Talk about how to perfectly shoot a live performance

How to perfectly shoot a live performance? Photographing any kind of live performance, both indoors and outdoors, can be a challenge. This is not only because we need to master various shooting principles before shooting, but more importantly, we are usually restricted to our seats and cannot move around to find the shooting angle we want.

However, the above is not the most challenging. The poor lighting conditions for indoor performances are our biggest enemy. Below, photographer Kav Dadfar will help you better complete the shooting of live performances from six aspects.

1. Be a polite person

No matter whether our shooting environment is indoors or outdoors, the first thing we need to pay attention to is to be courteous and courteous to others, and give full consideration to the performers feelings with the audience. If you are photographing a street performance, you will likely have the opportunity to communicate closely with the performer before the show starts, so take the time to have a general chat with him. Not only is this done to make the performer more relaxed, but it's also a basic etiquette. In addition, please remember that the performer is not just for you, so we should try to avoid or reduce the interference to the audience when shooting in front of the crowd. Finally, when we finish shooting and prepare to leave, don’t forget to leave the artist’s email and send him the works we shot.

2. Be fully prepared

This may seem like an obvious principle, but I still have to stress that we need to be prepared to shoot any performance under any conditions. What I mean is don’t forget to turn on your camera, have the correct camera settings, and then have the right lens ready so we don’t miss any great shots. Before shooting, you can try to predict what will happen next. You know, usually every performance will have a climax, and we need to be prepared for the climax moment.

3. Plan the shooting speed

The most important element when shooting a performance is the control of speed. By changing the shooting speed, we can not only capture sharp and clear images, but also create motion blur if necessary. Of course, this blur does not come from the shake of the camera itself. Therefore, setting the appropriate shutter speed is an essential part.

For high-speed motion performance categories, if we want to freeze the dynamic scene, we may need to use a larger aperture value to ensure that the shutter speed is enough to make the image details appear. But before you open the aperture wide, keep in mind that the larger the aperture, the shallower the depth of field and the blurrier the background. Therefore, how many shutter speeds we need depends on the moving speed of our subject and your own shooting intentions (assuming you want a dynamic blur effect). Normally, if we want to completely freeze dynamic images, the camera shutter speed needs to be set higher than 1/200 second. In addition, the camera's high-speed continuous shooting mode is a good auxiliary tool, you can take a series of photos continuously and then select the clearest one.

4. Increase the ISO value

In some usage scenarios (especially indoors), we need to increase the ISO sensitivity setting of the camera so that we can shoot at high speed. Get faster shutter speeds with moving targets. The ISO setting value depends on the lighting conditions and whether you have a pair of "iron hands". In most cases, I won't shoot at a shutter speed lower than 1/60 second, and my starting ISO will be between 400 and 800. Before shooting, we need to fully understand the camera's capabilities at different ISO settings, because different cameras have different noise suppression capabilities. We can try more before shooting to have a good idea of ??the camera's image quality under high ISO.

5. Avoid using flash

I believe that using flash to shoot is an offensive behavior for both the performer and the audience. This is because Flash will kill the entire performance atmosphere, also because the flash will make the original rich colors become dull. So, we want to avoid using flash and instead choose to rely on the real light in the scene. For example, if the performer is in the shadow when shooting outdoors, we can choose to press the shutter when he enters the sun; if the performer is on an indoor stage, we have to wait until the spotlight hits the performer. Take photos again when the light is brighter or on your body.

6. Don’t ignore the audience of the performance

After we can capture the performers’ movements more easily, don’t forget the onlookers. Sometimes including these audiences in the composition of a filmed performance can lead to unexpected gains.

Try to look for those interesting expressions and movements in the crowd, and record them when they show joy and surprise. These often unique moments really shouldn’t be forgotten, right?

The best way to shoot a performance The beautiful thing is that those wonderful shots are often unique, and usually the performers don't mind us recording these moments. You know, many people are often worried about the performers' attitude and are reluctant to film their performances at close range. Intimidated. However, while photographing performance-themed photos does come with its own challenges, it’s still easy to capture the perfect shot with practice.