Sunday, February 27, 2011

57/365- Beauty and the Beast

The spring musical for my high school is Beauty and the Beast. The kids did a fantastic job tonight. I am so proud of them.
In the past, I've done some choreography for several of the plays and musicals. I didn't work on this show, but I wish I had. The seniors in this performance were 7th graders when I started with them. This is their last production in high school and tonight was senior night. It was a little emotional, but I really enjoyed being with them backstage and in the audience taking pictures.

Speaking of pictures, taking photos of a live stage performance is a bit challenging. Before I started learning about photography, I would sit close to the stage and drive people crazy with the flash. I'd get lucky some times and get some decent shots, but they lacked the "stage look". Tonight I tried a wide variety of settings and modes at first. I finally settled on an ISO of 200- 3200 depending on the scene and lighting, a shutter speed of about 1/60 to reduce motion blur, and an aperture of about f/5. I tried some spot metering, but I need to learn/practice more about that. My camera (maybe the operator) doesn't do well at 800 or 1600 ISO. Its way too grainy and sort of messed up. but, the grain and colors are better at 3200, go figure. any suggestions?
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4 comments:

  1. Melissa BeckFebruary 27, 2011 at 8:03 AM

    The pics above look good- what settings were those?
    Maybe if you have your iso at 800 or 1600 you should have upped your shutter speed a bit to darken the pictures and avoid some grain and blur? I'm not sure unless I see some of those and then maybe I could tell what happened?
    I'm GLAD you aren't working on the plays...you have more time for me :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. MendyFebruary 27, 2011 at 7:48 PM

    That's so true, I do enjoy having more time for you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousFebruary 27, 2011 at 8:34 PM

    Hey I thought I commented here? I think I said they look like pics from broadway. Professional.

    PS. My new bloggy friend has started a 365 project if you'd like to follow. Technically you're the one who inspired her.

    http://finding-the-creative-me.blogspot.com/

    Paige

    ReplyDelete
  4. MendyFebruary 27, 2011 at 9:00 PM

    Thanks P.
    PS - I checked it out. I might have to become a "lurker" ;)

    ReplyDelete

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