This weekend my daughter was part of a massive recital by her dance studio. No question I'm going to shoot pictures. So the question is really, "what gear should I take?" I've got some of the best cameras and lenses made. Guess what I took?

Before I tell you, remember that much of what I do involves helping people understand how to get more out of the camera gear they've got. And most of my students aren't professionals with $20,000 of camera gear. Most have mid-range cameras with consumer lenses. So that's what I took this weekend. On the first night I took a Nikon D60 with 18-200mm Nikkor lens. That's a pretty entry-level combination. The second night I upgraded, choosing a Nikon D90 (mid-level camera) and the nice 70-300mm 4.5/5.6 VR lens (about $600). Neither of these kits would be considered "Pro" by anyone, and are extremely affordable. And used properly, capable of excellent photos.

So there I am sitting in the middle of the audience, pretty far from the stage. The first thing I do is take the camera off of Automatic, since the strobe would then fire and annoy everyone. Plus, there's no way its light would reach the stage anyway. Then I set it to Aperture Priority, my favorite automatic exposure mode, and make sure I've got the aperture set as wide as the lens will go (f/5.6 with both these lenses zoomed out to their maximum). The kids are performing under stage lights, but still I need a fairly high ISO. I used 1600 for the D60 and 2000 for the D90. With that lighting I started using the Incandescent white balance setting, but it was a little too neutral so I switched to Automatic instead. And since the background is darker than their skin, I'm dialing in about -1 EV as a starting point. Doing all of that I've now got shutter speeds that range from 1/20 (pretty slow!) to about 1/200. Only two things left to do - make sure the VR (Vibration Reduction) is turned on to dampen any camera shake from my end, and shoot LOTS of photos.

And that's one of the biggest keys to making sure you get a good photo. Shoot a lot - I mean a LOT - of photos. At those shutter speeds shooting dancers I'm going to have plenty of blurry photos, but I only need a few good ones. And a large card, like 4GB or 8GB, shooting JPEG, gives me plenty of room to do that. Three hours later I've got hundreds of images, and once downloaded, it's easy to quickly go through and save out only the handful of really good ones. And some of my favorites aren't even of Rachel. Hey, if I'm going to sit through three hours of dance, you can bet I'll shoot more than just the three routines she performs. Which is another good tip - be open to photos around you that you weren't planning on making. Surprise yourself.

No doubt about it, having high-end cameras and lenses can sure make photography easier. But you might be surprised what can be done with the entry-level stuff and a little knowledge, patience, and the willingness to shoot LOTS of photos.