Stage photography skills

Actors, dancers and singers have fully entered the rehearsal of major festivals. As a photographer, how can you miss such a wonderful shooting opportunity? What are the skills? The following is the related content I shared, welcome to read, for reference only!

Stage photography skills 1, equipment selection

There are various forms of stage performances, and the action scope and methods of various performances are completely different. Such as drama, recitation, music, instrumental music and other performances, there is almost no big movement, and a relatively low shutter speed can be used. However, some performances, such as dancing and martial arts scenes in drama, are fast and thunderous, and it is very difficult to shoot. It is almost the same as sports photography. Therefore, in terms of equipment selection, it is best to use a single-lens reflective digital camera with sensitive response for stage photography, so as to capture the moment. If you use portable digital cameras, you'd better choose those cameras with small time lag, otherwise you can barely make a play, and the success rate of making cheerful dances is obviously very low.

Stage photography skills II. About white balance

The stage lighting is rich and changeable, and the intensity and color temperature vary greatly. These lights with different colors and low intensity are also an important part of stage art language, which can generally better and accurately reflect the original color relationship when shooting. Therefore, when shooting under many different lighting effects, except for a few scenes that need to be restored with good skin color and little light change, it is not only impossible but also unnecessary to correct some color cast. Therefore, in general, the "automatic white balance" mode can be adopted, and the camera can handle it by itself. In this way, an appropriate scene atmosphere can be left, and secondly, even if there is a small amount of color cast, it can be slightly adjusted later.

Stage photography skills iii. About accurate exposure

Because stage lighting has a strong artistic effect in arrangement and design, and it is operated by professional lighting engineers, only accurate exposure can show the original effect. Generally, there are two metering methods when shooting. If the stage brightness is relatively uniform, you can use the central focus metering function. If you are shooting a spotlight or a scene with a dark background, you need to use spot metering to avoid the influence of environmental brightness, and determine the exposure according to the actual brightness of important objects. Therefore, when shooting scenes with large environment and small subjects, such as single person, single person, single person, etc., spot metering is needed. However, when shooting a big scene, when multiple actors perform at the same time, as long as the main body is concentrated in the relatively central part or accounts for a large proportion, the center key metering mode or a more even metering mode can be adopted, so that accurate exposure can be easily obtained.

Stage photography skills 4. About seizing the opportunity

There are two main shooting contents of stage photography, one is shooting relatively static objects, such as singing performances or musical instrument performances, and some are fast-moving and changing contents such as dance performances. When shooting the latter, there is not only a certain requirement for the response time of the equipment, but also a test for the photographer's on-the-spot response. When shooting stage photography with large action range, you must focus in advance or determine the approximate focus, and then press the shutter half-way, leaving an advance amount, otherwise it will be difficult to capture the climax of the action, and even there will often be embarrassing situations in which you plan to shoot the front but finally shoot the back. Although some portable digital cameras also have the function of continuous shooting, it takes time for the shutter response and image processing in continuous shooting, and the grasp of the moment may not really have a significant effect. However, the success rate of digital SLR cameras using continuous shooting will be improved a lot because of the fast action process. If possible, you can participate in rehearsal activities and see where the actors are going. If you don't have this opportunity, you have to find the law, which is predictable for the actor's next action.

Stage photography skills 5. Select the appropriate shutter speed.

Shutter speed plays an important role in reflecting the actions of characters on the stage. The shutter speed is fast, the fast moving object solidifies, and the characters appear clear. The shutter speed is lower than the motion speed of the subject, and even the slow-moving object presents a blurred image. Therefore, in order to achieve different shooting purposes, we should choose different shutter speeds. Compared with traditional cameras, digital cameras have certain advantages in selecting shutter speed, because the sensitivity can be adjusted, and higher sensitivity can be selected when the shutter speed needs to be increased, and vice versa. Generally, when shooting dramatic changes in stage movements such as rotation and jumping, if you need to freeze objects in space instantly, you can refer to the shutter speed of sports photography, and it is best to use a shutter speed not lower than1/250 s. If it is still difficult to meet the needs with full aperture, you can improve the shutter speed by improving the sensitivity. If it is still not enough, the main light source can be solidified with a flash.

Stage photography skills 6. How to get virtual characters and real characters?

Through the combination of flash and nature, we can get a special imitation of dynamic and static combination and alternation of reality and reality. As mentioned above, the shutter speed is lower than the motion speed of the subject, and even the originally slow-moving object will present a blurred image. The flash time of electronic flash is short, often around11000 s or even shorter. Therefore, the flash can solidify the instant of the subject's activity and form an extremely clear real image. The combination of flash and low-speed shutter can obtain a very special imaging effect of virtual and real. For example, use the shutter speed of115s, and use the flash (which can be the built-in flash of the camera or the external flash), so that the combination of shutter speed and aperture can obtain natural sensitivity, but because of the long exposure time, the moving image will become a virtual image, thus forming a certain sense of motion. The flash solidifies the moving object into a very clear real image, which constitutes a character image with virtual reality.

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