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Its Blurry….Help
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Hi guys
I need your help with something. I recently had an opportunity to take some live theater photos, side stage and while some took fine, the below and most of the others were all blurred in some way. See the pics below, these were some of the better ones. The cast were moving as it was a dance scene but at times when they were kinda still i found it very difficult to get good snaps. I plan on doing this again, with live gig photography and dont want this to happen again. Have any of you any experience in this and any tips i can you can pass on?
Settings as flickr says.
ISO: 1600
F Number: 10.1
Target Aperture: 22.62741699797
Target Exposure Time: 0.077616113254593Thanks
MunkyYou’re using a slow shutter speed-
0,077 sec is 1/12sec-
and those people are moving-even opening up one more stop will give you 1/25 sec,
which would be better, but still not guaranteeing sharpness.Use a monopod if you can,
a faster lens if that’s a possibility,
shoot during pauses in the action,
or speak to the lighting designer to get him to turn thngs up a bit,
if you’re there for rehearsals-Looks like a combination of camera shake and subject movement to me. Using a monopod, IS lenses, a wider aperture and firing off a few frames at 5fps will help with the camera shake but there’s not a whole lot you can do about subject movement unless you want to introduce flash into the equation, although a higher shutter speed (from a wider aperture) will help.
Well I’m certainly no expert..but I reckon you could easily open up the aperture another couple of stops. Should help a little.
Am very interested in this myself as I’ll hopefully be shooting similar shots in November. I’ve done a few shows like this (as a performer..not a photographer) and the lighting would not be at all conducive to sharp photographs, so I’d imagine a fast lens and high ISO are probably necessary.
Are you shooting from the wings btw? Might be better to shoot at a dress rehearsal..least then you can get out front for a change of angle as well?
Expresbro wrote:
Are you shooting from the wings btw? Might be better to shoot at a dress rehearsal..least then you can get out front for a change of angle as well?
Better again if you can get yourself into the orchestra pit :wink:
Rob.
Thanks guys.
A faster lense? Any recommendations? They expensive? Monostand? That like a tripod without the tripod nature!!??
There was an element of camera shake but i managed to use the flat side stage to rest the camera. I suppose a faster shutter speed would have made a difference but then it doesnt quite capture the light and mood of the the performance. And also i only had a set time to get snap. i was in the wings…Stage crew walking around aswell. Had to be careful where i stood.
I couldnt really go out and take pics as i was part of the production.
Flash is absolutely out of the question. I can just imagine the director!! WTF!!!!
Its more for the future. My brothers band has a few gigs coming up and i want to get some good snaps for him. Also i think ill be in some situation of low light and and moving people. Indoor stuff.Thanks again, any info..very welcome
MThere are a couple of members here who shoot Gigs and various live shows…if you do a search through the forums you’ll find them. Have to hit the sack myself now otherwise I’d check for you. I know shooting in RAW can make a big difference as white balance is usually very difficult to get right on the night and shooting raw will allow you to adjust later in Photoshop.
If btw I had tried to take shots during a show I know one or two directors who probably would have put a contract on my life there and then…hehehe!! Temperamental bunch at the best of times.. :lol:
If Rob happens to be in the pit with his guitar you could always hand the camera to him. He’s gotten pretty adept at playing and shooting at the same time…hehehe!!
I had a similar problem recently taking shots of a play on a very dimly lit stage. I used a monopod but unfortunately it was movement on stage that caused the problems. I wasn’t allowed to use a flash (which was reasonable enough) so just tried to shoot when there was little or no movement. I had seen the play on a number of occasions so was able to predict when the actors would be reasonably still.
Ill have to give RAW a go. Havnt been using it much and not had much experience with Photoshop. its a learning process i suppose. I think ill have to pick up the monopod.
Expresbro….the director was cool with it, in fact he was ragin i didnt get any from the front.
Suppose theres not much that can be done about the movement. I guess finger on the trigger waiting for those still moments could be the way forward!!
Thanks again
MHi Munky, I shoot a lot of gigs & stage stuff (too much at the mo – God I need a life!) and am inclined to agree with the above posters regarding camera shake & shutter speed.
I recommend opening the aperture to “whatever you can afford”, which means that you might be lucky to get something like f4.5 on a shutter speed of 1/40 at 1600 ISO. Aperture and shutter speed go hand in hand and in low lighting situations you’re usually governed by the shutter speed.
Shooting at low shutter speeds (I can sometimes get 1/10sec if the subject is dead still) takes practice and technique, and a lot of concentration. Usually in (half) decent theatre lighting I’d be working at about 1/30 and f3.5 at ISO800. You’re better off with good posture, comfortable camera grip, steady breathing and trigger-squeeze, than to rely on another object to rest on, like a scaffold, rig or stage prop. A monopod is a good idea and you’ll only know if you like it when you try using it.
For a faster lens, look for a zoom with a constant aperture of f2.8 (i.e. not something that says f2.8-4.5 for example), or a prime lens with f2.8 or more (1.8, 1.4 etc). My two most frequently used lenses are Tamron 28-75mm f2.8, and Canon’s ‘nifty fifty’ the 50mm f1.8. Firstly you’ll have a brighter viewfinder image, aiding in low light AF and making it even easier for manual focus when your AF goes nuts, Secondly the wider aperture the lower light you can work in, as the faster shutter speeds will allow, Thirdly you can potentially get better quality images due to lens design or by stopping down from the max aperture.
Munky wrote:
I suppose a faster shutter speed would have made a difference but then it doesnt quite capture the light and mood of the the performance.
Not true. Your aim is to get a suitable exposure, which at core is the combination of aperture and shutter speed. A higher shutter speed allows you a greater range of apertures to use, hence better control of depth of field – you’ve no need to use f11 all the time. As you’re working with ambient light (i.e. available theatre lighting), the picture you take will generally represent what you see (assuming white balance & camera settings are good), unlike when working with flash.
Good luck!
Excellent reply Stas…nice little mini tutorial. I’ll be bookmarking this thread for future reference for sure :D
Hey, nice one Robbie. I see you’re getting along swimmingly with your weapon of choice – awesome. Looking forward to seeing your expertise applied to the stage too! ;) Don’t really get the chance to mosey on over here as much as I used to and I’m well behind with churning stuff out but more will be arriving on my pbase soon.
For anyone’s interest, I post basic EXIF info with my pics so you can see not only what settings were used, but also the effect things like depth of field have depending on focal length, distance from subject and point of focus.
Complete beginner here so pardon my ignorance
So am I right in saying a wider aperture (ie lower F number?) means a faster shot and better for moving objects/people?
Does this need to be balanced with the light though, ie if it the light isnt great do you need a smaller aperture and longer exposure
munsterman28 wrote:
So am I right in saying a wider aperture (ie lower F number?) means a faster shot and better for moving objects/people?
Yes, a wider aperture (smaller f/no) generally means a faster shutter speed. But that’s not necessarily better for moving subjects all the time. It depends on a number of other factors. If you’re using a wider aperture, you also have less depth of field and therefore, by implication, less room for errors when focusing, so if your subject moves after you have focused on them you could end up with a soft image, simply because they have moved outside the zone of acceptable sharpness of your depth of field.
munsterman28 wrote:
Does this need to be balanced with the light though, ie if it the light isn’t great do you need a smaller aperture and longer exposure
Aperture and shutter speed are inextricably linked. For a given ISO, you can have a range of values of aperture and shutter speed that will give you a correct exposure. For example if you have an exposure of f/8.0 at 1/125s then f/5.6 at 1/250 or f/11 at 1/60 will give you the same exposure.
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