Okay, I am a big-time noob. I took my only camera, a 2006 Canon PowerShot, to an experimental rave set. I put the camera on auto-night (not knowing how to adjust the manual settings, of course), and hoped for the best.
Well, now I have half a dozen DJs with an exposure of 1 second and blurry-as-fuck. Since then, I have been messing around in a dimly-lit room, and now know to turn up the ISO and turn down the f/ratio to keep the exposure time low. A first lesson 🙂. Let me know if I have the right idea.
Balancing f-stop and iso trades blurriness from motionblur vs grainyness and depth of field (in that a low f-stop produces a very slim focal plane). Both can be a pleasing looks at times. If you have the option to try rear-curtain-flash you could even have motionblur and a sharp rendition of your subject within the same exposure.
Thanks! I’ll keep an eye out for those next time.