That’s great info! How far back from the stage does the 70-200 lens allow you to be?

I do almost all of the ballet performances with the 70-200 locked at f/2.8. I shoot manual, and try to keep the shutter speed between 1/160 and 1/320, and I use auto-iso to try to keep the exposure meter happy. I flip back and forth between matrix and spot metering depending on the lighting setup.

Good luck. Shooting ballet is like shooting sports in the dark!

Great article. Thanks for publishing your experiences. I was curious if you would mind sharing your lens and shutter/aperture settings you used for the ballet recitals. Those shots are just brilliant. I have a ballet recital this weekend and could use the input.

Thanks!

Sean

I’ve been a fan of the Nikon D80 SLR Camera for a while now; chiefly because I’ve traipsing around African Safaris for a while and the camera’s weight, speed and ISO played a huge role in my selection.

The D3′s noise would’ve been a game killer (literally) for me.

Another reason was the fact that, unlike the heavier D70, here was a lightweight with enough collateral to hemorrhage the competition, aka the Canon EOS series.

Looking at your album of pics, I can see why you settled for the D3, which is renowned for its ability to capture images in almost complete darkness…

I ended up trying this out for a shoot – it actually works pretty well. I’m definitely developing some new muscles. Thanks for prodding me into actually trying this.

Based on what you were talking about in your post, this would be pretty close to the behavior you’d be looking for…no?

Yes, I’ve thought about that, but I’d want a way to switch back quickly. I wish they’d make that Fn mapping cycle through the metering modes. That would be awesome.

Of course, with old lenses you have to use stop-down metering and the manual aperture ring, and that obviously isn’t going to change when moving between aperture priority and manual modes. Similarly, Nikon’s first autofocus cameras, like my F4 (1988-1996), continued to use the aperture ring even on AF lenses, though no Nikon digital SLR ever has, and my D50 and your D3 certainly don’t.

So, I think Nikon decided to be consistent with the behaviour of earlier Nikon cameras, and with older Nikon lenses mounted to new cameras, and keep the same set aperture whatever mode you’re in. I’ve used Nikons since the early ’80s, so it never occurred to me that it could be another way.

But now that you’ve noted it, yes, it would be useful to be able to have different set apertures in A and M modes.

Thanks for the response.

Thanks for posting the review. I’m looking to upgrade to a full frame sometime next year and have a question for you.

Have you noticed any problems when using the D3 with the 70-200? I love my 70-200, but have read about sharpness problems on the full frame bodies.

Thanks,

Sean