Nikon D3100

My point-and-shoot camera became unusable a couple of weeks ago. Don't know exactly what is wrong but the pictures are very overexposed, 80% white always.

So I needed a new camera and this time I bought a DSLR, the Nikon D3100 18-55mm Kit. Everything was good until, one day later, I used the DSLR to shoot my kid and his friends while singing, dancing and reciting on a stage.

I tried all the possible combinations: auto modes, aperture priority, shutter speed priority, manual. Sadly almost all pictures were failures: wrong focus, blurry/gostly subjects, noise, everything you can think of. Anticipating issues with the poor light I shot RAW + JPEG so I managed to fix some photos later.

Here are some lesson I learned last night:

1. Shoot RAW. Always.
2. Use a good lens. While the kit lenses are OK, there are far better (and expensive) choices.
3. Buy a good flash. First priority for me if I ever want to shoot indoors again.
4. Auto mode focuses on the subject that is closest to the camera. You cannot make it focus on other subjects. Why I didn't knew that? Set focus to single autofocus (non-moving subjects) or continuous autofocus (moving subjects). Never let focus on auto mode.
5. Low light means high ISO. 1600 or 3200 minimum. Low light also means slow shutter speeds. Try to use a tripod when there's no light (whishful thinking, yes).
6. If no tripod in low light use shutter speed priority. Set a safe shutter speed: 1/(focal lenght * sensor crop factor) e.g. 1/150 for 100mm and 1.5 crop factor for Nikon. And with the shutter speed fixed try to find an aperture and ISO.

While the situation can be considered an extreme one because of the hard conditions - low light and moving subjects - I'm still not very sure I've made the right choice buying the DLSR.

I have to learn. "Master Your DSLR Camera", an iPad app, looks interesting.