Lighting fast-moving groups of people (a.k.a. dancers)

richmoffitt

Hi, I'm an ex-lurker here looking for a little advice. Hope this is the right forum!

I took a photo this weekend of a dance performance that came out OK, but it didn't seem to really pop for me straight out of camera like I was hoping. Any suggestions on what you might do light-wise to improve the shot?

Here's the photo with minimal PP (just did a little exposure correction, no cropping yet):

1/160th @ f/3.2, ISO 400

Lighting setup is as follows:
- bare SB-600 at 1/3 power, zoomed 14mm behind camera right with CTO gel
- very old QB-6500a (gn 80ft / iso 100) at full power up 45 degrees, reflecting off ceiling near back of stage, camera right. Not sure if it really fired at full power for this one.

I have read resources on the Strobist blog such as this:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/04/on-assignment-big-gym-little-lights.html

However, they seem to have the flashes backed way up and usually aimed at some area where the action is expected to happen, like near a basket. I didn't feel like I had either of those options here. So, what do you think could be done differently to get a better effect if I had to do this again some time? In this example I have a large room with drop ceilings to work with. Or, do you think I should focus on trying to improve the shot in post-processing?

Thanks!

Qarik

richmoffitt wrote:

Hi, I'm an ex-lurker here looking for a little advice. Hope this is the right forum!

I took a photo this weekend of a dance performance that came out OK, but it didn't seem to really pop for me straight out of camera like I was hoping. Any suggestions on what you might do light-wise to improve the shot?

Here's the photo with minimal PP (just did a little exposure correction, no cropping yet):

1/160th @ f/3.2, ISO 400

Lighting setup is as follows:
- bare SB-600 at 1/3 power, zoomed 14mm behind camera right with CTO gel
- very old QB-6500a (gn 80ft / iso 100) at full power up 45 degrees, reflecting off ceiling near back of stage, camera right. Not sure if it really fired at full power for this one.

I have read resources on the Strobist blog such as this:
http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/04/on-assignment-big-gym-little-lights.html

However, they seem to have the flashes backed way up and usually aimed at some area where the action is expected to happen, like near a basket. I didn't feel like I had either of those options here. So, what do you think could be done differently to get a better effect if I had to do this again some time? In this example I have a large room with drop ceilings to work with. Or, do you think I should focus on trying to improve the shot in post-processing?

Thanks!

Overall it appears the room/lightng doesn't present itself very well for dramatic/bolder shots...that said..

The image looks a bit noisy due to the low light. Assuming you were shooting in the 50mm range with a f/2.8 range..you must have been at least 20 feet away which mean you could have opened up all the way with plenty of DOF to fight the low exposure noise. Also I would like to see a much tighter shot on just apair of dancers for example. That way you can see eyes expression more clearly.

Also