Anyone shot/shoot stage productions?

chris321

chris321

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In my effort to expand my photography into more varied subjects, I just joined the University newspaper photography team. :)

I was assuming I'd be given a trial run, do a bit with one of the regulars etc etc, but I was wrong :gag:. My first assignment is to get shots of a student production. I know the location, there's a chance I'll know the tech team too (so I can find out what the lighting is like), and hopefully I'll be there on the dress rehearsal, so I shouldn't have much of an audience to worry about.

I have some reasonably fast glass (f/2.8, although a faster prime would put me at ease a bit more!), a 50D which will at least be better than my 450D at high ISOs, but that is where the good stuff ends!

It's not expected to be of an incredible quality, so there's not the pressure on me to do the job of a seasoned professional, but I don't want to make a bad first impression! So any hints, tips, advice would be great! :help:

Thanks sooo much,

Chris
 
A mixture of aperture priority for the moody stuff and shutter priority for any fast moving shots is what I normally use @ 800iso. Depends on lighting etc.
 
My thoughts were aperture priority, probably start at f/2.8 and see what the shutter speed and ISO are looking like, then if I need greater DOF stop down a little.

What do I do about metering though? It's not something I've ever really used much, 'evaluative' has suited me till now.... Would spot metering be better if there are going to be harsh changes in the lighting?
 
I would've thought that in some ways it's fairly similar to gig work, so spot metering, 2.8, crank the iso if need be, and be quiet when shooting it...pro stage shooters use a big box 'blimp' to put the cameras inside to soundproof it.

and well done for getting involved with your student mag / newspaper, it's a great way to get involved, shooting more etc.
 
itsdavedotnet said:
I would've thought that in some ways it's fairly similar to gig work, so spot metering, 2.8, crank the iso if need be, and be quiet when shooting it...pro stage shooters use a big box 'blimp' to put the cameras inside to soundproof it.

and well done for getting involved with your student mag / newspaper, it's a great way to get involved, shooting more etc.
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what he said, but manual if the lighting is even over the stage
 
Chris - check out 'Spooky' on TP - he does a lot of stage and theatre work. I am sure he will be more than happy to give a few pointers.
 
I do loads of theatre production shots for professional and amateur companies. Light is not the problem it used to be with good quality high ISO available. Don't know your camera but on the D3 I use shutter speed = to lens focal length @ f/2.8 or maybe f/4 and use auto ISO. Spot metering works best. It helps a LOT if you know the show and are not seeing it for the first time. You must keep out of everyone's way - be as unobtrusive as possible and takes loads of shots. I can show you dozens of examples if you think that would help.
 
Within a dozen shots you'll have worked round the lighting, mood and yer camera settings. Some will be awesome and some will be duds.
Same as it ever was :)
 
itsdavedotnet said:
I would've thought that in some ways it's fairly similar to gig work, so spot metering, 2.8, crank the iso if need be, and be quiet when shooting it...pro stage shooters use a big box 'blimp' to put the cameras inside to soundproof it.

and well done for getting involved with your student mag / newspaper, it's a great way to get involved, shooting more etc.
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That's sort of what I thought, noisy shots are better than blurry ones.... Might have to learn about noise removal at some point soon! Noise shouldn't be too much of an issue hopefully!


andrewc said:
high iso, wide aperture, slow shutter speed, no flash. Work during final dress rehearsal.
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Fingers crossed it'll be the dress rehearsal, I'd really prefer not to have the pressure of an entire audience. If I get there early/stay late, some of the cast may even be happy to stay on and pose and then I could potentially use flash, but we'll have to see.


david1701 said:
what he said, but manual if the lighting is even over the stage
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Good point. Hopefully the regular guy is doing the lighting and he's a friend so I'll ask what it's going to be like in advance.


smoothedit said:
Chris - check out 'Spooky' on TP - he does a lot of stage and theatre work. I am sure he will be more than happy to give a few pointers.
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Cheers, I'll look him up!


awp said:
I do loads of theatre production shots for professional and amateur companies. Light is not the problem it used to be with good quality high ISO available. Don't know your camera but on the D3 I use shutter speed = to lens focal length @ f/2.8 or maybe f/4 and use auto ISO. Spot metering works best. It helps a LOT if you know the show and are not seeing it for the first time. You must keep out of everyone's way - be as unobtrusive as possible and takes loads of shots. I can show you dozens of examples if you think that would help.
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Hmm, well it's a 50D, so it's pretty far behind the D3 in the ISO stakes, it's pretty usable up to ISO 3200, but it starts to get messy past that. Never seen the show before, but hopefully there will be minimal people at the dress rehearsal so I should be able to not worry about getting in people's way. Any examples would be hugely helpful!


mercedes said:
Within a dozen shots you'll have worked round the lighting, mood and yer camera settings. Some will be awesome and some will be duds.
Same as it ever was :)
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Fingers crossed that's the case! I've got a fair bit of memory, so I'll keep shooting till the cards are full and the battery is dead, and there should be a few keepers!

