Section 3.6. Theater Performances


3.6. Theater Performances

Capturing stage performances is difficult even for professional photographers. What makes theater lighting tricky is that the bright main light on the actors is often right in the same frame with a subdued or even darkened background. If you photograph this composition "as is" in automatic mode, then the camera calibrates the exposure, brightening up the image enough to display the dominant dim background. As a result, the spotlighted actors turn into white-hot, irradiated ghosts.

Your built-in flash is useless under these conditions (unless you climb right up onto the stage beside the actors, which is generally frowned upon by the management). The typical range for the camera's flash is about ten feet, after which it's about as useful as a snow-cone machine in Alaska. Turn your flash off at theater performancesbecause it's annoying to the rest of the audience, because it's worthless, and because it's usually forbidden.

To overcome this challenge, use the other tools built into your camera. If you have a spot meter mode , you have a fighting chance. As noted previously, your camera generally gauges the brightness of the scene by averaging the light across the entire framea recipe for disaster when you're shooting the stage.

Spot metering, however, lets you designate a particular spot in the scene whose brightness you want the camera to measure. (You indicate what spot that is by positioning a frame marker that appears in the center of the frame.) Point the spot-metering area at the brightly lit actors. The camera then sets the exposure on them instead of on the vast expanse of the dimly lit set.

Not all cameras have a spot-metering mode. But even basic cameras generally offer some kind of exposure compensation , an overall brightness control. For theater situations, try lowering the exposure to -1 or -1.5, for example. The objective is to darken the entire scene. The background will be too dark, of course, but at least the actors won't be "blown out."

Finally, if you know ahead of time that you want pictures from a particular performance, do what you can to secure a ticket in the first few rows. When it comes to theater shooting, the closer you get, the better.


Tip: Depending on the kind of performance you're trying to photograph, getting the right lighting may be just the tip of the iceberg. Getting permission to photograph might be the greater obstacle .In these cases, consider taking your pictures at the dress rehearsal. (This means you, parents of kids in school plays.) Not only is the management likely to be more permissive, but you'll be able to sit right there in the front row, to the immense benefit of your photos.
Figure 3-11. You can buy an underwater housing for your digital camera for as little as $100. Olympus and Canon make housings for nearly all of their compact cameras. Other manufacturers offer underwater gear, too.




iPhoto 6
iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual
ISBN: 059652725X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 183

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