Reducing motion blur in low light with no flash

I'm trying to photograph people walking by a statue at night using natural light.  I have tried pushing my ISO up to 1250 and my aperture is set to f/5.6.  I'm still getting hands and legs blurred out.  I read about panning, so I tried that too.  Moving the camera at same speed of person walking, but this has only made the bodies sharper.  Legs and hands are still soft.  

I don't want to use a flash because I like the light at this spot.  What would you do here?  

You need to spend some time with the exposure triangle. Then some time with movement in general.

In the meantime, if you want to freeze motion of people walking, you'll need 1/250s, minimum, I think. You also want fast glass to let in light. Your combination of ISO 1250 and f/5.6 means you need a lot of light. Do you require depth of field? If so, then your ISO value may need to be in the 6400 range. Or more. If you don't require lots of focus, open up your aperture (you may need a faster lens than you have).

Something's gotta give. No way around that.

Suggest you explore the idea of motion blur of the people. I.e. really let them be blurry. 1/30s or even slower. Experiment/play.

Hello and thank you.  I was using a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens.  I kept with the ISO at 1250 because I was reading the higher the ISO you get more grain noise in the image.

I need to practice more, but was hoping to get some clues on how this could be made possible.  Yeah, I'm a newb! 

Depth of field if I understand this correctly is the area that is sharp to blurred out.  I think I have my arms around that.  If I go smaller than f/5.6, my shutter speed can increase, but I will have more of that blur that I'm trying to get away from.  

OK, this might be a lost cause.  I'm just playing around, I'll keep experimenting.  Maybe it's time for me to get a flash.  

BTW thank you for the help!  

-Malcolm

Malcolm Unger wrote: Hello and thank you.  I was using a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens.  I kept with the ISO at 1250 because I was reading the higher the ISO you get more grain noise in the image.

I need to practice more, but was hoping to get some clues on how this could be made possible.  Yeah, I'm a newb! 

Depth of field if I understand this correctly is the area that is sharp to blurred out.  I think I have my arms around that.  If I go smaller than f/5.6, my shutter speed can increase, but I will have more of that blur that I'm trying to get away from.  

OK, this might be a lost cause.  I'm just playing around, I'll keep experimenting.  Maybe it's time for me to get a flash.  

BTW thank you for the help!  

-Malcolm

In low light, sometimes ISO is necessary. Yes, when you can be picky and set up the shot, then you want to make sure ISO is as low as possible. Sometimes lighting doesn't cooperate and we need to adapt and overcome. One way is simply dealing with extra noise in order to make a successful capture (proper exposure, sharp...). Although it won't be amazing IQ, a lot of times we can still appreciate a good capture when we see one.

I agree with Gary on pretty much all of these points. Opening up your aperture will let in more light. In a lot of cases, you need to shoot "wide open", using the biggest aperture you can (lowest number gives you widest aperture). Learning the exposure triangle is vital. Photographytalk has some good articles and posts on the subect. Some are stickied in the forums, while others you will have to do a quick search for. 

I'm just watching some video's on YouTube right now.  I think I'm going to pick up a flash and maybe this will work.  I'm 5 months new at photography so doing a lot of learning and experimenting to see what happens.  

Photography is all about compromises.

In low light, if you want to keep the very crepuscular
mood, the balancing act is between movement and
the said mood — a delicate play with aperture, shutter
speed and ISO.

Since you have the D810, shoot at f-2.8, a shutter speed of 1/125th to 1/250th and set the ISO to "Auto". Low light shooting is always a compromise. The best compromise with modern digital cameras is ISO. Better to have a sharp, noisy photo than a blurry noise free image. Don't be afraid of a little noise but I suspect you are being overly cautious with the ISO. I would avoid flash if it's a street photography situation. The less conspicuous the better.

Nikon Shooter wrote: Photography is all about compromises.

In low light, if you want to keep the very crepuscular
mood, the balancing act is between movement and
the said mood — a delicate play with aperture, shutter
speed and ISO.

Thank you, I will keep that in mind.  

Shadowfixer1 wrote: Since you have the D810, shoot at f-2.8, a shutter speed of 1/125th to 1/250th and set the ISO to "Auto". Low light shooting is always a compromise. The best compromise with modern digital cameras is ISO. Better to have a sharp, noisy photo than a blurry noise free image. Don't be afraid of a little noise but I suspect you are being overly cautious with the ISO. I would avoid flash if it's a street photography situation. The less conspicuous the better.

I understand now.  You all have given me such good advise!  Thank you again.