Thanks so much everyone :thumbs:

Chris
 
If you're shooting actually on stage, it should be pretty bright with the stage lights, so shortage of light isn't generally a problem there. Practise bracing the camera. If backstage things may be rather dimmer. Part of the trick is to catch the peak of the action - also panning is a useful technique to practise.

I have a feature in this past month's (February) Practical Photography about low light backstage photography where all is revealed... :bonk:
 
Shutter priority for me. 125th will freeze most actors unless it's a fight or dance.

70-200 and 24-70 (both 2.8) of course are the best lenses for this type of work.

I use the D700 and would love to know whether other people use Auto ISO. One production I did using this gave me a lot of shots with blown highlights so vowed never to do that again. But another show was fine.

:thinking:
 
70-200 and 24-70 (both 2.8) of course are the best lenses for this type of work
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Not sure about the 'of course'. I would much rather recommend a couple of fast prime lenses rather than a slow and heavy zoom.

Regarding auto ISO, again, I wouldn't - because your threshold shutter speed and acceptable ISO will be radically changing depending on the nature of the picture. I think retaining control of these is important.
 
Crofts said:
Regarding auto ISO, again, I wouldn't - because your threshold shutter speed and acceptable ISO will be radically changing depending on the nature of the picture. I think retaining control of these is important.
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You can do both - set your shutter/aperture on manual to what you need and let the auto ISO give you the correct exposure. You still retain control of blur and DoF that way.
 
You can do both... You still retain control of blur and DoF that way
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I meant retain control of shutter speed and the noisiness of the image rather than shutter speed and DoF. But of course, it's good to keep control of DoF too!
 
I have always found anything but Manual mode to be useless shooting plays because of the lighting throwing everything off.. bright lights here and shadows there. I suppose it depends on the setup.. a small town production in a church hall or a big play in a dedicated theatre... quality of lighting will be a massive difference...
 
It very much depends on the venue and the lighting rig (and the lighting design).

One group I shoot for acts 'in the round' Audience are no more than 2 feet from the acting area and there is no set. Lights are mounted up high and there is little reflected light. I have to shoot 4 productions at once as acting happens to all 4 sides of the acting area.

Other groups use a conventional box set with pointing at the stage. Plenty of reflected light. This type of production generally is easier to cover as there is more light to play with and you can either raise shutter speed or reduce ISO.
 
I used to take photographs for a local pub in my town who did Charity shows. They used to practice at Bo Jangles in Guildford with very dark moody lighting. I had to shoot B&W tmax 3200 as the light was really poor used to have maximum shutter of a 30th or 60th if i remember. Occasionally I'd do some flash to fill in shots and also some flash blur.

Anyway the main production was at the London Palladium. Me and a friend took a great deal of photographs and at the time it was pre digital so for the first show I used Konica 3200 but that was so grainy. eventually we moved to Kodak ektapress 1600 which was awesome film.

For the dress rehersal I used two Elincrom heads in the Dress/royal circle attached to radio controlled triggers. This was for fill flash to lift the shadows and also provide a real clean light for shots of groups etc where no moody lighting was present. I balanced the light with the stage and again down to low shutter speeds so had to use a tripod.

At times I used flash and others when the spot lights were on with just ambient or a mixutre of both. I always had to use fast lenses and sometimes had no choice but to use maximum aperture. The one lens i used a lot was a Nikon 80-200f2.8 AF D

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3212005&l=9011ffd035&id=707427116 The link is for a group on facebook if you want to see some of the images. As I said they're all pre digital so it was a real steep learning curve. I have all the negs still and need to get a decent scanner to upload more.
 
You guys are great, I don't have time at the minute to say thanks individually, but I'd just like you to know it's really appreciated :thumbs:

Chris
 
Crofts said:
Not sure about the 'of course'. I would much rather recommend a couple of fast prime lenses rather than a slow and heavy zoom.
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You're right, nothing 'of course' about it. I did think that when I wrote it!

Imo they are better than primes because the subject (actors etc) are always on the move. It's not the taking pictures that's difficult it's the gambling of where to go in the auditorium to be in the right place (and scrambling over seats is going to be offputting to the actors and director as well as tiring on 40+year old knees).

