So, when it comes to doing low light photography, you gotta get familiar with ISO. It refers to how light sensitive a camera is, it's a measure of light, not something physical. Lower ISO rating means less light sensitive, higher ISO means more light sensitive. Less light sensitivity will mean longer exposure times, higher ISO will mean shorter exposure times.
Film is rated for different ISOs, and film cameras can be loaded with any ISO of film you want. The most common ISOs are 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, and 6400, everywhere in between, and higher and lower. Digital cameras don't have film, but they still use ISO, it's just set via the cameras settings. With film, higher ISO films have less film grain, which allows them to be used for shorter exposure times. The caveat to this is that since high ISO film has less film grain (but will let you make a quicker exposure), the image is less fine. Here's a shot I took using 6400 ISO film;
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loginAs you can see, the film grain is very prominent. However, this was shot on a stage that was really poorly lit, so I needed the really high ISO film to get an exposure below 1/30th of a second.
Here's a shot I took using a flash, and 100 ISO film;
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loginThat's me and an acquaintance. She's much smaller than me. Anyway, you'll notice there's hardly any film grain, but this was taken at the same place, so I had to use a flash to get a proper exposure.
Now, you might be asking, how the heck does this relate to digital film? Digital ISO works in sort of the same way, only you get 'digital noise', and not large grains of film.
Here's a full size shot of my camera at 1600 ISO. There was no post processing done to this, at all. I took the raw and converted it to jpeg, that's it. You'll notice there's a lot of digital noise in the image, but it's very easy to overcome in post production.
Not all cameras ISOs are created equal, however. My camera is getting old, the newest cameras can shoot at 6400 ISO and get the same amount of noise my camera gets at 1600 ISO.
You said you want '30x optical zoom', if you're buying an SLR, stop thinking 'zoom', and start thinking in terms of focal length. Focal length refers to 'zoom' a lens will provide. This was shot with an 80mm lens about four feet away;
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loginAnd this was shot with an 18mm lens about the same distance away;
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loginNotice how much more of the stage is in view on the second shot? That's what focal length does. The higher the focal length number, the more 'zoomed in' the lens will be. With that out of the way, gear suggestions!
Consider buying used. My primary digital camera is a Rebel XTi,
it goes for about $150 these days. I do a lot of low light photography with it, and the digital noise is very easy to overcome.
If you're looking for a lens that will do macro shots, the
Canon 18-55 EFS will do ya well. I've used it to shoot bands, and some ponies, but I don't use it a lot.
You can get a
decent high focal length lens for about $100, too.
I own all of the gear listed. If you want to see some shots with it, let me know and I'll get you the links.
The XTi is a 1.6x crop, which means for standard EF mount (which is Canon's current lens system) lenses, you'll get focal length times 1.6. What this means is if, you put a 50mm lens on the body, it will behave like an 80mm lens. They have a special type of lenses, called 'EF-S', if your camera supports EF-S lenses, there won't be the 1.6 'crop', they'll behave just like the focal length listed on the camera. The camera I linked you does support EF-S lenses.
If you have any more questions, let me know.
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