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Dance Recital Photos in Very Low Light
I took photos at my girls recital this weekend. I have a 7D and used the 24-70 lens. My ISO was at 600. When I have taken photos in the past and cranked up the ISO it was very noisy. I have Lightroom and tried to touch up the photos. Here are a few photos of before and after post production. Parents like my work and I have just signed up to SmugMug but do not feel comfortable selling these photos. Any advice would really be appreciated!
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Here is the photo after post production in Lightroom.
Thank you very much!
Parents usually like shots of their kids, even if they're not great technically. However, with your equipment you can do much better than this.
First off, you can push your ISO much higher that 600--and you'll have to! I don't shoot with a 7D, but I'm sure with some denoising in the post processing you should be able to get to 2000 or higher. For dance I'd recommend a shutter speed of at least 1/500 sec, depending on how fast the movement is. Otherwise, you'll get a lot of motion blur.
Exposure: There's good news and bad news. The bad news is that theatre lighting is very high contrast but overall not that bright, making it really hard to get the exposure just right. The good news is that the brightest parts are also the parts you usually want to get--faces, skin, and costumes. If you successfully meter off the highlights, you'll get some really nice shots.
My technique is to set the camera to full manual mode, and shoot raw (more on this below). With the camera set to use partial metering mode (which uses a small area in the circle of the viewfinder), I pan around the scene to see what the highlights look like. I set my exposure so that the highlights are near the top but not blown out. Next, take a few test shots with the highlight alert function enabled in your LCD, and adjust the exposure until you don't see any highlight warnings on the LCD. (You may have to make some allowances for really bright objects, but certainly faces should not be blown out.) Save these settings, and shoot in manual mode. If the lighting changes, do a quick repeat of panning/highlight warning/adjust as needed. This takes some practice but it is not that hard.
What you should get out of this are some really nice shots with lovely faces and costumes, and very dark backgrounds as contrast.
In the post processing, you'll have a much easier time getting the colors reasonable if you are editing raw files. The main problem with getting good colors under theatre lighting is that of course the odd or unusual colors that are used to light the stage. As an audience member, our eyes partially adjust to color biases and thus the familiar colors (skin in particular) look OK. However, the camera does not possess this ability, so you need to do it yourself. What I usually do is a partial white balance so that nothing is too saturated, while still preserving the overall color tone of the lighting. For example, if warm tones are used to light the stage, the final shots should also appear warm.
Hope this helps--just takes a bit of practice...
- A noisy shot you can see is better than a clean image you can't. Convert to black and white for a more tolerable effect.
- Manual shooting is almost always a good choice in these situations.
- Keep the aperture wide open. No EXIF on your pic, so I don't know what you were at. 2.8?
- Slooowwww down the shutter speed dangerously close to showing movement. I find this can actually work well for dance. The trick is to find brief "pauses" in the performance where the subjects are mostly still.
- Tripod.
- Show RAW and then see how far you can push the exposure. Usually farther than a JPG.
Might have more advice if the EXIF and the other photos were visible. Post more please.
As far as selling them... that is a matter of deep debate. Personally, I'm a business man. If I can sell someone a rusted-out chicken fence and muddy shoes, I'm going to sell it to them. When it comes to photography, however, I wouldn't dare let anything less than perfection go to a client. That's a personal choice that works for me.
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The worked over LR pic is great. Add a gradient adjustment from the right and try to make that side pop a bit more. Try a high-contrast B&W version for a more artistic feel (humans tend to be more tolerable of blur in B&W, I don't know why). Is 3.5 your widest aperture on that lens?
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Regarding the edited shot above, it is certainly much better but does look strongly denoised. In my experience, underexposing and bringing up the exposure in the post processing introduces more noise that pushing the ISO. YMMV.
Thanks so much. I used f/2.8 or 3.2 at 125 or 160.
Since there is noise, I should just post the uncropped photos? When I crop I get more noise. I used the noise reduction in Lightroom but they still have noise.
Thank you very much!
Over-cropping will make both the noise and the denoising artifacts much more obvious. Maybe you can shoot closer to the stage, or use a longer lens. I often use a 70-200 for shooting on a full sized stage.
Also, I think some of what you don't like in your example above is actually motion blur - 125/160 is a very low shutter speed for dance; I can barely get away with that when shooting theatre/opera.
Lastly, consider investing in a fast aperture prime - the 85 1.8, its sister lens the 100 f2 and, best of all, 135 F2 all perform beautifully in these conditions
Trust your higher ISO ranges. Even 2,000 will give you several stops of light to play with. YOU may see a bit of noise, but trust me - mama/papa won't, esp. when you take the image to a printer.
Can you use flash? Even fill flash/bounce flash in a morgue-like theatre can change muddy into marvellous.
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Speaking as a performer.....
Don't.
Use.
Flash.
