viewfinder). So not only are the images noisy due to high ISO, you're also missing focus, especially in the 2nd shot.

ISO 5000 is just not great on the K-5 (or any Pentax prior to the Accelerator unit found in the K-P and K70). With the K-S1 I find that I can get decent results taking pictures in RAW at ISO 3200 and cleaning up with noise reduction later in post (RawTherapee did a great job at this). With the JPEG engine from Pentax, I find ISO 1600 is the max that I can live with.

I think a K-70 or K-P would do significantly better in this situation, but the K-5 can do find if focused manually, shot in RAW and processed with a good software for NR.

[DougieD]

A monopod, if permitted, could be handy in situations like this.

[Ron Boggs]

Shooting from the bleachers...darn, without permission to shoot from a decent vantage point--big strike against you.
Shooting from long range with no long range telephoto--another big strike against you (see that dot in the upper left...that's my son).
Trying to crop out more than half the frame on high ISO indoor shooting--three strikes, you're out!

Might as well shoot a couple "whole room" shots with your phone and leave the DSLR home...no matter which brand. And I'm not being mean or cynical...

If this was a one-time shoot, and a type of shooting circumstance you don't aspire to master, I'd forget trying more of this type of image. Move on with your life and have fun with your camera! While I was having dozens of images published annually, I still paid for the "package photos" available at graduation type events. Those photogs are set up in the right places with appropriate lenses and lighting/color balance for the distances involved and you'll seldom "grab shot" your way to anything close to what they are selling. Buy the images!

If you intend to do graduation/school program type shoots as part of your regular routine, then follow all the suggestions others gave and start the learning curve. Figure by year 2 you'll be getting print-worthy images. By year 3-5 you may get a publication quality image or two. There is no more difficult type of photography than mixed lighting, indoor, no freedom to change perspective, live-action, grab shot, one prime lens from a distance, no light management (flash), photography. Anybody who pulls that off is doing very impressive work!

It can be done, but not without lots of effort. I take the lazy way out and shoot the types of circumstances I enjoy shooting and do passable work shooting. Event photog I am not! Are you sure "event photog" is something you aspire to? If so, get crackin'!