Canon 5D MkIII difficult assignment. REALLY low light show coverage issues.

[Bennymiata]

Those shots look pretty good to me.

You should try a 24-104 though.
The IS is pretty useful in low light.

I do a fair bit of event photography, mostly in very dim lighting, and I find the IS really helps.

[tomscott]

You could do with working more on perspective. Looks like your shooting down on most things and its not very flattering. But not bad given the situation. Events are always hard because its busy and bustling.

[Viggo]

Bring a longer lens like 50 or 85 to avoid distortion, perspective as mentioned above here.

And just bring a tripod, because with static subjects you can do what ever you want when on a tripod instead of ending up with motion blurred images. And the light itself is interesting enough, if you bring a flash, bring GELS also.

[hhelmbold]

Personally, I'd just suck it up and bring a tripod. Your arms will hurt, but it will alleviate all your headaches ...

The tripod way was my initial thought too, but I can see from the shots that it would only solve half of the issues. You would never get the angles you need for some of these shots with a tripod, especially getting in close. You would need 2 assistants to carry all the extra clamps and different tripods for the different shots 

The monopod idea would have saved a couple more shots I think, but I would have personally rather pushed the ISO to the extreme and have a grainy image than a blurred image. Grain can still be handled to a certain level - blurr can't. I still remember the days where I was adament I will get my shots at the lowest ISO possible.... then one day experience kicked some sense into me 

[TW]

Well, I'm not sure there is any photographic technique that could present that stuff in a good light. With one or two exceptions, that is the ugliest bunch of stereo equipment I've seen in my life. And I've been an audiophile for nearly 40 years now. "Cash does not equal class."

[Dylan777]

This is when 24-70 f2.8 mrkII with "IS" can be very usefull

[LewisShermer]

First of all try working on your verticals and getting your horizons straight. Then try and at least get an accurate WB. A 7D would handle this at 1600ISO without any noise what so ever so if you've shelled out on a 5D mk 3 then have a read about the specs and what lighting conditions it can handle. Also, why would you need 2 assistants to carry a tripod and a couple of clips?

[awinphoto]

All else fails, pick up a metz 76mz handle mount flash...  GN is 76m at 100...  Compared to the 58 for the 580 or even 60 for the 600 Canons, it is just more powerful. 

That's some powerful flash.  Looks like it's going to run >$1100 with the Canon adapter and needed accessories though.  It might be cheaper, although more painful, to drag along one of my Alien Bees next time..

It is a beast of a flash... Prices have gone up (surprise surprise) since I last bought on many moons ago.  For that price you can pick up a decent strobe kit (alien bee's or white lightings or a cheap profoto) but then you have to worry about stands, awkward transport from display to display...  There are trade-offs either way.  The metz semi attaches to your camera via bracket and it's a portable easy set up with ettl, strobo/multi flash, modeling lamp, etc... all the functionality we love from our canon flashes but the power of a small strobe.  I shot with those back in the film days but when I switched to the 10d, that model couldn't support digital cameras, I moved to a cheaper metz shoemount flash, and then when i got the 7d, moved to canon flashes for the wireless flash triggering...  I miss the raw power of this flash but admittedly it's gone up in price and I'd rather grab even more power with white lightnings for half the cost...  But then there are the trade off's mentioned before. 

[CanonCollector]

Why not post a link to your flickr page, or limit your post to 4 images?  It is really annoying to have my computer hang while it is downloaing dozens of images.  Not everyone has gigabit internet.
 
By the time my computer came back to life, I was too disgusted to enjoy the ton of images.

...and you spend all that time on the internet commenting? This was not helpful.

[RLPhoto]

Tripod

[awinphoto]

Tripod

assuming the venue allows tripods... many conventions and shows will not allow tripods if theres any chance it could impede on consumer walkways.  If they do allow it, bring it, if not, IS and stronger flash. 

[RLPhoto]

Tripod

assuming the venue allows tripods... many conventions and shows will not allow tripods if theres any chance it could impede on consumer walkways.  If they do allow it, bring it, if not, IS and stronger flash.

Joby Gorilla Pod Then. Mount it to a lamp somewhere but make the camera still.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Why not post a link to your flickr page, or limit your post to 4 images?  It is really annoying to have my computer hang while it is downloaing dozens of images.  Not everyone has gigabit internet.
 
By the time my computer came back to life, I was too disgusted to enjoy the ton of images.

Be nicer! I'm sure it took a long time for the poster to post all those images, and it's not your computer that's hanging, just the time it takes for the photos to download. The CPU load is almost nothing for viewing images on a website, at least with any computer more recent than 1995 or so. (I remember a 1980s computer that was still being used, and it took about two seconds of processing time just for the cursor to hover over a "rollover" image and show the "highlighted" version.)

Believe me, your computer has no ill effects as a result. I know you know this, but I just wanted to remark that our inconvenience (I have slow internet at the moment as well) is more than made up for by the huge amount of time that the poster had to invest in producing such a huge post.

The point is that 4 images are enough in a post.  Thats why CR limits attachments to 4 images.
 
By posting a link to a website where many images can be viewed, its just plain easier on viewers with slow internet, and the poster does have something to share, so we'd all like to see at least a few of the images. 
 
A alternative would be to post small images that can be clicked to download a larger version.

[keithfullermusic]

A couple of things:

First, please chill with the photos.  I thought you were just trying to show us some examples, not your entire portfolio of the event.

Second, the answer to your question is obvious.  If its dark you can either do one or more of the above: use tripod, higher flash, more flashes, higher ISO, smaller DOF, lens with really good IS.  The only "trick" that I can think of is to simply underexposed your shots by nearly a stop to gain shutter speed, then bump it up in post.  I do that a lot and my 50D handles it just fine.   I'm not sure what you expect if you want a wide DOF, no tripod, and low ISO - especially in REALLY low light.

[distant.star]

.
No reflection on the images, they seem mostly fine. But to me, that's one ugly bunch of stuff.

I'm no fan of Steve Jobs, but it would be nice if all product designers had his gift.