Two weeks ago six of us from my local camera club were invited to become press photographers for the evening and take photographs of the Rat Pack Vegas Spectacular Show that played at The Apex indoor venue in Bury St Edmunds for one evening. The deal was that we had free entry to the show and freedom to take as many pictures as we wished and in return we each had to supply a selection of our photographs on DVD to the show organisers who retained copyright over the images although we are allowed to use them in our portfolios, for camera club competitions etc.It was an interesting and useful experience.
I have only ever shot one show before and that was an outdoors music gig at a local country fair so this was a completely different ball game. I had a really fun evening and came away with some half-decent pictures also having learned quite a lot about shooting a show performance indoors under ever-changing stage lighting.
All photographs by Carol Street
Points that I’ve noted for reference;:
- I used two lenses – my 18-200mm and my 70-300mm which covered my focal length needs
- I could have done with a second camera body in order to save changing lenses
- I’ve realised that whilst my 18-200mm lens has been a good workhorse it is not as sharp as my 70-300mm – maybe I should save up to invest in a better zoom that can also be used on a full frame camera in case I ever upgrade
- I used spot metering and dialled in minus EV compensation in order to handle the lighting
- I needed to use very high ISO so some of my images contain quite a lot of ‘noise’. If I was going to do this type of shooting on a more regular basis I would benefit from either faster lenses (f/2.8) and/or a camera that is more low-light friendly than my D7000
- I had to shoot pretty much ‘wide-open’ all the time in order to get a sufficiently fast hand-held shutter speed and even then I relied quite heavily on my lens-stabilisation, also leaning against pillars etc when I had the chance
- I used auto white balance (as opposed to my usual ’shady’ when I’m out and about) due to the differences in lighting colours
- The noise reduction sliders in Lightroom are quite effective although I needed to play a little to get an acceptable balance between the reduction of noise and the retention of detail.
Definitely something I would do again should I be offered the opportunity.
References:
Rat Pack Vegas Spectacular Show [online]. Available from http://www.ratpack.biz. [accessed 12 August 2015]
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