Circus Flora is a one ring circus that has been entertaining St. Louisans for about 30 years. A circus can offer a lot of interesting photo opportunities but there are issues:
- You may not be able to get close to the action
- There are a lot of live animals and people performing dangerous acts on high wires and other devices: no flash allowed, not even the focus assist light
- You may not be close enough to use a flash even if you were allowed to use the flash
- It is pretty dark in there
- There is a lot of movement
On thing you have going for you is that a circus is a show and there are spotlights and other forms of nice lighting. Here is what I used on this photo: I turned the (light) metering to spot to take advantage of the circus’ special lighting effects; turned my ISO up to 2000; opened my aperture as much as possible (in this case f5) and used a telephoto lens. As always I shoot in RAW to allow more light for post processing.
Great Rivers Imaging 