Sega Dance photography

[anda]

Hello
we'll be attending soon a sega dance performance (in low light and with a brighter background) and I'd like to have the dancer's face sharp in focus, while her dress will be blurred in a rotating movement, something like here, http://www.flickr.com/photos/petrmara/2143685458/. My idea of doing that is to use shutter priority (I think 1/30 would give me a good dress blur), ISO 600 and whatever aperture camera suggests, focusing (auto) on her face. Would this be the right approach? Because of the brighter background, shall I meter off of her face as I don't want her face underexposed? Shall I use continuous mode? Also to composition, shall I compose tighter than in the example image?
many thanks.
Anda

[Nomadr]

so many questions, firstly 1/30th is borderline for camera shake so you might want to shoot at 1/60th which will still give you movement blur, you are always best to leave some room for cropping later and a shot can be ruined by a stray hand leaving the frame when composing tightly,
if you are using centre focus point and will always be following the dancer with that point then yes use continious focus mode (its one less thing to worry about,)
unsure if its advisable to shoot in shutter priority , the camera will always try for a correct scene exposure and even if you use spot meter you may hit a black spot , i suppose you could try centre weighted but its all hit and miss, personally i would shoot in manual, if i want blur i would set my shutter to 1/60th and get a meter reading from the bright BG then i would open up a stop or two or lift the iso.
you may find the dancers have some sort of stage lighting ? a couple of tips, if the dancer is stationary for a moment as the dress swirls then that is the time to take the picture for best result, once you have a few good pics then experiment with longer shutter speeds, i took this at 1/15th ,face is blurred but its quite nice.cheers martyn

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Anda,

Welcome to the CiC forums from me, great to have you join us.

Martyn is probably the most experienced dance shooter here, so I really have nothing to add to his excellent advice.

Do be sure to come back and show us the results (good or bad), you (and we) often learn more from the shots that don't quite work than the successes, so all images are worthy here.

All the best,

[ilovelucydog]

Great information, Martyn. I am looking forward to seeing your results! Have fun.