Dance/performance shots - questions

kofa

Dear All, My daughter has taken up dancing. I'm having difficulty with framing / lens choice, thus I'm posting the questions here. My equipment: Nikon D7000, 50mm/f1.8, 18-105VR, 70-300VR, only built-in flash (which I don't use, as it'd be useless from a distance). During the past two occasions, I used the 70-300 lens. At its wide end, it's not wide enough to capture the complete group when they are spread out. On the other hand, since there are quite a few people on stage, capturing a smaller group or an individual without amputating limbs is pretty hard. All shot in manual mode, I took test shots before my daughter's group to judge exposure. I shoot raw so I can fix more errors in post-processing. I run Linux, so Darktable/RawTherapee are my usual raw developers, Noise Ninja my noise reduction tool. It's an old computer (Core2 Duo, 4 GB RAM), so Darktable's OpenCL support helps tremendously. Here are processed shots from the 1st session: http://photos.kovacs-telekes.org/Csalad/2014/Kingaek-tancai-2014-03-29/ (I think they are underexposed, and I was experimenting with the raw processor and noise reduction tools, so tonal quality / noise etc. vary.) Here are all shots from the 2nd session; I have not filtered them, this is a dump from the memory card. I aimed for better exposure and tried to avoid the limbs issue, of course I'll do more cropping later. http://photos.kovacs-telekes.org/Csalad/2014/Kinga-tanca-2014-05-16/n-bgBGf/ Any advice (processing/framing as well as lens / technique choice for the next time) would be much appreciated. Cheers, Kofa

perroneford

kofa wrote: »

Dear All, My daughter has taken up dancing. I'm having difficulty with framing / lens choice, thus I'm posting the questions here. My equipment: Nikon D7000, 50mm/f1.8, 18-105VR, 70-300VR, only built-in flash (which I don't use, as it'd be useless from a distance). During the past two occasions, I used the 70-300 lens. At its wide end, it's not wide enough to capture the complete group when they are spread out. On the other hand, since there are quite a few people on stage, capturing a smaller group or an individual without amputating limbs is pretty hard. All shot in manual mode, I took test shots before my daughter's group to judge exposure. I shoot raw so I can fix more errors in post-processing. I run Linux, so Darktable/RawTherapee are my usual raw developers, Noise Ninja my noise reduction tool. It's an old computer (Core2 Duo, 4 GB RAM), so Darktable's OpenCL support helps tremendously. Here are processed shots from the 1st session: http://photos.kovacs-telekes.org/Csalad/2014/Kingaek-tancai-2014-03-29/ (I think they are underexposed, and I was experimenting with the raw processor and noise reduction tools, so tonal quality / noise etc. vary.) Here are all shots from the 2nd session; I have not filtered them, this is a dump from the memory card. I aimed for better exposure and tried to avoid the limbs issue, of course I'll do more cropping later. http://photos.kovacs-telekes.org/Csalad/2014/Kinga-tanca-2014-05-16/n-bgBGf/ Any advice (processing/framing as well as lens / technique choice for the next time) would be much appreciated. Cheers, Kofa

Well,

It appears you are shooting around 1/320 of a second (very fast for this kind of work) and with a F5.6 aperture which is forcing your ISO into a range where you are forced to do a lot of cleanup. In this type of work, it might be prudent to try to find a lens or lenses with aperture capability of F2.8 or faster. This will greatly improve the image quality.

kofa

Hi, Thanks for the feedback. Alas, lens upgrades are not an option now (at least in the short run); OTOH, I think the noise levels are acceptable for what I use the images (share with the kids' friends and families). The original series (from 29 March) I shot at f/8, the new one (as you noted) at f/5.6, which is my telezoom's max. aperture at the long end. By using 1/320s, I tried to avoid camera shake/motion blur (handheld, at 450 mm equivalent zoom, panning quickly, trying to find a pose to shoot). Kofa

pathfinder

Your shooting parameters - smaller aperture, higher shutter speed, and limited brightness, can create a need for some compromises as you said. I think your images look pretty fair for straight out of the camera.

