Flash advice required

[Martin Fagg]

Could any one advise on set up for shooting images in a dark theatre, with a well lit stage with fast moving ballet dancers performing. I will be able to stand at the front at floor level
I have 24-70L and 70-200L 2.8 IS 580 flash and EOS 1D Mk11 to work with.
Any advice would be much appreciated from any one with past experience in these conditions
Thank you

[tim]

You can't typically use flash when you shoot theatre or dance, you have to use fast lenses and high ISO. Best you check with whoever's in charge before you look into flash. I use a 50mm F1.4 lens for this type of shot.

[Snapman]

Welcome to the forum :)

Maybe it's different in the USA but, here in the UK, very few theatres allow photography of any type :(

[Ronald S. Jr.]

Better ask CDS...wasn't it him that had the wonderful ballet shots? Maybe it was someone else...it was one of the mods, though.

[tim]

I do a fair amount of theatre, no ballet though. You're never allowed flash, and even if you were allowed you'd ruin the work of the lighting designer.

[jrm]

Could any one advise on set up for shooting images in a dark theatre, with a well lit stage with fast moving ballet dancers performing. I will be able to stand at the front at floor level
I have 24-70L and 70-200L 2.8 IS 580 flash and EOS 1D Mk11 to work with.
Any advice would be much appreciated from any one with past experience in these conditions
Thank you


Ditto what the others said about flash typically being a problem in such circumstances.

However, keep in mind that for purposes of exposure the "dark theatre" part is meaningless. What is important is the "well lit stage."

MANY years ago (film, simple through lens meter, no auto modes) I tried taking pictures a a rock concert. I used the camera's meter and exposed accordingly. Shooting from something like row 45 of a large venue, I was dissappointed by the results. All the people on stage were very overexposed. This was because the meter averaged the light from where I was shooting - the viewfinder has quite a bit of "dark" area in it which fooled the meter.

Next time out, I compensated for this problem. According to the meter, I was underexpossing. In reality, the results were great.

The spotlights used in most theatres are plenty strong to get a decent exposure without needing flash. In fact, it could be argued that a flash would be a negative in this situation, as stage lighting is usually used to create an "atmosphere" that the flash would remove.

--Joe

[Martin Fagg]

Thanks for all you comments.
Martin

[Sageg]

Best thing is to shoot in raw & at the highest ISO possible. Go for a wide apertuere-that far away there would be minimal blur. Use a tripod. I did something similar with a 50mm 1.4 at 1600ISO. The shots came out really nice, but noisy. Just a little neat image & they were perfect.

[tim]

Even ISO 1600 prints fine up to 8*12 or so, no noise reduction required IMHO, and they look great as B&W.

[Titus213]

We just shot a situation with some theater type light. We rented a lens - EF 200mm f1.8 - for the event. Cost us $20 for the weekend. Awsome lens but heavy to hold for any length of time. It did the job.

I was also using the EF 70-200mm f2.8 IS and it did seem to work fairly well in our situation but we weren't dealing with a lot of action on stage.

Our 50mm f1.8 worked fairly well too when we could get close enough.

And I just remembered this link: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=110972