How can I take good photos of stage performances?

Compared with the portrait shooting skills in different lighting, portrait shooting in exhibition and stage environment is the most complicated, the subjects are basically moving, the shooting distance and angle are limited when lighting, and the requirements for equipment and shooting are very high. So how to shoot a colorful stage performance?

Choose the right place and photographic equipment. When watching a performance, our position is generally fixed and we can't move at will, but we can move our position for the performance in the exhibition. The middle of the first row is definitely the best shooting position. As for the lens, both wide-angle and telephoto lenses can be used. Wide-angle lens can take a panoramic view of the stage, and 70-200mm zoom lens can take a satisfactory bust and close-up. In order to take good stage photos, the stability of the camera is very important, and it is very important to increase the stability of the camera with a tripod or a monopod.

(Automatic white balance display)

Regarding the use of flash, I also want to remind you that many stage performances are forbidden to be filmed with flash, which will affect the actors' performances. In addition, the flashing dog lights will dilute the unique lighting and color effects of the stage, and the scenery will completely lose the stage, which requires us to use a larger aperture and high ISO. However, in some auto shows, photographic equipment exhibitions, animation exhibitions and other exhibitions, it is allowed to use flash to shoot performances or models.

In the stage and exhibition site, the lighting is special artificial light, and the light source on the site is very complicated, so it is necessary to pay attention to setting white balance. Although we recommend not to use the camera's automatic white balance on many occasions, it is the best choice in stage and exhibition shooting occasions. Because in the process of manually changing the white balance setting, many wonderful performance clips may be lost.

When we take portraits on stage and in exhibitions, the lack of light is a big problem. "Dim, changeable and big contrast" is the characteristic of stage lighting, and the actors on the stage are often in motion. If you want to use actors with clear images and no blur jitter, you'd better use high ISO and choose large aperture lenses such as F 1.2 and F 1.4. These stage performances need shutter speeds of1125 seconds and1180 seconds to shoot clearly, and the sensitivity value needs to be adjusted to ISO accordingly.

400 or ISO 800, and shoot with maximum aperture, and add 3-speed exposure compensation.

(Captured instantaneous expression)

In terms of metering, you may think that the stage lighting is more complicated, and it is more accurate to use spot metering. In fact, what kind of metering method should be used flexibly according to the actual situation. When the light ratio is uniform, average metering is used, and when the light ratio is unbalanced, spot metering is used. In order to prevent the camera's metering system from making mistakes, the best way is to shoot first, and then adjust the aperture and shutter settings.

Finally, it is also important to capture continuous shooting. Stage photography is not inferior to sports photography in its ability to capture moments. When we try to film the bounce, we may film the moment of landing, and the actors may close their eyes or frown. This requires us to be agile, know the performance content in advance, and have a certain ability to predict the actors' actions. Only by pressing the shutter in advance, or by continuous shooting, can we capture the most beautiful moment.

Shoot at attention

The shutter speed of stage photography depends on the needs of performance. If you need to highlight the dance movements, use the low-speed shutter of 1/30 seconds to highlight the movements.