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Your images are great and you do a super job with the editing.
Shooting concerts and stage shows, professionally, is about all that I do with cameras (and a D750 is one of the three bodies that I use regularly). The lighting that they’re giving you looks good but I know that you’re making it look better.
If you’re shooting RAW (you must be) and using LR, PM me if you’d like to talk about ways to deal with the strong magenta/purple/blue lighting that is washing over the orchestra and is so prevalent on modern stages.
-Denny
Sep 26, 2020 at 01:23 PM
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#5 and 6 are my personal faves. I think the d750 is great for theater photography—I used one for a couple years when I was doing that and it performed admirably. One question—how come you use the 70-200 f4 instead of the 2.8 lens? With low light, I welcomed the fastest lens I could afford which was the 70-200 2.8 (the 200 f2 would’ve been my first choice but $$$). That being said, these images look good woth the f4 lens anyway! Thanks for sharing
Love this shots and I agree with Denny JetTone that you're making the lighting better than you've been given (as far as I can see anyway ). I would also like to hear about you deal with white balance challenges. I think you made the right choices here, but there are so many variables in a theater shoot with good or not so good lighting. Nice work.
I haven't visited the thread for 2 weeks I suppose as I forgot about it. Thanks all for your comments and questions. I try to reply personally.
kmunroe wrote:
very nice set
Thanks, man.
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maxbe wrote:
Hello alex,
It's an awesome photoshoot of a stage performance.
Very appreciated, my friend.
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Denny JetTone wrote:
Your images are great and you do a super job with the editing.
Shooting concerts and stage shows, professionally, is about all that I do with cameras (and a D750 is one of the three bodies that I use regularly). The lighting that they’re giving you looks good but I know that you’re making it look better.
If you’re shooting RAW (you must be) and using LR, PM me if you’d like to talk about ways to deal with the strong magenta/purple/blue lighting that is washing over the orchestra and is so prevalent on modern stages.
-Denny
Thanks, Denny. Yes, I shoot raw as it gives me the quickest way to edit shots with so complex lighting. I set WB according to the most important subject in the frame and do some local adjustments in ACR if there are more than one subject. I don't pay much attention to correction of heavy magenta/purple/blue lighting as I think it is a part of stage photography. But if you have some tips to share please feel free to describe them in the thread so others could benefit from them as well.
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tobycat2 wrote:
#5 and 6 are my personal faves. I think the d750 is great for theater photography—I used one for a couple years when I was doing that and it performed admirably. One question—how come you use the 70-200 f4 instead of the 2.8 lens? With low light, I welcomed the fastest lens I could afford which was the 70-200 2.8 (the 200 f2 would’ve been my first choice but $$$). That being said, these images look good woth the f4 lens anyway! Thanks for sharing
Thanks for the praise. f/4 lens is enough as the light is not too dimm to have f/2.8 as a must. In too dark situations I simply screw up ISO (6400 is the hightest I use) and push up raws in post.
I would assume that I could benefit from f/2.8 lens when shooting ballet but for opera/drama and even musical photography I find f/4 lens to be good enough with D750 sensor performance.
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jrrhodes wrote:
Love this shots and I agree with Denny JetTone that you're making the lighting better than you've been given (as far as I can see anyway ). I would also like to hear about you deal with white balance challenges. I think you made the right choices here, but there are so many variables in a theater shoot with good or not so good lighting. Nice work.
J.R.
Much appreciated, mate. As I shoot raw I have no difficulties with right WB setting in post. And local adjustment tools of ACR help a lot to balance WB in different parts of a frame if needed. D750 nefs are very moulable.
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djb663 wrote:
Very well done. I have to ask, what iso are you shooting at and what noise reduction setting if any do you have selected on the D750? Thanks.
Thanks. I shoot with auto ISO ranging from 100 to 6400, mostly at 2000-5000. As I shoot raw I don't care about High ISO NR setting in camera. In ACR I set NR to 10-30 usually and it eliminates noise quite well.
Agreed that color from stage lighting is not out of place, particularly in the b’ground. The overuse of strong digital colors has not seemed as bad recently as it was eight or ten years ago in most places where I have shot.
Not particular to Alex’s terrific work but to stage/show/non-rock-concert work generally – and I think that I’ve mentioned this in other, older threads – if we’re shooting raw and looking at the images in Adobe LR or ACR, we’re not really seeing raw. We’re seeing Adobe’s interpretation of what Adobe thinks our raw should be.
The Profile choices used to be few and were pretty much hidden well down in the Adjustment Panel but the choices have been plentiful and have been at the top of the page for a while now. Adobe’s default setting (it’s interpretation of our camera’s raw) is Adobe Color (it used to be Adobe Standard), which has more contrast and saturation built into it that we’d ever see in what our cameras saw a native image.
For any mention of the way that I edit these types of images, keep in mind that I intentionally underexpose most of my stage work.
One tip – which is better known now that it was a few years ago – is to find the profile that best suits your intentions for each image. I don’t know what these are for Canon and Sony but for Nikon, the “rawest” look for the latest version of LR/ACR is Camera Neutral for the D800/810; Adobe Neutral or Camera Flat for the D750; and Camera Flat for the D7200.
Also, under Lens Corrections – see what the Vignetting (under Profile) does for you, and, if you’re looking for more or different, under Manual (rather than Profile), the Vignetting slider also includes Midpoint control.
The second tip – for the kind of work that I do (mostly individual, performance portraits), not necessarily applicable for what I see in Alex’s examples – take down the shadows, not bring them up. My first, trial adjustment is to crush the Shadows (-100) and to run up the Blacks (+100) – sometimes I’ll leave them there, sometimes I’ll adjust to something less severe. I usually don’t care what’s happening in the shadows – those details are only distractions. Some of this involves personal preferences for dealing with noise but that’s only part of it.
Regarding using an f/4 lens for concerts and stage work – it can be fine in a lot of lighting situations This kind of shooting is usually described as “low light” by those who don’t do a lot of it but it’s more often a “high contrast” situation – especially and very much so when follow spots are in use. I’ve got f/2.8 from 14mm to 200mm but am limited to f/4 from 200-400mm – I shoot of lot of performance portraits in the 300mm to 400mm range (on FF). I can’t afford a Nikkor 400mm f/2.8 and – shooting live performances in the presence of audiences – I can rarely be constrained to fixed focal lengths. I rented a 200mm f/2 a few times while considering buying one but I never got comfortable using it as one of two body/lens combos at the same time. It’s a beast to sling and it attracts more attention from “civilians” than the 200-400.
There have been, and are currently, a few posters showing beautiful stage/dance/concert work on FM who are now joined by Alex.
-Denny
→ I don’t post to the forum (or anywhere else) but if anyone would like to see some examples of my one-trick pony show, send your email address to me thru PM
How did you manage exposure? I find it difficult to do so for things like this since sometime, the person goes to the spot light and the photos would be overexposed
Ben10 wrote:
How did you manage exposure? I find it difficult to do so for things like this since sometime, the person goes to the spot light and the photos would be overexposed
Hi, Ben.
I use highlight priority metering mode and then correct exposure in ACR. With the wide exposure latitude of NEF files this 2-step method gives solid results.
). I would also like to hear about you deal with white balance challenges. I think you made the right choices here, but there are so many variables in a theater shoot with good or not so good lighting. Nice work.