Handholding at 450mm can be challenging, could you use a monopod or some other method of camera support to help with camera stabilization? If allowed, some fill flash, or bounce flash, might actually help, as at higher ISOs - say 1000+ - your flash really does go a very long way. Just a thought.

What ISOs wee you using? For Noise reduction I tend to prefer NoiseWare ( Imagenomic ) over Noise Ninja, as you don't have to keep track of profiles for each ISO. But I haven't used Noise Ninja for several years, so I might be missing something here. There is a free trial version of NoiseWare available here - http://www.imagenomic.com/nw.aspx


You can find some used f2.8 200 primes rather reasonably also.

kofa

Thanks for the feedback. I don't own a flash, just the camera's built-in pop-up flash, which would not help from such a distance. ISO was at ISO 4000 (at f/8, 1/250s) for the March series, ISO 2500 (at f/5.6, 1/320s) for the May shots. Regarding noise reduction, Noise Ninja has a native Linux version, most other tools don't. I simply have it create a profile from the image, as exposure correction, tone curves etc. applied in PP won't match the profiles which are intended for straight-out-of-the-camera JPGs, anyway. BTW, PictureCode (makers of Noise Ninja) have discontinued Noise Ninja, but have Photo Ninja, a raw-developer tool (I could get the Windows trial version to work under Linux, but it was much slower than OpenCL-accelerated Darktable). So, I set Noise Ninja to profile each image, apply no or very little sharpening, very little luminance denoising, moderate colour denoising. Here's an example of the end result: http://photos.kovacs-telekes.org/Csalad/2014/Et-vie-Danse-Time-2014-05-16/i-8RhScrT/A Thanks again, Kofa

perroneford

Well,

Presumably you can't upgrade to a better lens or camera because of money. You don't own a flash or anything that would give you more light. You need to use a fast shutter speed because you need long focal lengths and I presume a decent tripod is out of the question since that would cost as much or more than a better lens. You say that the image quality is acceptable for your intended purpose.

So really, there's not much left for us here to do except to say "nice job".

pathfinder

kofa wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback. I don't own a flash, just the camera's built-in pop-up flash, which would not help from such a distance. ISO was at ISO 4000 (at f/8, 1/250s) for the March series, ISO 2500 (at f/5.6, 1/320s) for the May shots. Regarding noise reduction, Noise Ninja has a native Linux version, most other tools don't. I simply have it create a profile from the image, as exposure correction, tone curves etc. applied in PP won't match the profiles which are intended for straight-out-of-the-camera JPGs, anyway. BTW, PictureCode (makers of Noise Ninja) have discontinued Noise Ninja, but have Photo Ninja, a raw-developer tool (I could get the Windows trial version to work under Linux, but it was much slower than OpenCL-accelerated Darktable). So, I set Noise Ninja to profile each image, apply no or very little sharpening, very little luminance denoising, moderate colour denoising. Here's an example of the end result: http://photos.kovacs-telekes.org/Csalad/2014/Et-vie-Danse-Time-2014-05-16/i-8RhScrT/A Thanks again, Kofa

ISO 400 will have some significant noise, and since you can get Noise Ninja to work with your system in Linux, I can understand your choice....

Non OEM non-automatic flashes can be found pretty cheaply, and even bounced off a wall, at ISO 4000 they would really add a lot of light to the scene, ( if that would be permitted and socially acceptable ). Just a thought...

kofa

Dear All, Thanks for the input. What I was actually looking for was composition tips - I'm sorry if I did not express myself clearly. With the 70-300 lens, I can't capture the whole stage, that would require something in the 35mm range (I read that focal length when using the 18-105 lens). On the other hand, we have a video of the performance, which does capture the whole stage, so my idea was to shoot more 'personal' images. Tthe stage is quite crowded, so I've found it hard to isolate individuals or smaller formations (on some shots, I removed an arm or foot whose owner was outside the frame using the clone tool). Should I move in closer? Use the 18-105 from closer distance, or even the fast 50mm? (It's not an AF-S lens, uses my D7000's focus motor.) I guess I'll have to experiment (I can, before my daughter's group comes on stage), and was looking for ideas for those experiments. Things to try (illustrations would be much welcome). I've done some web searches and read a few articles with tips. Kofa