Dance Recital

[ccphoto]

Not my cuppa tea but when they pull out the checkbook, it's all good :-)

The problem with this shoot was someone thought it would be just peachy keen if they had a constant flow of "mist" over the entire stage on every dance....it didn't just get old, it knocked down the light value by a 1/3 of a stop or more when they used green gels. Since most of the dancing was freestyle, these kids moved quite fast and to get good head movement, hair flings and stop a lot of bouncing and jumping, I had to shoot at ISO 16,000, 5.6 @ 1/1000th. It made for some interesting editing to say the least.


Teacher's dance:





I played around a bit with different B&W conversions, each designed toward a particular light group. These next three were predominately lit with green gels. Green light makes skin tones look deathly sallow. B&W makes it far easier to get around the death mask.

One Happy Toddler



These I call the Greenies:





The next ones are a good variety of what the recital looked like and in the one with the handstand, you can see how dominate the "mist" was....arrrggghhh

Dancing in circles





Hand Stand





Bummer that I missed the top of the fore hand but getting this "Flying Wallenda" was Pretty Neat:

[FootLoose]

Nice set, Chris, they definitely look better in black and white, though.

[Shadowman]

Nice series, were you using a prime or zoom?

[ccphoto]

Nice series, were you using a prime or zoom?

D500 coupled up to a 24-120 f/4 I shot most of them at 16,000 5.6 so I could try to get a modicum of DOF. The difference in my experience between 8,000 and 16,000 in processing is negligible. 25K however, gets a bit more dicey.

[Shadowman]

D500 coupled up to a 24-120 f/4 I shot most of them at 16,000 5.6 so I could try to get a modicum of DOF. The difference in my experience between 8,000 and 16,000 in processing is negligible. 25K however, gets a bit more dicey.

I used to shoot lowlight action strictly with primes (50 or 85mm), decided to get a zoom to hopefully overcome those situations when the subject was so close I'd crop limbs. It can be a chore trying to follow a fast moving subject and zoom at the same time; probably where anticipating the movement comes in handy.

[george013]

Great results.
When viewing in the light box and switching between color an bw, then the color ones have more depth. The bw are more flat. I prefer the colored ones, even the green one. For me they're examples of how color can influence perspective, the suggestion of the third dimension

George

[Dave Humphries]

Great capturing skills and no mistake Chris, well done.

I'm not so averse to the 'mist' as you are, it has the advantage of simplifying the background and gives something for the black costumes to show against - unless that is, you do what you did with the mono conversion of "Teacher's dance"

"The Greenies" is definitely better in Mono for the skin tones, although it's a shame to lose the colourful parts of the costumer designer's hard work, but I guess there was a narrative/artistic reason for the green light at the point in the production.

"Hand stand" works well with that 'colour' conversion, while "Flying Wallenda/Pretty Neat" is so similar in tone, you almost don't notice its gone (when flicking through in LyteBox).

Cheers, Dave

PS

The difference in my experience between 8,000 and 16,000 in processing is negligible. 25K however, gets a bit more dicey.

Have you tried 20k, or whatever's just below it? (unless that is 16k)
I ask because I have found with both my D5000 and D7100, that the (nikon) 'higher iso noise steps' kick in at the round thousands rather the more traditional 'film era' multiples. Obviously I'm not going that high with my cameras, but for example, I'd use 2,000 rather than 1,600, 4,000 rather than 3,200 and so on.

Hmmm, having written that out and extrapolated two more stops, perhaps that's why you were with using 16,000 and the next step up (anywhere up to 32k) is too dicey. I think I just confirmed your choice!

[Rainforest]

Your client should be very happy. Thanks for taking the time to post all of these it is very interesting to view and compare. I love that Greenie shot in both color and blk and white though I'm not sure the young woman in the image will like it quite as much as me.

[ccphoto]

As a general rule when shooting in theatrical lighting situations where the subjects are for more static and I can go to lower shutter speeds, I'll try to stick to my primes and keep the ISO down to a manageable number - though, that said, the more static the figure, generally so goes the lighting to a lower value, all artsy fartsy.

Dance creates its own set of parameters. If it is ballet, I can generally stay in the shutter range between 500 and 800 but as in this case, the dancers are fast movers, 1/1000 is an absolute. High ISO's are inevitable unless you are shooting very fast glass. I'd love to be able to shoot this same setup with a Zeiss 1.4 85mm Prime but at $4,500, I'll have to win the lotto first.

[bje07]

you can see how dominate the "mist" was....arrrggghhh

To reduce mist or fog you can use dehaze tool in LR or in PS,it makes wonderful effect in reducing the fog and given a kind of clarity.

[Manfred M]

Well done set Chris. You should be quite happy with the results.

When it comes to gels, I'd like to shoot anyone who thinks people look good under green lighting. Unless you are shooting a horror movie, green really doesn't work. That being said, that sin is easily hidden with a B&W conversion, as you have demonstrated quite well.

[bnnrcn]

Color ones for me Chris

[ccphoto]

To reduce mist or fog you can use dehaze tool in LR or in PS,it makes wonderful effect in reducing the fog and given a kind of clarity.

I used the heck out of it but you have to be careful you don't degrade the quality of your blacks when using the dehazing filter.

[Jim A]

Monochrome for me, Chris --- without exception. In the first one I love the mirroring of the main dancer and the one on the left. It takes a couple of moments to see that it is not the same person, but adds to the experience. Very interesting to see that some prefer colour ....... and me, monochrome all the way (except maybe the pink one at the end). We all see the world different, which makes life richer.

However, what matters most, in your situation, is the client(s) view on the outcome. Best regards!

[revi]

Well done set Chris. You should be quite happy with the results.

When it comes to gels, I'd like to shoot anyone who thinks people look good under green lighting. Unless you are shooting a horror movie, green really doesn't work. That being said, that sin is easily hidden with a B&W conversion, as you have demonstrated quite well.

Don't forget that they weren't lighting for photo/film, but for a theatrical effect :P. When in the public, you hardly notice skin anyway, and in the environment the green becomes acceptable.
And the green isn't the only horror in this kind of photography... Some like very saturated blue, which plays havoc with your exposition metering (and post processing, if it isn't completely blown)

[Donald]

Well done set Chris. You should be quite happy with the results.

I agree. You should be mighty pleased with this shoot. The must looks good. I appreciate the challenges of sahooting with it there, but you've made very good use of it in the final images.

And 16000 ISO! They look really good. Did you de-noise in processing, or is this as they came out?

[mknittle]

All excellent images Chris,
I feel that the first one works best(for me) in color but the rest I like the monochrome versions.

[ccphoto]

I agree. You should be mighty pleased with this shoot. The must looks good. I appreciate the challenges of sahooting with it there, but you've made very good use of it in the final images.

And 16000 ISO! They look really good. Did you de-noise in processing, or is this as they came out?

I had to de-noise in processing. I do it in two steps. The first by adding some luminosity and lum contrast in the RAW editor and after I do all my processing, I generally add another noise filter using the NIK de-noiser after I save to Jpeg for posting.