Ballet Dancer, not belly dancer.

[Granddad]

I recently had a chance to photograph a live stage performance locally. The circumstances were no flash allowed so I was totally dependent on ambient lighting. I also had no opportunity to see the choreographies ahead of shooting so I had to guess at who was going where and what would happen next. The stage lighting tended to change faster than I could guess any adjustments so I kept it on a setting that worked some of the time, kept shooting and adjusted in LR3. Comments, criticism and suggestions are welcome.

Nikon D700, Nikkor 80-200, F2.8, ISO 1000, 1/125. Manual.

 

[tirediron]

Tough conditions to work under! Can you pull a little more detail out the man's trousers with the selective adjustment tool?

 

[Granddad]

I haven't tried that yet. I may do a recrop of this one because I think I can get a little more blank space to the right of the young lady's head and that may improve the image. I'll see if I can find some detail then.

Getting a sharp focus was also a problem with many shots: does anyone have any tips on that aspect?

I ended up with 500 photos (approx 25%) so picking ones to work on has been a head scratching business. Most were of the little 'uns (ages 3 to 8), some very cute but they aren't my kids and I don't have specific permission to put them online.

 

[DiskoJoe]

You need to jack up the iso more. 1000 isnt really enough to capture a sharp image of a dancer moving. This may not be a viable option given your set up but that is what is needed.

 

[Granddad]

You need to jack up the iso more. 1000 isnt really enough to capture a sharp image of a dancer moving. This may not be a viable option given your set up but that is what is needed.

Next time I get to shoot a performance I'll go with higher ISO, Joe; I was hoping to avoid too much noise this time but with the light as it was at times some of them were as noisy as a primary school playground at lunch break even at 1000... So nothing to lose and maybe a lot to gain.

 

[DiskoJoe]

You need to jack up the iso more. 1000 isnt really enough to capture a sharp image of a dancer moving. This may not be a viable option given your set up but that is what is needed.

Next time I get to shoot a performance I'll go with higher ISO, Joe; I was hoping to avoid too much noise this time but with the light as it was at times some of them were as noisy as a primary school playground at lunch break even at 1000... So nothing to lose and maybe a lot to gain.

I use noise reduction software called Neat Image. Works pretty good and is cheap. Home version is like $25. If you have solid areas it works better because it can get a good read on the noise and fix it, like the black spaces.

 

[LizardKing]

Well, I might be well out of my league here... but the conditions seem to be not that different from concert photography, and one of the 'rules' there, is to concentrate on 1 subject per photo, because of the shallow DoF you have to work with. You can take group shots but only from certain perspectives or when you use the OOF subjects to work with the composition.

Not sure if you did this, but another good thing to do here, is to shoot burst of 3-5 to maximize the chances to catch the best lighting and gesture from the subject.

 

[Granddad]

I use noise reduction software called Neat Image. Works pretty good and is cheap. Home version is like $25. If you have solid areas it works better because it can get a good read on the noise and fix it, like the black spaces.

Thanks! I'll have to check that out.

Well, I might be well out of my league here... but the conditions seem to be not that different from concert photography, and one of the 'rules' there, is to concentrate on 1 subject per photo, because of the shallow DoF you have to work with. You can take group shots but only from certain perspectives or when you use the OOF subjects to work with the composition.

Not sure if you did this, but another good thing to do here, is to shoot burst of 3-5 to maximize the chances to catch the best lighting and gesture from the subject.

You're probably right about it being close to concert photography. I did some of both using my 24-70 f2.8 for the group shots and my 80-200 f2.8 for individual shots. The individual shots and small groups were better, DOF was a problem (as expected) with the bigger groups and I ended up cropping some to get the in focus subject and salvage shots. Next time I'll try shooting bursts, I used to do that before I got my D700 but was told not to by one of my early mentors as you end up with too many photos to process - I'd been thinking that she knows more but then I've noticed she avoids live performance photography.