Techniques and methods of stage photography

Practical skills and methods of stage photography

In stage photography, we must first understand the laws and characteristics of different types of artistic performances; Second, understand the Lord? The people in the play? Make a corresponding shooting plan for a representative scene in a certain position. The following are practical techniques and methods to share stage photography for you. Welcome to read and browse.

Make good use of the shooting posture

It is conceivable that the best shooting position for ordinary stage photography is naturally the center of the first row, because there are no other obstacles in front, which can be coordinated to the whole stage. In this position, you can shoot some plays or concerts in the case of many people. But after all, we are not professional photographers, and we often don't have the financial resources and rights to get that golden position, so we should be prepared and make good use of the ready-made seats. Compared with the front row, the rear row can only use medium-focus to telephoto lenses, and ordinary zoom DC is difficult to come in handy in this place. However, it also allows photographers to focus more on tracking and shooting the best moments, instead of always thinking about changing the focal length and composition. In addition, the first thing to do after arriving at the scene is to observe the scene carefully and basically lock your focal length and angle.

Deal with minor difficulties

The lighting of stage and large square performances is basically authentic artificial light, which brings many difficulties to white balance and exposure. We can divide similar light sources into two types. One is the wavering light source, such as fixed lighting, which will not change much during the whole performance. In this case, you can stop shooting at the official end of the performance and see if the automatic white balance of the camera can effectively correct the low color temperature. Assuming that the automatic white balance form is not available, it is best to set it with a custom white balance.

The other is unshakable light source, such as effect light and spotlight. In this environment, the intensity and color temperature of the light source are variable and difficult to control. It is just as well to set the camera in the form of automatic white balance, and the camera will complete complex light discrimination; Maybe simply use sunlight white balance to completely restore the atmosphere.

The difficulty of lighting also lies in the great difference between the performer's lighting and background, which easily leads to exposure errors. First of all, the brightness of stage lights is usually not too high. It is an option for digital SLR cameras to use a large aperture lens to achieve a high enough shutter speed. In non-SLR cameras, products with similar initial sensitivity and high imaging quality can also be competent.

In addition, it is difficult to ensure the correct automatic exposure of the camera in the face of Booker's complex stage, single light and dark area and even the changing light intensity and angle. At this time, photographers usually need to use the functions of exposure compensation, photometry and exposure locking sensitively according to their own experience.

With more and more advanced equipment, there is a shortcut to take stage photos, that is, the application of face recognition function. At present, in many models, the system can determine the face in the picture when taking a view, and stop focusing and metering based on the face. In this way, stage photography can be less scrupulous, and the exposure and clarity of the characters in the picture are basically lost, which has the foundation of an excellent stage photography picture.

Capture the most beautiful moment

In the eyes of the audience, every moment on the stage is so beautiful, but it is different in the photographer's shutter. Especially when filming performers, she can close her eyes and frown. We can only take a back shot in the high-speed rotation of the dance. We could try to shoot a stretch bounce, but in the end we left a moment of landing.

Stage photography is not inferior to sports photography in testing the ability of capturing moments. They all require photographers to have a good understanding of the content of the performance and a certain ability to guess their actions besides being flexible and quick-witted. Meanwhile, no matter what kind of camera, there is a delay from pressing the shutter button to releasing the shutter. Only by pressing the shutter in advance can you capture the most beautiful moment.

For beginners, this is of course a bit difficult. We can fully observe and try to find out their laws of action. Using the continuous shooting function is also an effective means. For example, in the process of a dancer jumping, we take three to five photos, and the probability of the most stretched posture is naturally much higher than that of a single shot. However, most consumer digital cameras have limited talent in continuous shooting, so it would be a pity to waste continuous shooting's talent before the perfect moment comes.

But now many models are equipped with common ones? Circular continuous shooting? Mode, as long as the user presses the shutter button, continuous shooting will not stop at the end, but only three photos taken before the shutter button is released. Suppose you don't know the actor's movements, it's no harm to release the shutter button in this way when you see a wonderful moment, which is basically foolproof. Therefore, being familiar with your own machine is a condition for taking good photos.

Matters needing attention in stage photography

When stage photography is stopped, it will definitely have a certain impact on the surrounding audience. You don't want to see a person dangling in front of you with his neck outstretched, so the photographer should pay attention to the details as much as possible to avoid disturbing others to watch the performance.

1, assuming that it is possible to contact the performance organizer in advance to get permission, or lose a more suitable shooting location; Although it is difficult to do this in large-scale performances, don't back down if you have the opportunity to fight back automatically.

2, don't use flash, flash will not only disturb the audience, but also affect the performers, destroy the lighting environment of the performance, and the shooting effect may not be good.

3. Try to choose a small shutter sound when using a SLR camera, and set it to mute when using a portable digital camera to block the auxiliary focusing light.

4. Avoid standing for a long time and moving frequently when shooting. Not to mention fatigue, it will also lead to a lot of complaints behind it.

5. Know the performance status through the program before shooting, arrange shooting fairly, especially plan the distribution of memory cards and batteries to avoid running out of ammunition at critical moments.

6. Due to the functional limitations of consumer digital cameras, many lost photos are still unsatisfactory even if they are shot according to the above techniques. Don't delete it in a hurry, we can also stop preprocessing with various image software, which can make the photos glow with youth.

Finally, I want to remind you that according to the above skills, you can basically shoot clear and excellent moments. But the essence of real stage photography is not only to faithfully record every scene that happens on the stage, but to integrate one's creative intention into the photos. If we look at the development of stage photography in the past decades, we will also find an obvious trend, from realism to re-creation. For example, many photographers even set a slow shutter in their creations. Fuzzy pictures can sometimes express motion better, and the combination of light and human motion trajectory will be very creative. In addition, the pre-stack processing is also worth a try. When multiple stage photos are put together, the performance content will often be better expressed.

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