If I had primes I'm pretty sure I'd feel I was in the wrong place more of the time and I don't feel that I'm losing anything by the zooms being slow.
 
andrewc said:
It very much depends on the venue and the lighting rig (and the lighting design).

One group I shoot for acts 'in the round' Audience are no more than 2 feet from the acting area and there is no set. Lights are mounted up high and there is little reflected light. I have to shoot 4 productions at once as acting happens to all 4 sides of the acting area.
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'In the round' productions are so hard.

First of all quite often the lighting designer doesn't have enough lights to light all 4 sides sufficiently. So you end up a lot of the time having reflected lights on the actor which just doesn't look great.

Secondly - the actors never stop bloody moving! Sometimes it feels as if you're chasing them around the stage.

Proscenium arch is much easier.
 
it's the gambling of where to go in the auditorium to be in the right place
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I never noticed it as a problem, but I'm mainly photographing ballet and the fast movement around the stage probably makes the speed of the primes more critical compared to zooms - the slower zoom may just mean blurry pics. I'm rarely taking pics from the seating area, so have never had to climb over any seats. Zooms may more come into their own for a less speedy, brightly lit theatre production.
 
Manual all the way. Stick your shutter to 1/160, and aperture to 2.8. Find the ISO you can shoot at for the current lighting set-up, stick with it and compensate using the shutter. When the lighting setup changes, adjust the ISO first if possible - making 2.8 and 1/160 your priority settings.

Bear in mind that too low a shutter speed will get you nothing but blurry images with even the slightest of movement on your subjects. 1/160 is good for stopping slow/med motion, even shots at 1/80 can have blurry chins and faces, because people tend to move their heads left/right/up/down quickly when talking. Capturing movement, emotion and energy is your key goal - having to wait for people to be still since you're using 1/50th can seriously limit the impact of your photo's. Not always as actors tend to hold poses, but it can.

I used these rules when shooting my first event (all at 2.8, ISO 1600) - have a look here - and it gave me a solid foundation and confidence from the word go.

Practice shooting two things: 1) people moving and 2) faces (when talking). Both at different shutter speeds (lighting doesn't matter in this case) and you'll soon get your own feel as to what the limits are.

A fast prime is invaluable, get yourself a nifty fifty (50/1.8); fast, sharp and cheap! Nice 85mm(ish) telephoto range on your 50D too.

Good luck :)
 
manual vs Av is very much a lighting based choice tbh

as for primes, I'd be tempted to go for them if I was working 2 bodies; say a 24-70L on one and a 135L on the other, or a 50/1.4 and 135L or something like that. If I had a single body it'd have to be a zoom unless I NEEDED the extra aperture even with raping the iso
 
Crofts said:
I never noticed it as a problem, but I'm mainly photographing ballet and the fast movement around the stage probably makes the speed of the primes more critical compared to zooms - the slower zoom may just mean blurry pics. I'm rarely taking pics from the seating area, so have never had to climb over any seats. Zooms may more come into their own for a less speedy, brightly lit theatre production.
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I think ballet and dance, generally, is different from theatre. From my limited experience of dance you have to stay in one place because they are moving so quickly but also it is choreographed to look beautiful from the auditorium so you're pretty much going to be fine if you're auditorium centre.

With theatre it is the relationship between the actors that is important to capture and they won't always be facing out to the audience when the great bits are happening between them. Hence the moving around the auditorium to capture those moments.

My latest shots are here.
 
Motion blur - I'd say that providing the face is sharp, some motion blur to hands / feet or body is acceptable. Of course it depends to what extent and minimising this as much as possible is one aim.

I tend to use a 50mm f1.8 prime and a 24-105L IS f4. I'd like f2.8 but I find the range of the 24-105L useful and the IS is helpful as well. Pros and cons to either lens I suppose.

I come from both sides. I cover various local groups and I also help rig and light other groups, so I can appreciate both points of view! Most of the productions I cover class themselves as high-end amateur, aiming to achieve 'professional standards' where possible, which generally means they have good actors and a fairly good lighting designer. Limiting factor with lighting is normally the power feeds coming into the building. One group I help light has 2x 230v 32amp feeds which can, if running flat out, drive almost 15,000 watts of light, but this doesn't go far when you have to light a stage evenly, and any creative effects you want with colour means either hiring expensive and noisy colour change gels or having various lights with a specific colour in. Thankfully I am normally given around 25,000 watts - 30,000.

The worst lighting gig was a touring opera which rented out a church. We had two 13 amp plugs at our disposal which allowed us 4 lamps and a followspot, but not all at the same time!

