Dance Recital

I like sharing my photos with the other parents. These were taken at my 4 year olds dance recital. While her group was cute, this soloist brought the most action. As my daughter gets older I want to be taking the best shots I can.

No flashes were aloud and I think these came out fairly good based on the lighting and what I felt was appropriate for exposure. As always, I like to know what I could be doing differently to help the images overall, so feedback is appreciated.

These are great! You did everything I would have suggested. You shot at a high shutter speed, went wide on aperture, and used an appropriate ISO to compensate. Your timing was excellent! My only comment is that in the first photo there are two pieces of paper or tape on the floor that can be easily removed via Lightroom or similar tool.

I shot ballet for one school year, shooting tech rehearsals and performances. If you go to the link below and scroll down, you'll see four ballet albums.

http://grahamglover.ze​nfolio.com/f593136965

Here are a few things I did.

Exposure: I always shot manual. I assume from your settings you did, too. My exposure approach is probably similar to yours. Shoot at the highest shutter speed you can to freeze motion, and keep the lens fully open. When going through my performance photos, I see I shot at 1/320s. I think 1/500s, as you did, is better. ISO was what I used to adjust exposure. On the 5DM3, I used the "Set" button for quickly adjusting ISO.

Autofocus: When the action gets more complicated, the AF system on the 5DM3 is excellent. I used AI Servo. Unlike sports, I used the Zone AF area selection mode for tracking dancers, especially as they move across stage. I don't recall which "Case" I used, but it was probably Case 4. The point is that you should feel free to explore and use the AF capabilities of the 5DM3. Canon put out a guide on AF for the 5DM3, linked below.

http://cpn.canon-europe.com …rkIII_eng_Janua​ry2013.pdf

I hope this helps. Have fun!!!

As Graham said, you did great.

I hope you picked up on his shooting of rehearsals. Depending on the organization you may be able to gain freedom in shooting location and use of lighting.

Lovely dance shots and great job keeping that flash quiet!

As for non-staged image - first one is awesome. It could use some post, but otherwise - good catch.

Graham,

Thanks for the feedback on little things like the tape. I generally don't do much post, maybe highlights, shadows, white balance and sharpening but not much cloning etc. Perhaps that is something I can work on in the future.

And yes, I shoot full manual.

In this case I shot AI Servo with all three zones but I use center point to acquire focus. Then let the AF system track within the 3 zones.

There are observation days at the studio which I do shoot but have only been there during my daughter's class. I have built a repor with the owner and might ask to view a dress rehearsal for all classes prior to the next recital.

I will look in to the set button for quick ISO changes or some other button. I use the back focus button and have Kelvin also programed to a rear button. Maybe I will switch Kelvin for ISO since that can be adjusted in post if it is off

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Olaf,

Part of my asking for feedback is understanding what I can/should consider changing in post. Please feel free to elaborate what you might do in post. I would greatly appreciate it.

So I took (literally) >5 min to make a few edits. Documenting them took me longer. I only mention this so you know that with practice these edits are simple and IMO improve the image.

First I made a few adjustments in LR.

Here is before/after. The change is subtle here.

For reference these are the areas I cleaned up in PS.