Dance Competition

Khaos

I did my annual shoot of a dance competition in Cleveland. It never gets any easier. The biggest issue is very uneven lighting. This is a competition and not a professional set up. So when I may be set for perfect exposure one moment, they move to another area of the stage and it either gets me blowouts or under exposure. Always fun. I used me new toy, the 135 L, this time. What an amazing lens. I really like it, but it's such a weird focal length I don't see me using it that much, especially since I have it covered in the fantastic 70-200 2.8 IS L. I hate to sell it, but I just may have to. Too much money to only be used once or twice a year for stage work.









This little kid was amazing. Super talented and what a showman. Really fun to watch.



They really play to the camera when they see it. It's fun.






















My girlfriend's granddaughter and the reason I was there.










Their outfits were very pretty.




The stud.




They were kung fu fightin'...:D

Skippy

Khaos wrote:

I did my annual shoot of a dance competition in Cleveland. It never gets any easier. The biggest issue is very uneven lighting. This is a competition and not a professional set up. So when I may be set for perfect exposure one moment, they move to another area of the stage and it either gets me blowouts or under exposure. Always fun. I used me new toy, the 135 L, this time. What an amazing lens. I really like it, but it's such a weird focal length I don't see me using it that much, especially since I have it covered in the fantastic 70-200 2.8 IS L. I hate to sell it, but I just may have to. Too much money to only be used once or twice a year for stage work.
This little kid was amazing. Super talented and what a showman. Really fun to watch.
They really play to the camera when they see it. It's fun.
My girlfriend's granddaughter and the reason I was there.
Their outfits were very pretty.
The stud.
They were kung fu fightin'...:D

Wow Khaos these are awesome mate
The folks would be very pleased I'm sure.
Everyone looks good in all the images, you caught some great performances.

The B&W's look great too.
I have 2 favourites, Image #9 and the one you titled "The Stud "

You got great results Khaos, and I understand you desire to keep the Canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS L cause that is one sweet piece of glass :ivar

Thanks for sharing your images .... Skippy
.

monicab28

Skippy wrote:

Wow Khaos these are awesome mate
The folks would be very pleased I'm sure.
Everyone looks good in all the images, you caught some great performances.

The B&W's look great too.
I have 2 favourites, Image #9 and the one you titled "The Stud "

You got great results Khaos, and I understand you desire to keep the Canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS L cause that is one sweet piece of glass :ivar

Thanks for sharing your images .... Skippy
.

May I ask what your camera settings were for these? I do a lot of dance and musical performances, so would be interested in knowing all your settings. These images are fantastic! Thanks!

Khaos

monicab28 wrote:

May I ask what your camera settings were for these? I do a lot of dance and musical performances, so would be interested in knowing all your settings. These images are fantastic! Thanks!

Thank you.

Most are wide open at 2.0 with an ISO of 800 or 1600. Again, because of the sporadic light quality, things change quickly and there's no panacea for this type of shooting. You can pretty much throw the histogram out the window also. It will almost always be flat with spikes on both the far left and right.

Post processing is the key. If you can get the exposure and focus, using tungsten during RAW processing will even out the white balance and then some LAB work to get the colors and exposure close to what they should be. After that some sharpening and I'm done.

ShepsMom

Great captures!! I enjoyed all of them, you right about the outfits, beautiful and looks like you had a blast.

Swartzy

You did a great job Keith
Looks like quite a blast to have all that to shoot...I'll be you took a gazillion images. These are very nice...great lighting, excellent focus and looks like white balance is right on. Nice comps on these too...you nailed it. Love it.

Terrence

#1 and #4 are fantastic. The emotion of the moment you captured is what nails them for me. The exposure seems spot on too. The rest of them are real nice technically, but I don't think the subjects offered too much for you. Well done all around.