It's usually prohibited anyway, even at dress rehearsals and even for the official professional photographers hired for the gig. It is HUGELY distracting to the performers on the stage. Maybe it doesn't bother rock'n'roll artists (typically working larger venues, anyway, and often with such elaborate light shows that a bit of flash won't make all that much difference), but in the average theatre for drama/opera/dance/classical concerts it's beyond unpleasant and concentration-breaking to be onstage and see flashes going off. It really annoys the other audience members too if you're trying to shoot during an actual performance (although it's always preferable to shoot a dress reherasal anyway).
Just my 2c from the other side of the footlights................
Thank you and I don't use flash. I will use a higher ISO. I will also look into the lens above.
Noted, and agreed. Or, summary: always ask FIRST.
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Couldn't agree more! Most of the time flash is not allowed, and for dance it should never be allowed. (I used to be a ballet dancer 30 years and almost as many pounds ago.) In addition to the safety issues, theatre lighting can actually add to the quality of the image if it is used correctly. IMHO flash just detracts. Remember that theatre is designed to be viewed with the specific stage lighting that accompanies it. Once you get used to this--and perhaps pick up a faster lens--you'll see why flash is not the way to go from a purely aesthetic standpoint.
Btw, OP, I have some shots from my daughter's school play last night that I will post when I get a chance - truly desperate lighting, but with spot-metering they will look fine. I always shoot full-size raw which means I have some exposure latitude (and can also crop in pretty steeply as needed - I couldn't get to the dress rehearsal so had no choice but to hug the back wall during the performance.... definitely not ideal - and it would be totally unacceptable for a professional production - but needs must!). I never
One of my faves, for sure!!
ISO3200-6400. Depending on stage lighting
- Noise use better than blurr or poorly exposed better to over expose and pull back versus underexpose and push up
Shutter speed. 1/400-1/500
- The older the dancers the greater the need for enough speed to stop the action on leaps or other fast action.
White Balance set to tungsten
- most stage lights are tungsten and multi-colored so auto will give un-controlled results
Raw Files
- always shoot raw to tweak WB or any other minor exposure
Lightroom noise reduction
- apply enough noise reduction to remove some noise but not too much to blurr the details
Manual mode
- vast majority of the time I will shoot manual. The backgrounds on the wings or low light areas of the stage will blow out shots if AV is used.
Aperture set wide open f2.
My main body is a 1d mkiii and a second body is a Canon 20d.
Lens choice is dependent on location and where I can shoot from. Recitals I have 300mmf2.8 mounted to the 1d and will mount the 70-200 f2.8 to the 20d. IS turned on on both.
OP, as promised - shots from a badly-lit middle school auditorium. On this occasion the light was patchy, but where the light fell it was pretty bright, so these are higher shutter speeds at smaller apertures and a lower ISO than many other gigs I've shot. For the lit places on this stage I could have shot iso 800, but the kids were so bad at staying in the light that I kept it higher so I could nab moments where they were in shadow.
I spot meter and adjust accordingly based on what I see (ie let me own eyes override the camera's opinion as appropriate). Trickiest thing in this one was because the kids just don't know how to find (and stay in) the light, but since I couldn't get closer and/or move around (performance rather than rehearsal) to try and get better angles on them, there wasn't much I could do about that.
7d+135L - ISO 1250 - 1/320 - f4
SOOC
Edited
Close crop from edited shot (edited in LR 3.0; no external noise-reduction)
LR sharpening: amount 78/radius 2.3/detail 25/no masking
LR noise reduction: luminance 47/detail 86/contrast 53; color 44/detail 70
I'd like more contrast in the bright areas, but that plugs up the shadows, so I can live with it as-is; could possibly use a little more clarity slider to increase perceived contrast.
Hi Diva and to all the new people of DGrin! It's been a while since I posted last and thought I'd pop in to see whats happening. The dark areas in the photo above could be brightened up (selectively) with the use of NIK's Vivesa. I've used it to remove shadows, or to darken bright areas, to a point. With Vivesa, where ever you place a control point, that is the color and shade that you will be altering. So if you have multiple shades of a color, you would have to place multiple control points. I also agree with Diva on LR3's noise reduction!
GaryB
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!” - Ansel Adams
Btw, that crop was just to illustrate that even at 1250 noise isn't that a big deal - I'd never crop into that image since the stage picture was wider than just the central players
How is Vivesa different from using layer-masks, or is it more an interface difference? Just curious
I look forward to seeing your photos of your daughter's school play.
Post #21
It is more of a interfacce difference. Instead of creating a layer for each color you want to edit, you simply place a control point on the color you want to edit on the image. I recommend using this as a final step of your workflow as a final touchup.
GaryB
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!” - Ansel Adams
New to Dgrin so learning how the posts work.
Great photos. Thanks for the examples. I understand that I need to increase the ISO and the photo will be good. My daughter has a competition this weekend at the Disneyland Hotel. The stage will be lighter than the dance recital. I will use a higher ISO. It is helpful to know that I need to wait also the performers to get "into" the light if possible. All of your and other posts have been very beneficial. Thank you.