The next big thing in theatre lights is LED technology but at present, the ones amateur groups can afford are not as powerful as a normal tungsten bulb. Main advantage is power consumption is lower as there is lot less heat generated, but some have a mixture of red/green/blue LEDs which allow you to adjust colours. In 5 years I expect LED to be the main technology for new lamps, but people will phase them in as old lamps die.

Theatre follow spots are already using high intensity discharge lights (like a high end prestige car), but these are not dimmable, whereas a normal filament bulb is dimmable.
 
One of the really frustrating things about production photography is that you're entirely reliant on the creativity of the lighting designer. There's nothing that will make me grumpier quicker than a rubbish lighting design. I find myself pointedly looking at the lights but I don't suppose anyone notices me sulking!

Isn't a non-dimmable theatre spot rather limited? Can't see lighting designers being very happy with that.
 
From my limited experience of dance you have to stay in one place because they are moving so quickly
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I think that's right.

I find 50mm is about the longest focal length that is useful. Just occasionally 105mm if you want close ups of faces. 35mm is perhaps the most useful focal length full frame.

Some of the results can be seen here, if you're interested: http://www.easteuropephotos.com (see the slideshow on front page).
One of the really frustrating things about production photography is that you're entirely reliant on the creativity of the lighting designer
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I reckon that there is (almost) no such thing as bad light - there is only good light and fantastic light. It's working out the most effective way to use whatever light there is that's the fun bit.
 
Braidy said:
One of the really frustrating things about production photography is that you're entirely reliant on the creativity of the lighting designer. There's nothing that will make me grumpier quicker than a rubbish lighting design. I find myself pointedly looking at the lights but I don't suppose anyone notices me sulking!

Isn't a non-dimmable theatre spot rather limited? Can't see lighting designers being very happy with that.
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Lamps that use these are generally hand operated follow spots. They can be faded in and out by means of shutters which are quite controllable - just the light is on at all times behind the shutter.

A local group got a grant which they spent on lighting gear without consulting me or my friend who were the principle users. Bought a load of rubbish, including a follow spot of non-dimmable nature, but it also had no shutters, so it was on all the time!
 
Crofts said:
I reckon that there is (almost) no such thing as bad light - there is only good light and fantastic light. It's working out the most effective way to use whatever light there is that's the fun bit.
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Interesting point of view. I shall be thinking about that.

Again, though, it's a little different for plays. I think it's all about the eyes of the actor for theatre. Occasionally it's about a beautiful set or interesting composition but mostly it's about their acting.

And as a dear departed Panto dame once said to me ... 'full up for comedy!'. Meaning that if the audience can't see their faces then they aren't getting the whole act and certainly won't laugh as much. I've stopped taking pictures now where bad lighting or hats (unless the composition is interesting) obscure the eyes. This normally occurs when not enough lights are used for a particular part of the stage or the angle is too steep.


Beautiful pictures btw. Really excellent work.
 
Here's a few of my theatre shots as promised - sorry it's taken so long - been really busy!

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all pictures taken on live runs or dress rehearsal non-stop runs!
 
Beautiful pictures btw. Really excellent work
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Thank you! It's good of you to say so. :)

There's lots of nice photography being displayed on this thread!
 
Just found your ballet pictures Simon - some lovely work there.
 
Braidy said:
'In the round' productions are so hard.

First of all quite often the lighting designer doesn't have enough lights to light all 4 sides sufficiently. So you end up a lot of the time having reflected lights on the actor which just doesn't look great.

Secondly - the actors never stop bloody moving! Sometimes it feels as if you're chasing them around the stage.

Proscenium arch is much easier.
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Pros arch stuff is easier yes, but less intimate.

Biggest problem with in the round performances, especially on dress rehearsals is the seating is usually visible.
In order to light an actors head at the edge of the stage it generally means lighting the audience to some extent. As a designer you have to not dazzle the audience but this means illuminating the seating.

Unless you are lucky and have a purpose built overhead gantry for but I've not found a company who performs in the round who have these facilities.
 
Just found your ballet pictures Simon - some lovely work there
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Thank you! Likewise, your pics above are very attractive. :)

Simon

Edit: sorry, not sure that attractive is the right word - I mean, I like them!
 
I just want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone for commenting on this! The advice helped no end, and the assignment went reasonably well. The lighting was, for the most part, absolutely awful. For a couple of scenes it was so dark I gave up getting proper shots, and tried maxing out the ISO. Shutter speeds of 1/20, f/2.8, ISO 12800. Not good!

I'll be posting my attempts up when I've finished processing them (a bit of a learning curve as well, I've had to learn what noise reduction actually is (after shooting as ISO 3200 for the whole night)!

:thumbs:
 
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